Christian ethics. Special part. Second division: social ethics

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CHRISTIAN ETHICS.

SPECIAL PART.

FIRST DIVISION: INDIVIDUAL ETHICS.

BY

DR. H. MARTENSEN,

BISHOP OF SEELAND.

^Translate*) from ttje ^utijot's German ISfcttion

BY

WILLIAM AFFLECK, B.D.

FOURTH EDITION.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.

PREFACE.

IN the General Part of this work (page 463) I gave my
views on the relation existing between that and the more
strictly practical part, which latter is now presented in two
divisions, namely Individual and Social Ethics, the first of
which has regard chiefly to the individual, the other to society.
So, then, the whole essay is closed herewith, and experts will
be able to prove what value may belong to the method here
applied to the treatment of Ethics.

But if the Special Part was to be connected with the
General as a side-piece, there was needed a certain amplitude
of statement and a form corresponding to the subjects handled.
And from the- whole design of this work, it will scarcely
require an apology that parts occur in it of an edifying
character, or at least bordering thereon. On the whole, it is
to be remarked, however, that in the progress of a more ample
statement, it is not always easy to hit the boundary between
what the author has to express and what he can fitly leave to
the reader to say to himself, a difficulty which makes itself
felt more especially where so much is treated of that in a
certain sense is known to all, although all do not therefore by
any means rightly understand or have fully acknowledged it.

When I published the General Part, I expressed the hope
that it would also find acceptance with educated non-
theologians. In now thanking non-theological as well as
theological readers, who have bestowed on the General Part
so benevolent an attention, I can only wish that the Special
Fart may find a similar interest. No doubt the nature of the
contents involves that even if the reader agrees with the funda-
mental views, some difference of opinion may emerge when the
general has to be connected with and applied to the special
relations of actual life. This may well hold good especially

VI PREFACE.

of those relations handled in the second division of the present
book, the social and political, where the changeable side of
the moral idea especially appears, where the solution of the
problems presented can only be sought and found under
conditions which are given by a historical development or
complication, and where at the same time even the ethical
judgment, as well as the ethical requirement, must be con-
ditioned by the comprehension of actual, often complicated
circumstances and relations. Here, as regards many points,
a difference of individual views and judgments will scarcely
be avoidable. And yet one must either abstain from writing
a special Ethic, extending also over social conditions, or one
must — which it is true many disapprove who in these
questions are not willingly embarrassed by the Ethical — enter
upon the moveable, changeable side of the moral world, must
discuss questions of the day, which though of a composite and
mixed nature, yet in every case have an ethical side that
must get justice, and for the fundamental examination of
which no other place can be pointed out but just Ethics.
But the last problem of special Ethics must surely be this :
by means of the contemplation of the alterable and changeable
to lead to a more fundamental knowledge, a deeper founding
of the unchangeable, to promote the consciousness of that
which remains the same in every sphere of life, alike yester-
day, to-day, and to-morrow, the same with its blessings, but
also with its requirements, not only of individuals but also of
peoples. That the present writing may quietly co-operate to
the establishment of this one imperishable thing in sentiment
and mode of thought, is what I wish most of all.

There are added an Index of things and names to the
whole work, as well as a list of the passages of Scripture
occasionally discussed. This addition will, as I suppose, be
not unwelcome to our readers.

H. MARTENSEN.
COPENHAGEN.

CONTENTS.

LIFE UNDER THE LAW AND SIN.

PAOH

LIFE WITHOUT LAW —

Life according to mere Nature, ..... 3

States of Immediateness, ...... 5

Nature and Character — Natural Virtues and Faults, . . 6

The Temperaments — The Male and the Female Nature, . . 8

The Earnestness of Life — The Pursuit of Righteousness, . . 19
THE CHIEF FORMS OF MORAL LIFE UNDER THE LAW —

Civil Righteousness — Particularist Morality, ... 21
Philosophical Righteousness —

Life according to Reason, ..... 28

Self-Knowledge, . . . . .32

The Internal Contradiction in Human Nature, . . 35

Struggling Virtue and Insufficient Means — Bondage of Duty, . 38

.(Esthetic Education, ...... 45

The Middle-way Morality, ..... 62

The Righteousness of the Pharisees and Scribes — The Weightier

Matters of the Law, . . . . . .77

The Seekers, . . . . . . . .81

SIN—

Immorality and Sin, . . 84

Temptation and Passion, ...... 85

Habit and Vice, ... . 83

Ramifications of Sin, ...... 89

Differences in Sin, ....... 96

Steps of Development and States of the Life of Sin, . . 99

Security — Self-conscious Bondage, .... 100

Self-deception. The Morality of Compromises — Scepticism —
Denial of the Moral Order of the World — Indifference —

Nihilism, ....... 104

Hypocrisy, ....... 114

Obduracy and Devilish Egoism. Hatred of Good — Hatred of

Christ — Sin against the Holy Spirit, . . . 118

Imputation and Guilt — Punitive Righteousness, . . . 130
CONVERSION AND THE NEW LIFE BEGUN —

The New Way, ....... 138

The Knowledge of the Law and the Gospel, .... 140

Repentance and Faith — Righteousness of Faith, . . . 142
Regeneration and Baptism, . . . . . .144

Hindrances to Conversion, ...... 148

vii

Vlll CONTENTS.

LIFE IN FOLLOWING CHRIST.

I'AGJE

The State of Grace, ...... 154

Sanctification and the Christian Virtues, . . . .156

I. CHRISTIAN LOVE, ....... 159

Appropriating Love, . . . . . . .160

Contemplative Love —

Pious Meditation and God's Word, .... 161

Mystical Lore —

Prayer — The Lord's Supper, . . . . .172

Practical Love —

Devotion to the Ideal of God's Kingdom — Philanthropy, . 198
Philanthropy and Love of Truth, .... 205

Philanthropy and Love of Righteousness, . . . 236

Mercy, ........ 249

Edifying Example, ...... 263

Love to the Dead, ...... 268

Love to Posterity, . . . . . .274

Love to the Impersonal Creature, .... 276

Christian Self-Love —

Self-Love in Truth and Righteousness, .... 282

Compassion with Ourselves, . . . . .284

The Earthly and the Heavenly Calling, . . . 293

Social Life and Solitude, ..... 304

Working and Enjoying, ...... 309

Temptation and Assault — Suffering, .... 312

II. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY, ...... 338

Christian Liberty and the Law, ..... 340

Christian Liberty and the World —

Temporal Goods and Evils, ..... 348

Honour and Dishonour, ...... 353

Social Prosperity and Abandonment, .... 353

Earthly Possession and Poverty, .... 361

Health and Sickness, ...... 366

Life and Death, ...... 370

Christian Contentment and Joy in Life, . . . 334

STAGES AND STATES OF HOLINESS —

The Christian Development of Character, . , . .388

Ascetics, ........ 404

INDIVIDUAL ETHICS,

LIFE UNDEE THE LAW AND SIN.

§1.

EVERY human life that has not yet become a partaker of
redemption, is a life under the law, in opposition to the
life under grace. For, be the man conscious of it or not, the
law as yet always hovers over his life as an unfulfilled
requirement, and, in the depth of his own being, this remains
at present as an indismissible but unsatisfied and unexpiated
claim on him, which characterizes such a human existence
as sinful and guilt-laden, because in contradiction with its
original destiny. The chief and central requirement of the
law is : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart." But man with his natural powers is unable to fulfil
this same first, this great commandment. And although many
are conscious of this commandment, only as a mere reminis-
cence of what they call an antiquated doctrine of the
Catechism, the obligation and validity of which they have
long ceased to recognise, yet this bit of Catechism is not a
strange and external command, merely imposed upon man, as
they would fain persuade themselves, but rather the inmost,
deepest requirement of their own being. And the non-fulfil-
ment of this command, and what further is connected with
that non-fulfilment, concludes under sin the whole world with
all its glory, with all its virtues and systems of morals.
Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that a relative fulfilling
of the law is possible, even outside the domain of redemption,

A

2 LIFE UNDEK LAW AND SIN.

which is seen not only in Judaism, but also in heathenism,
and in modern humanity divorced from CImstianity.

That even outside the fellowship of Christ, man is able to
exercise virtue and good works, in this consists the truth in
the optimist view of heathenism. But the superficial, un-
critical optimism, with its delusion that no essential disturbance
and destruction has entered man's life, but that all is in good
original order (res Integra), that the heathen, the so-called
purely human, virtue is normal, and need only be further
developed, but not transformed and changed from the founda-
tion, finds its corrective in the pessimist sentence of the old
church Father, that the virtues of the heathen are splendid
vices. This paradox contains at any rate the deep truth, that
the main impress of the heathen world consists in iinbelief as
the chief and radical sin, which must also affect the nature of
heathen virtue ; that the holiness of God, with its unsatisfied
requirement, hovers over the heathen world, wherefore also the
holy Scripture describes all men as " by nature children of
wrath" (Eph. ii. 3). The entire human state within which
those virtues are exercised, is a state of unrighteousness, in
which man, instead of having in God the centre of his life,
has it only in himself or in this world. And even if such
virtues show that egoism is broken at certain points, yet is it
not broken at its root, for self-denial and love are here present
merely in lower peripheric relations, but not in the central
relation of man, the relation to God. In man's inmost part,
humility and love to God are wanting ; a darkness has entered
there, and in that darkness is enthroned the will, averted from
God and diverted to its own self. Yet not without reason
has that pessimist paradox of the old church Father caused
offence, and been designated inhuman, because it overlooks an
intermediate step which must not be overlooked. It not only
forgets that the holy Scripture makes a difference between the
righteous and the unrighteous, even in the heathen world, and
speaks of heathen who "seek for glory, and honour, and
immortality" (Bom. ii. 6-10), but ignores at the same time
that even when the relation to the God of goodness is destroyed,
there is still a relation to the idea of goodness. And although
one must acknowledge that moral effort in the heathen world
moves outside the true centre, yet even that effort, moving in

LIFE WITHOUT LAW. o

the periphery, has its relative value, and that just because it
bears in it the idea of the good ; while it must no doubt be
granted that the merely human, as, for example, love of country
and other civil virtues, can be nothing but imperfect, so long
as it is not brought into the right attitude to the divine
centre. Instead, then, of designating the virtues of the heathen
as splendid vices, we believe we come nearer the truth when
we rather designate them as splendid fragments which were
designed to erect an admirable work of art, a temple of
humanity, which it is true can never be realized in the way
here taken, because there is wanting the principle of unity,
the creative principle, that of the divine love ; fragments
which yet are witnesses of the glory to which man was
originally designed, and to pursue which he feels himself
inwardly constrained.

As we would now take a closer view of these fragments,
these moral states of life under the law, which, be it re-
membered, do not merely belong to the historical past, but are
repeated daily before our own eyes, we first cast a glance on
the state in which life is as yet lived without law, that is,
where a man, without having hitherto come to a conscious and
independent position over against the law and duty, lives
according to his born nature, to his individualized natural
capacity, which disposes him in a definite peculiar way for
his personal life.

LIFE WITHOUT LAW.

LIFE ACCORDING TO MERE NATURE. — STATES OF IMMEDIATENESS.

§2.

" I was alive without the law once," says the Apostle Paul,
Rom. vii. 9, by which he would say, that there was a time in
his life in which he lived on without being conscious of the
divine law and commandment as such. He has not designated

O

this state of life more fully, but only says of it that sin then
" was dead," or slumbered ; while, on the other hand, the
consciousness of sin and that of sinful lusts was " revived "
when the commandment came, that is, approached him. "We

4 LIFE WITHOUT LAW.

would scarcely err, however, if we assume that he looked back
on his childhood, with its unconsciousness and partial innocence
(freedom from wickedness, and harmlessness),as to a paradisiacal
point of light in his life. At all events he here indicates a
state which we may call the pre-ethical, where the struggle
between the spirit and the flesh, between conscience and
desire, has not yet awoke, the consciousness of duty is still
superficial, while the man preponderantly lives according to
his nature ; where, thus, the ethical, be it good or evil, is only
as it were just dawning in the instinctive life. During this
time the will, even when it does what is moral, is not yet
the self-conscious moral, but only the natural will, although
what here is working and moving under the natural form is
the moral. The life without law can therefore be shown in
all states of immediateness, where the man is not yet come to
reflection, and so especially in the naive states of childhood
and youth. The young innocent maiden, who grows up under
the unconscious influence of domestic discipline and manners,
who, glad of life, follows her nature, and through a happy
instinct is led as by a guardian spirit to what is good, and
comely, and amiable, even if in her amiable innocence there
is no small ingredient of naive self-love ; the genial youth,
whose healthy nature itself preserves him from the ways of
immorality, whose inner man is filled with a wealth of future
ideals, who is quite spent in the effort to assume to him-
self the glory of the earthly existence, fully devoted to his
commencing development of talent, — both are still living
without law in the given meaning of the word. They have
not yet become conscious of the earnest problem of the
personality, and therewith of the hidden contradiction within
their existence, which brings so severe contests with it in the
next stage of life. The same thing, however, also holds good
in the opposite direction. As there are individuals to whom
we attribute a good nature, so there are others of whose bad
nature we speak. There are individuals who already in
childhood and youth are defiled with shame, with sins and
vices, but who for all that are going on without law, that is,
they are not conscious of their sin as sin, they know not what
they do, or at least only very slightly. Now, the happier the
nature is with which such a man has been furnished, the

STATES OF IMMEDIATENESS. 5

more will he look back from a later standpoint, where he
finds himself in the midst of the struggles of duty, and has
already experienced many a defeat, upon that relatively un-
conscious and innocent state, as upon a fair and happy time,
although on a more earnest and thorough review he will here
already discover the germs of later sins. Granted, these states
of childhood's immediateness are very variously modified in
different individuals through education and position of life.
But yet many can say : " I also was alive without the law
once ; " or as one may express it according to the known word
of the poet : I also was in Arcadia ! Duty was then no
burden for us, it was not in conflict with our inclination ; we
did not further reflect on what we should do. We lived on
in happy, careless comfort, without ever a whereto or wherefore,
and followed our sympathies and antipathies. We let the
sun smile on us, let the pictures and impressions of the world
flow upon us, and daily experienced something new. We
gave ourselves to every agreeable occupation, and pursued the
thing with pleasure, while we as far as possible avoided
everything else that was not agreeable to us. For if at times
duty also announced itself M-ith one requirement or another,
yet it was not exactly importunate and too burdensome ;
while we ourselves again were full of claims on fortune, full
of golden pictures of the future, and hopes to whose fulfilment
we thought we had a well-grounded right. But to-day that
is all become quite different; world and life show us quite
another face.

STATES OF IMMEDIATENESS.

As upon retrospect a happy childhood may often seem to
us like a vanished paradise, so may the poetic state of juvenile
life, when we still lived " without law," many a time present
a form akin to the world of fable. The persons occurring in
a story are not characters, in the ethical meaning of the word,
but spiritual beings, natures of good and bad, noble and
ignoble, higher and lower kind, which undisturbed pursue
their end, without ever being burdened by the pressure of
ethical problems. The attraction which such fictions exercise
on us lies just in this, that they reflect to us through the

6 NATURE AND CHARACTER.

magnifying-glass of the fancy, the corresponding experience of
our own soul, what we ourselves have met in life ; and then,
too, when we are in entirely different, yea, opposite relations,
give us back our own lost childhood, the world of our
immediateness, as in a vision. Therefore Oehlenschlaeger, the
poet of Aladdin, — so great when he depicts the pre-ethical,
spirit-like natural being (as in the myths of the North), — by his
fable from The Thousand and One Nights, will bewitch at all
times not only youth that can itself say with Aladdin :

" But, oh, how do I my whole life now feel
In this one cheerful summer morning hour ! " l

but will also delight age, which is glad yet again to dream
that dream in the realm of the dawn.

NATURE AND CHARACTER. NATURAL VIRTUES AND FAULTS.

§3.

The naive states of immediateness, in the stricter sense of
the word, can be but transient in the actual world. It
conflicts with the destiny of man as a moral being to live as
a mere natural being, as he has rather, through his free self-
determination, to develop himself to a character, and with this
also to cultivate and express his nature. A life only accord-
ing to the nature cannot be carried through were it but for
this, that the man has not simply natural virtues > only, but
has also natural faults and defects as well; that there is a
schism present in his nature, which seeks its solution on a
higher stage of life. Sooner or later, duty appears with its
earnestness, and forces the man into a development of
character. For when our will determines itself in the relation
to duty and calling, and in this relation, by means of a pro-
gressive series of transactions, gives itself an essential impress,
there is formed a character, good or bad, strong or weak, and
so on, in opposition to the mere nature, which can only furnish
the foundation for a character.

1 Aladdin oder die Wunderlampe. Dramatisches Gedicht. Neue Aufl., 2Thl
Leipz. 1820, S. 89.

NATURE AND CHARACTER. 7

Even Aristotle distinguishes between natural and ethical
virtues, and would attribute no value to natural virtues in and
for themselves. He says, for example, that some are by
nature brave, just, temperate, and so on ; but children and
beasts have also natural virtues ; and that virtue, in the proper
sense, first arises through the self-conscious moral will whicli
practises virtue. Yea, he remarks : the merely natural virtues,
when understanding and insight are not added, can even
become injurious, as a man of corpulent figure would make
the more dangerous a fall. His meaning is this, that so long
as a man lives according to mere nature, he will act without
a plan, and as accident brings it about, will often give effect
to his natural virtues in a one-sided way, and thereby easily
offend against that which the moral problem requires. He,
for example, who is naturally good-natured, will, on all
opportunities, manifest this virtue, even when just the opposite
virtue was needed, when he should show simply strict
rectitude. He who is naturally just will constantly let him-
self be influenced by his innate feeling of rectitude, even
where one is called upon to show mildness and mercy.
Enthusiasm for the great and elevated is a natural virtue,
which we often meet in young people. But so long as these
live after their mere nature, they often show their enthusiasm
in the wrong place, even where it would be better to show
quietness and discretion. If such a man, living merely aftei
his nature, possess at the same time an eminent talent, for
instance, for poetry, and not at the same time, say, the innate
virtue of modesty and unassumingness, he will prove extremely
burdensome to all his surroundings. He will everywhere
introduce his talent and what stands in conjunction with it,
care for nothing else, speak of nothing else, feel unhappy and
superfluous in society if those around him do not care for
he same things. In this sense we say with Aristotle, that
natural virtues are hurtful when understanding and insight
are not added. On the other hand, however, we say that
they are very advantageous and wholesome, so soon as they
are governed by the practical wisdom which assigns to each
single virtue its place and due limit, namely, by placing it in
relation to that which ought to be the problem for the whole
man. For then they serve as a support to the correspond-

8 NATURAL VIRTUES AND FAULTS.

ing ethical virtues, and work together in harmony with the
latter.

Every one who would work at the formation of his character
will, no doubt, also make the agreeable observation and ex-
perience, that he is in possession of certain natural virtues
which contribute to his fulfilment of duty, the requirement of
duty entirely coinciding with his natural inclination. When
duty, for instance, requires of me to afford help to an
unfortunate, and compassion forms one of my natural virtues,
duty and inclination coincide, and to do my duty is then a joy
to me. Only it is not always so. Every one will also have
the opposite experience, namely, that he is without certain
natural virtues, or at least that they are only sparingly allotted
to him; he will, at the same time, discover that he has
certain natural faults, which become ethical faults as soon as
one admits them into his will, and which, unhappily, he had
already discovered in the region of his volition and action,
before he applied himself to resist them. Here we hit upon
a duality, a contradiction in human nature, which we will
illustrate by two comprehensive examples, in casting a glance
on human temperaments on the one hand, and on the male
and female nature on the other.

THE TEMPERAMENTS. THE MALE AND THE FEMALE NATURE.

§4.

We begin with the sanguine temperament, which may be
fitly designated as the enjoying, or also as the naive tempera-
ment. It lets life immediately, and without reflection, press
in on it, and thus is especially suited to childhood. The
peculiarity of this temperament consists in the all-sided
susceptibility for the most various impressions. It disposes
the man to move with the greatest ease in the varied manifold-
ness of life, to pass with the same ease from one interest to
another. It serves to promote the higher ideal life of the
individual, so far as it fits the man to receive the influences of
the whole fulness of existence, to appropriate the glory of life,
to keep the eye open for great and small, for all colours, all

THE TEMPERAMENTS. 9

flowers of the world. Yea, it promotes the fulfilment of duty
itself, so far as it disposes to live entirely in the present, in
this moment; for duty just requires us to live for the present,
for the moment, as it also requires that all sides, all elements
of life, should have justice. But the same temperament
opposes great hindrances to the fulfilment of duty, because it
disposes to flightiness, to superficiality, and so to split up life
into an unconnected multiplicity, as well as, finally, to indeci-
sion and unreliability. Every one in whom this temperament
predominates will have struggle enough with himself. For
when we said that it disposes to flightiness, we have not yet
said enough. A more penetrating experience teaches us that
each of the temperaments not only brings with it the tempta-
tion to degenerate into the extreme, to pass over into its
own caricature, but has even an innate inclination, a natural
tendency thereto ; that the germs for a caricature of itself
are present from the first, that they grow and unfold in in-
creasing measure, except one afterwards succeed in quenching
them.

In contrast to the sanguine as the enjoying and naive, we
can designate the melancholy as the suffering, or as the " sen-
timental" temperament.1 This disposes to such moods as
contain the contrast between ideal and reality, while it,
however, remains undetermined which ideal or ideals exercise
their power over the mind ; for as an infinite difference is
possible here, the melancholy mind has often no clear concep-
tion of the powers that move in it. It inclines one to take
life on the earnest side, and to sadness, so that one is disposed
to remembrance and to longing, and lives in the past or the
future, as one cannot find his satisfaction in the present. To
this temperament youth especially corresponds, without needing,
on that account, to expel the sanguine; it belongs especially
to that time of life in which love to the other sex awakes, and
therewith also love for ideas, to the age in which ideas are
still fermenting, and have assumed no shape. No higher ideal
effort is possible without an element of the melancholic. It
supports the fulfilment of duty, so far as in this, more than
the mere outer world of the senses and the surface of life

1 Lotze, Mikrokosmus, JI. 357. On the whole doctrine of temperaments,
sompare Sibbern's Pathology (Danish).

10 THE TEMPERAMENTS.

somes into view, inclines to deeper meditation, and disposes to
give ear to the voices of the spirit, which speak to the soul
even amid the throng and confusion of daily life. But yet
it also opposes hindrances to the fulfilment, yea, to the con-
sciousness of duty, the melancholist having a propensity to
live in his mood, that is, in the prolonged succession of the
same feelings. While the sanguinist passes with ease from
one feeling, from one mental state to another, the melancholist
is bound to one and the same state and mood, which he cannot
quit. As it is the proper inclination of the melancholist to
despise the present and this moment, which never satisfies
him, and as his inclination draws him preponderantly to the
past or future, he is in danger of becoming unpractical. If
one do not succeed in mastering this temperament ethically
and disciplinarily, there is developed in the soul a consuming
selfishness, in which the individuality, with its unsatisfied
claims, is incessantly busied with itself amid fruitless ponder-
ings, which is eminently the case with poetic natures (Goethe's
Tasso). While the one-sided sanguinist gets into a false
optimism, the melancholist falls into a false pessimism, an
ideal fanatical despising of his surroundings, of the daily prose
of life and duty. And if the sanguinist is specially given to
sensual sins, there is developed in the melancholist — simply
because he is so infinitely important to himself — a secret
pride, a morbid vanity, which runs into distrust of other men,
from whom he fears ignoring, disregard, falseness, and other
evils.

The choleric temperament is very properly to be designated
the practical, and belongs especially to mature age. It disposes
to action, to energetic engagement in life, to courage and
endurance, and is so far advantageous to the ethical interest.
But yet again, on the other side, it is also a hindrance to the
ethical development, as the cholerist is inclined to the regard-
less maintenance of the object that has once been aimed at,
to passionate volcanic violence, to which all means are right,
as the object must be reached at any price, is inclined to
obstinacy and stubbornness, to that narrowness which steers
exclusively to one point which it has once taken for its mark,
shutting the eyes to the surrounding widespread fulness of
life, and consequently blind to the many other requirements

THE MALE AND FEMALE NATURE. 11

addressed to the moral will. More than any other, the
cholerist is in danger of becoming a moral particularist or
oddity. His cardinal faults are usually pride and the lust of
power, anger and irritability, hatred, revenge, and jealousy.

The direct opposite of the choleric is the phlegmatic tempera-
ment, which we, in opposition to the choleric as the active and
agitatory, may call the contemplative, or, more accurately, the
quictistic, the temperament of peace and rest, of discretion and
inner equipoise. We can designate it the contemplative, so
far as it regards things dispassionately and with impartial
view. Yet it must be remembered that the melancholy
temperament has also a tendency to the contemplative, namely,
to brood over the problems of life, to seek the solution of the
enigmas of life. But while the melancholist ever bears a
sting in his soul, the phlegmatist is disposed to a frame of
mind in which the sting is not, or is no longer felt, the frame
which feels in harmony, in peace with existence, wonders at
nothing that occurs among all the changes of this world (nil
admirari), and is never overpowered by a passion, because il
has it under its control. Therefore the correct designation
is the very one employed : the quietistic temperament, in
which in itself no fault-finding side-meaning is contained.
Now, that the temperament of discretion, of equipoise, of peace
and tranquillity, is helpful to ethical effort, is clear. But it
is equally clear that peace of mind only acquires its value
through the opposition which it carries in itself as internally
overcome and controlled. And the hindrance to the ethical
that is here at hand is, that the phlegmatist is inclined to
indifference, insensibility, sloth, and sleepy rest, that is, to
false quietism, which lets the world go its way, and contents
itself with the actual, just as it is, without making a claim on
the ideal, and without feeling the slightest pain for what is
lacking, which, on the contrary, is reckoned among juvenile
enthusiasms. In phlegmatists there is often found a hard and
cold heart.

§5.

And if we now direct our glance to the difference of the
sexes, similar observations have to be made. The sexual
difierence embraces the whole individuality, for man and

12 THE MALE AND FEMALE NATURE.

woman are differently organized, as well in a psychical as a
bodily point of view. Each of them is destined to represent
humanity, yet with such limitation that only hoth together
present the whole human being. Man is organized to mani-
fest humanity mainly in the universal direction, wherefore the
spheres of his activity are the state and civil society, science
and art; woman, on the other hand, in the individual
direction, wherefore she finds her sphere of work chiefly in
the family and in domestic life. He is related to her as the
spirit is related to the soul, and while man has to develop
his spirit's life to the psychical, woman has to develop her
psychical life to the spiritual. The nature of man adapts
him to exercise the leading influence in the affairs of human
society, to exercise dominion, to struggle, be it for wife and
children, for fatherland, or for ideas. The nature of woman
leads her to subordinate herself, to serve and follow. And
if we, after Aristotle, may name courage as the chief virtue of
the male nature, that of the female may be designated gentle-
ness or the gentle heart, whereby she is fitted to become
man's helper, a quiet energy which clothes itself in grace
and decency, and shows her not only fit to suffer, to devote
herself, but also to rule through the impression she produces,
the effects that proceed from her, which bind as much as they
tend to mitigate and soften. Although all the four tempera-
ments are found in the man as well as in the woman, yet the
choleric and phlegmatic temperaments are more akin to the
man, the sanguine and melancholy to the woman. A woman
in whom the choleric or phlegmatic predominates makes the
impression of uuwomanliness, of manliness shown in the wrong
place ; again, a man in whom the sanguine or the melancholy
temperament has a one-sided predominance, makes the re-
pulsive impression of effeminacy.

When the male nature is in truth masculine and manly,
the female truly feminine, the observer will find this utterance
confirmed : Chacun a les dtfauts de ses vertus (Every one has
the defects of his virtues). Because the man is adapted for
universal humanity, he possesses a far greater power of thought
than the woman, possesses the power to engage both theoreti-
cally and practically in the struggle with existence. But with
this advantage there is united a one-sided devotion to the

THE MALE AND FEMALE NATURE. 13

universal, whereby he is carried away into contradictions and
disharmonies, as well of his knowledge as of his existence and
entire position in life, to which the woman 'is not exposed.
Ever anew does it appear in man that he in his existence has
fallen a prey to a dualism between nature and spirit, that he
now exists in one-sided spirituality, now in one-sided sensu-
ality. Woman, again, is adapted for the harmonious unity of
nature and spirit. In her knowledge she embraces all things
intuitively, and thereby is able in many cases to know the
true and right, where the man through his very reflection is
hindered from seeing this. Although she does not possess the
man's gift of abstraction, she is yet susceptible of the highest
ideas, and can understand all. Only it must be presented to
her in clear and concrete forms ; for otherwise she does not
understand it ; or if she understands it, it does not interest
her, and she at once lets it go. Also she is more interested
(and this her nature, directed towards actual life, involves)
in results, than in the methods and the way by which the
intellect has arrived at them. She feels more strongly drawn
to art than to science ; and, above all, she is fitted for religion,
in that she, as the weaker creature, feels more deeply her
dependence and her need of a higher help and support.
There are far more religious women than men, simply because
they have not to undergo the struggle with the pride of
knowledge and imderstanding ; and an irreligious and unbe-
lieving woman gives in a higher degree the impression of the
unnatural than an irreligious man. However, we do not enter
more fully in the present connection upon the position of the
one and the other to religion, but only remark that that sense,
innate in woman, for the intuitive and the particular, which
imparts peculiar advantages to her conception of the world
and of life, is often combined with a superficiality that
remains satisfied with the outside of existence, with appearance
and phenomenon, without penetrating to the essence. True,
this imperfection may also be observed in many men. But a
superficiality of knowledge, which is satisfied with flowers
torn off, that are separate from their root, and which — as is
to be seen in many emancipated women — coquets with them,
is more akin to the female nature, and in man belongs to

* o

what is womanish. On the whole, one may say that the

14 THE MALE AND FEMALE NATURE.

woman has especially to struggle with the inclination to take
all too easily the knowledge of the problems of life, to rest
content with what lies nearest her, instead of penetrating to
the deeper foundation. As a counterpart to the women whose
superficiality delights to shine with a half and seeming
culture, there is another class whose superficiality thus quiets
itself regarding the earnest questions of life : that these are
mere things they do not understand, and which they also do
not in the least need to understand. This may be right in
many cases ; but in the practical sphere, which, rightly
understood, lies much deeper than many women think, that
which the woman both can and will understand is enough,
provided she desires to use the gifts bestowed on her.

While the man is called to work in human society, in
public life, the woman not only to work in the family, but
also beyond that to rule even legislatively, namely, in regard
to customs, manners, and social tone ; yet there are found
beside the virtues of the one as of the other, the corresponding
faults as their shadows. Man has to struggle with tempta-
tions to the love of power, to ambition, to covetousness ;
woman, with the temptation to vanity. Her natural virtue is
not only grace, but also an innate dignity, proceeding from
her invisible genius, her eternal individuality, and banishing
from her proximity all that is common, unbecoming, and
contrary to the finer sense of honour. It is that harmonious
unity of the spiritual and the sensual, of womanly elevation
and grace, which the poet has in view in the often quoted
words :

' ' One virtue sufficeth for woman : she is here, she appeareth ;
Fair to the heart, to the eye, may she ever appear. "

But even on account of this aesthetic, to which the female
nature is adapted, precisely because woman not only appears fail-
to the heart but also to the eye, it is a frequent fault of woman
that she would please in the wrong sense, — for that she seeks
to please in itself deserves no blame, any more than man is
to blame for desiring to be esteemed, — that while neglecting
the culture of her heart, while setting aside her dignity, she
follows only appearance, in vanity, love of dress and display,
follows the poet's word: she appears; that she contents herself
\vith external decency, with merely external manners, which

THE MALE AND FEMALE NATURE. 1 5

she, it is true, cannot violate without doing violence to her
own being, but under such a covering and mask hides every-
thing that is not at all lovely and amiable. Then this
perverted tendency to please, to shine, and to appear, misleads
lier to envy, enmity, rivalry, to the war which women wage
Avith each other, to an ill habit predominant in this sex, about
-which Schopenhauer, who had so sharp an eye for female
weaknesses, but no eye for female worth, in his bitter,
pessimist way says : While the guild-spirit and guild-envy of
men only apply to one guild, and envy, hatred, and enmity
•only occur among those who follow the same business, in
women it extends to their whole sex, because they all follow
but one and the same business (namely, the art of pleasing).

As the male nature is adapted for universal humanity, it
is a frequent fault of men to despise the single, the small, the
unimportant, to live far too much en gros and not en detail,
to overlook what is at hand, the nearest, because they are
busied with problems that lie beyond the moment. Herein
-also an advantage granted to woman appears, in that, with
her sense for the single and special, she unites the sense for
what is small and near. She possesses an eminent talent to
live in the present moment, is never at a loss for time. With
the most trifling means she knows how to make a dwelling,
-a house comfortable; and from the simplest flowers that no
one regarded, she weaves the fairest garlands. But precisely
with this gift there is united an oft-repeated fault, namely,
losing herself in little things, nay, in the small, the trifle ; a
too lively interest in the flighty and merely transient, whence
.arise curiosity, loquacity, the passion to make many words
about nothing. In social circles one might be suddenly
deafened when he hears a group of women talking together,
.and that about the most unimportant matters. This pleasure
in conversation is not found in such fashion in men, who,
besides, must even learn from superior women what right
•conversation is. Without doubt, the passion mentioned is
connected with the destiny of women to be occupied with
•children, and to provide for their entertainment and amuse-
ment. Why, for whole days they are obliged to play and
chat with the children, for which unquestionably a readiness
of tongue is requisite, combined with an unweariedness and

16 THE MALE AND FEMALE NATURE.

inexhatistibleness awanting to men. To this talent, then,
there cleaves the fault mentioned. The innate tendency to
loquacity also leads to gossip, chiefly in order to have matter
of conversation. Woman is more disposed than man to
become a member of a school for scandal. The same love of
prattle further leads to the blurting out of secrets that ought
not to be told.

And yet that setting aside of the little which is peculiar to
man, that one-sided interest in the great, the general, the
important, may introduce into his life the loudest discords.
We can make this plain by a glance at Socrates, the founder
of ethics. Of this man it is said he brought down philosophy
from heaven to earth, yea, introduced it into the houses ; he
taught men to philosophize not so much about nature, about
the paths of the heavenly vault, as rather about themselves.
He entered into conversation with all and sundry, with shoe-
makers and tailors, with tanners and smiths, with poets and
sophists, with orators and statesmen, accommodated himself to
the comprehension of each one, in order to help him to
understand himself and his moral problems. His admirable
greatness consisted even in this, that the wisdom, he taught
was no empty speculation, but practical wisdom fruitful for
the life. Only a single point remained behind, where he did
not make his wisdom fruitful, and where he neglected what
most concerned him, — namely, his own house. He was the
teacher of all Greece, yet but a bad paterfamilias. However
much emphasis he laid in his teaching on the practical, he
was yet actually one-sidedly given to the theoretical, namely,
to philosophizing on the ethical problems, and to the endea-
vour to awaken in others also this philosophical activity. His
spouse Xanthippe had no doubt some right to be discontented
with him. True, one must assume in regard to this woman
that she could not enter into what most interested him. But,
according to the accounts of her personality extant, she was
no way ill-natured, rather of sterling character, was honestly
provident for her family and her house, although passionate,
and in daily intercourse not easy to deal with.1 But the
whole day he went about the city to carry on his philosophic
conversations, when he also drew up with women of genius
1 Zeller. Philosophic der Griechen, II. 1. 46.

THE MALE AND FEMALE NATURE. 17

of the sort of Aspasia. His ideal interests in such a degree
estranged him from his own house, that not only did he remain
out whole days, but at times also entire nights. In all pro-
bability she must not seldom have lacked the money necessary
for housekeeping, as he was known to be poor, and took no
payment for his instruction. Now, it is very natural that the
failings of the male nature, peculiar to him, and the failings
of the female nature came into collision, that she often gave
vent to her displeasure, and from the most trifling things
took occasion for passionate outbursts, whereby her doubtless
sanguine-choleric temperament was still more excited and
inflamed, that it collided with his quiet philosophic phlegm,
that heard her lively reproaches in perfectly quietistic
(motionless) composure. How little he cared for her, one
sees from Plato's Phcedo, where it is related that when his
friends came to him in prison shortly before his death, they
saw Xanthippe, with her baby boy in her arms, sitting by him;
but when she lamented, " Alas ! Socrates, now thou wilt con-
verse with these thy friends for the last time," he spoke thus,
" Let some one take this woman home." She was led away
weeping and crying, after the manner of women, whereupon
he held the famous philosophical conversation on the immor-
tality of the soul. However much may be urged in mitigation
of the affair, by adducing the hardness of feeling (insuscepti-
bility) of the ancient world, and its limited view of women ;
at any rate there is only to be seen in this wedded pair a
chief manifestation of that opposition of the male and female
nature — he interested in the great, she in the little, without
a harmonious equalization being brought about. At the same
time, it appears that he, the great student of man and world-
famous satirist, must have fully mistaken the individuality of
Xanthippe, and must have been under an illusion when he
choose her for his spouse.

While the man, whose universal tendency lets him act
according to clearly recognised principles, is in danger of fall-
ing a prey to a one-sided tendency of the understanding, to
become doctrinaire, and in spite of all the objections of life
and experience, one-sidedly to carry out his principles, and to
sacrifice the reality of circumstances to logical consistency;
the woman, again, has the great advantage of being determined

B

18 THE MALE AND FEMALE NATUKE.

by feeling, "by the heart, by moral tact, in her dealings. But
hereby again she is more exposed to the one-sidedness of feeling,
which often leads her astray. If her feeling lacks the right,
depth, she becomes, from want of moral principles, unreliable,
unsteady, changeable, and faithless. And as man, in accord-
ance with his universal disposition, is furnished with greater
power and strength, there appear in him, as frequent charac-
teristics, hardness, vehemence, ruggedness, and regardlessness.
Now against this, it is true, female gentleness and mildness
forms a beneficent counterpart. But then, under cover of
this, there is developed a fault of a different kind. As the
woman is the weaker part, she cannot carry out her will
simply by force, but endeavours to do so by craft. In indi-
rect ways she gains influence and dominion, seeks to gain the
mastery over the man, in order, by means of him, to execute
her plans. Craft, dissimulation, intrigues, tricks, belong to
the shady side of female nature. Lying, in many cases,
conies more natural to her than to man, because the man does
not need it in such a degree; and the first fib on earth was
without doubt uttered by a woman. And as the craft of
women is known from of old, so also female hatred and revenge.
While the man opposes an open resistance to an inflicted insult
or injury, the woman conceals and locks up her feelings in
herself, cherishes often for long an implacable hatred, which
awaits the opportunity for revenge ; and this may be revealed
in a shocking form. (" I will that thou give me by and by
in a charger the head of John the Baptist," Mark vi. 25.)
Altogether, experience establishes that the woman, as the
weaker creature, is more easily corrupted than the man ; and
that when this corruption has begun, it develops much more
rapidly in her than in the man, that the demoniac, the horri-
fying, the wild, likewise appear stronger in her than in him.
Eeference may be made for this in history to Herodias, to
Jezebel, to the furies in the French Revolution.1 But even
these horror-exciting passions, this female wrath, this revenge-
fulness, indicate what depth of feeling may open in the heart
of woman, what a glow may pervade it, yea, and history
shows us, in numerous examples and very various forms, what
heroism for goodness the woman can display.

1 Hirscher, Christliche Moral, II. 418 ff. (5 Aufl.).

THE EARNESTNESS OF LIFE. 19

We have only been able to confine ourselves to the most
general features. Every attempt to characterize by certain
definitions the difference of individuality between man and
woman, can, even with the greatest detail, furnish but faint
outlines, which only receive life through personal experience.
But only the poet can paint them. And however frequently
both man and woman have been depicted, yet daily experience
will bring under our notice ever new features, for the theme
is inexhaustible. But every one, man or woman, if actually
concerned about self-knowledge, will certainly find in him or
herself something of what is here mentioned, one or another
of these " natural " virtues and — however one may know him-
self to be free and far from the extreme — these " natural "
infirmities and faults, and that not as mere germs and possi-
bilities, but as realities, which must be fought against, if one
would aim at moral perfection. And if this self-examination
be thoroughly prosecuted, it will conduce, in human nature
itself, as it is common to man and woman, to make us con-
scious of a contradiction lying deeper, a contradiction which
will more fully convince us that an earnest struggle is inevitable.

THE EAENESTNESS OF LIFE. THE PURSUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

§6.

With the earnestness of the law and of duty begins also, in
its deepest meaning, the earnestness of life. It has often
been asked what earnestness means, and wherein it consists.
We may reply, in general, that it is necessity that makes life
earnest. The hard decrees of fate, the inexpugnable might
of circumstances, these import earnestness into life ; yea, and
there are many who, already in childhood and early youth, for
instance through the loss of parents and benefactors, through
sickness and poverty, experience the earnestness of life.
Passion also transports man into earnestness, in so far as he
is dependent in that state upon a compelling, driving power,
under which he is " passive," and quite unable to let go the
object of his desire. But a necessity, an earnestness of a
higher nature, is that which announces itself to our will, — the

20 THE PURSUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

necessity of the good, the holy, that of duty and of the
problem of duty. Most men find the earnestness of life
exclusively in adversities, in cares of life and debts, in sick-
ness, nearness of death, — that is, in things that unquestionably
may be called earnest. But, in a higher sense, the earnestness
of life begins, however, with the knowledge of the law, and what
is inseparable therefrom, the knowledge of sin. We can there-
fore say in two words, it is fate and duty that make life
earnest. But our inmost longing is for this, that this earnest-
ness of life may be transformed into joy, this necessity into
freedom ; for freedom alone makes man glad, and all the good
tidings or gospels that reach men, be they true or false, are
gospels of freedom, tidings of some liberation. We long to
corne again into a state in which we are without law, in which
necessity has not indeed in every sense disappeared, but is no
more a burden.

§7.

Thus the earnestness of my life ought to consist in this,
that I do my duty, and not only do it, but in my sentiments
become like the law. I am not only to do good, but myself
to be good. I am to follow " righteousness," by which we in
the present connection understand the personal normality, a
habit, a state, which is in harmony with what we ought to
be by the requirement of duty and the ideal. With the
earnestness of duty, the earnest question at the same time
presses, How can I rid my nature of the inner schism ? How
can I get quit of this contradiction, which hinders me from
doing good and being good ? The ordinary answer we here
meet is this : Thou must ethicize thy nature (cultivate it
morally) ; thou must master it, make it an obedient organ for
thy will, determined by duty and the ideal. Whether this
answer is sufficient, whether this ethicizing, which in order
to be thorough must coincide with perfect sanctification, is
possible by man's own means; whether the man is able
through his own endeavour to cast out of his nature the
inner schism, which manifests itself as always the deeper, the
more we grow in the knowledge of the divine law — this
experience must teach each one. A contribution towards the
answer is here to be attempted, and that in such wise that

CIVIL RIGHTEOUSNESS. 21

we fix our glance on the various forms in which the righteous-
ness of the law appears. Not Israel alone has pursued this
righteousness of the law, that is, a righteousness gained through
man's own efforts to fulfil the law ; but also the heathen pursued
it, and pursue it, it is true only according to the measure of
their knowledge of the law, in so far as they have no revealed
law, but only that written in their heart; while Christians
know the righteousness of faith by grace, whereby there begins
another and new attitude to the law, another and new striving
after its fulfilment. We here consider, as the chief manifesta-
tions, civil righteousness, philosophical righteousness, finally
the righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes.

THE CHIEF FORMS OF MORAL LIFE UNDER THE LAW.
CIVIL RIGHTEOUSNESS. PARTICULARIST MORALITY.

§8.

The first step of the knowledge of the law which is here to
be considered is that where the law is only known as regards
single spheres of life, namely, those spheres nearest to the
natural man : family, fatherland, and civil society. The feeling
of duty, and the fulfilment thereof, are here limited to single
ingredients of the good, but do not embrace the whole life of
the personality. The individual here knows only special
duties, but has not taken up duty itself, the good itself, into
his sentiments. In view of the historical appearance of this
morality, we designate it as " civil " righteousness — an expres-
sion with which one often combines a far too narrow and
spiritless conception, wherefore it needs a fuller explanation.
The morality of the Greeks and Eomans, it is true, issued
mainly in the state, in civil life; their virtue was above all
civil virtue, by which, however, we must not think of a merely
external obedience to the laws, but of an obedience such as is
found among free citizens. It is well enough known that
the Greek and Roman heathenism furnishes great and splendid
examples of free devotion to the state, of enthusiastic and
sacrificing love to the fatherland, combined with fidelity in
the civil calling. Full justice is not, however, done to that
heathen world, if it be assumed that there the personality

22 CIVIL RIGHTEOUSNESS.

exclusively issued in this element, that the actually good
remained limited to political ability and patriotic sentiment.
Beside the patriotic and civil virtues, features of personal worth
often also show themselves, — mildness, beneficence, temperance,
chastity ; although these virtues only occur as a beautiful
addition accompanying (concomitant of) civil virtue as the chief.
And however much marriage and the family life may have
been profaned in heathenism, there also we meet with true
moral family affection, attachment to the parental house and
the domestic hearth, true love between man and wife, love
between brothers and sisters, and filial piety. True, indeed,
it may be said on the whole that this family love only formed
a part of the love of country, yea, that in many cases it was
callously sacrificed on the altar of the state, as by that
Spartan mother who repelled her son who had returned safe
from the battle, and then went into the temple to thank the
gods for her son that had fallen in the field. Yet there are
by no means lacking in heathenism examples of a family love,
which is attested as true and genuine by its inner moral
value. We may mention Coriolanus, who was standing in
open conflict with his fatherland that had rejected him, and
at the head of the Volscian armies appeared victorious before
the walls of Rome, but renounced his vengeance, spared the
city, and departed, because he could not resist the prayers and
tears of a spouse and a mother. And Sophocles in his
Antigone has painted before our eyes a picture of genuine
filial love ; how she, the tender virgin, in self-sacrificing love,
accompanies her old blind guilt-laden father, King GEdipus,
who unknowingly had killed his father and married his mother,
and now, when after many years the horror has become mani-
fest, wanders a fugitive from land to land, like a helpless
beggar ; how she addresses him as he heaves a deep sigh :

0 father, lean thy hoary frame

Upon thine own child's faithful hand !

how she unweariedly conducts him :

She, ever joyless, moves with me about,

The old man's prop, often through forest wild.

In want and hunger, barefoot, wandering,

In showers of rain and in the sun's fierce glow,

In misery, she seeks nor house nor hearth,

If to her father but her care be given.

CIVIL KIGHTEOUSNESS. 23

And that is the same Antigone who also shines as a pattern
of sisterly love, while she, despite all threats, fulfils the duty
of piety, and buries her brother, who, by strict command of
the ruler, uncovered by the earth should have lain a prey to
birds — she who against the law of the state, trangressed by
her, appeals to the unwritten indestructible law, of which she
says:

It is not of to-day, nor yesterday ;

It lives for ever, none knows whence it is.

Assuredly we will not designate a thing like this a splendic,
vice. And just as little is it a mere civil virtue that here
meets us. Filial and sisterly virtue is manifested in beautiful
independence. And while this Antigone of poetry may be a
solitary appearance, we are still at any rate, when the question
is of the moral worth of heathenism, entitled to put the
question, " Who knows how many Antigones, unnamed and
uncelebrated, faded away because they lacked a poet ? " 1

We can point to still another element there, which does not
issue in the merely civil and patriotic, namely friendship, in
which precisely the free individuality and pure personal
sympathies and interests assert themselves. In the antique
world, friendship makes known an individuality that constitutes
a beneficent opposition to the strict all-dominating socialism.
Heathenism here shows us lofty examples of mutual, free
devotion, mutual fidelity and sacrifice : Achilles and Patroclus,
Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias. And not unjustly
has it been said, that what romantic love was in the Middle
Ages, friendship was in ancient times, while the friends with
enthusiasm recognised, admired, and loved an ideal of person-
ality, each in the other.

But to the elements mentioned, civil virtue and love of
country, family piety and friendship, heathen morality also
remained essentially limited, till philosophy freed itself from
these limits, and addressed its ethical requirement to the
whole personality. Thus, if we have designated this sphere
by the traditional expression as civil righteousness, this can
only be understood of what is predominant in that sphere.
More exactly we can designate it the particularistic morality,

1 So Mynster, " Ueber das allgemeine Reich Christi," Vermischte Schriften,
V. 136.

24 PARTICULARIST MORALITY.

for this reason, that the personality is here limited to single
parts of the moral, but does not yet know a morality embracing
the whole man.

§9.

With the modification which is at once given in the contrast
of the ancient and the modern world, the particularist morality
is also repeated at the present day before our eyes in the
midst of Christendom. Wherever one has become estranged
from Christianity, one must just live on the basis of heathen-
ism. It is true the difference here arises, that modern
heathenism more or less recognisably bears the stamp of
revolt, that it is torn away from a connection within which
it should have its right place, wherefore also lasting remi-
niscences of what is Christian occur, while the old naive
heathenism has far more a finished character, and depends on
itself. And certainly we will not overlook that — even apart
from the gospel of redemption — already, through progressive
emancipation, the principle of humanity and personality
has become the principle for the newer world. But all this
notwithstanding, there are still a number of individuals, even
in our time, in whom this principle of personality is only
partly and piecemeal, as it were, only fragmentarily operative.
Universal human rights are, it is true, the prevailing require-
ment of the time ; that the limits of the nationality are
now broken, that humanity stands higher than the nation,
men have everywhere become conscious, or at least it is the
prevailing utterance, view, and tradition. At the >same time,
however, it is by no means the customary and prevalent view,
that now also the consciousness of duty, corresponding to the
universal rights of man, should live in all, after its whole
compass. In regard to the ethical development of their own
personality, the consciousness of duty in very many is limited
to single elements of the moral, and bound thereto, and we
thus come back in the main to the same "elements" (GaL
iv. 3, 9) as in the ancient world.

Yet we dare not deny a relative value to this particularism.
It must be acknowledged that in individuals who are estranged
from Christianity, and whose religiousness altogether amounts
to a minimum, civil virtue and devotion to the earthly calling,

PAETICULARIST MOEALITY. 25

self-sacrificing patriotism, family love, and true friendship may
still be found. Those who occupy this standpoint, live
mostly in the imagination that they are on the best terms
with the true moral law, that they not only can fulfil it, but also
actually do fulfil its requirements, although they allow the
intermixture of some imperfection, inseparable from finitude
and human weakness. " For what could be required of me
more than that I conscientiously fulfil my calling, the work I
am appointed to do in society, than that I, as it becomes
a good citizen, love my fatherland and make the required
sacrifices for it ; than that I be penetrated by zeal for the
common good, a zeal which extends to still other than merel
general interests of the country, for instance, embraces also
societies for benevolent objects ; than that I be a good
husband, a good father, friend, brother; in fine, prove by
deed that I am faithful to my friends ? If I manifest at the
same time my reverence for the actually valid ecclesiastical
ordinances and ceremonies, which are venerable to me as
established ordinances of state, as native custom, I should
think that more could not be required, and that I had now
fulfilled all righteousness." That numerous individuals in the
midst of Christendom occupy this standpoint, will hardly be
denied by any. And even if in some individuals the virtues
named appear in a more ideal form than with the majority,
if even patriotic and civil virtues may be manifested, which
from the side of human society deserve all respect and thank-
fulness, perhaps even monuments, if at the same time there
are not lacking laudable and amiable domestic virtues; yet
there ever attaches to the whole standpoint the same imper-
fection and limitation.

§ 10.

But that this righteousness is inadequate, and very far
removed from the personal normality, lies even in particular-
ism itself. For this is a standpoint in which indeed single
virtues are present, but not virtue itself. In it one is not
conscious that the problem of man is not limited to being
citizen, father, brother, friend, and so on, but above all is this:
to be man. If the consciousness of duty is exhausted in
single separate spheres of calling and life, there may be found

26 PAETICULARIST MORALITY.

even along with a consuming and sacrificing activity of that
kind, with great dutifulness and devotion in filling an appointed
sphere, at the same time much self-will and obstinacy, much
unrighteousness and inhumanity in other spheres, in which one
is thought to be less bound, and to be at liberty to go his way.
Every separate virtue has beside it a corresponding shadowy
side, a corresponding fault ; so long, that is, as there lacks the
universally or genuinely human, which should form the unity in
the life of a man, and place the single virtue in its right place
and with its right limitation. How many are there whose
patriotism, like that of the old heathen, only too clearly mani-
fests its dark side in national boasting and national hatred !
How many, whose domestic virtues and fidelity as friends do
not restrain them from being hard-hearted, passionate, unjust,
and unreasonable towards others, who do not just belong to
the said narrower circle, as soon as these others become
troublesome to them, or even get into conflict with them !
Very many acknowledge no obligations beyond those which
their class and their social position lay upon them, the obser-
vation of that which is manner and custom in their own circle,
of that which fashion requires. To this is limited their dutif al
conduct, their self-conquest. They keenly reproach them-
selves if they have once failed and made a mistake in this
respect ; while they regard it as something extraordinary, and
what is not to be expected of them, nay, as " a superfluous
merit," if they once and again show more than that conven-
tional virtue, and bring an offering of a higher kind. They
give themselves no time to consider and lay to heart their
universal and human destination, whence it naturally follows
that they conduct themselves coldly and egotistically towards
other social classes. And as there are insects that spend
their life upon a single leaf, and of all the world regard
merely their leaf, and what occurs on it ; so there are also
individuals for whom the various circle of their personal,
nearest relationships in life, and separate interests, is the
universe.

Particularism appears in a form that often asserts itself
with a nimbus of pre-eminent justification, when it presents
itself as unconditional devotion to any calling in life, especially
if the calling to which the individual devotes himself is of

PARTICULARIST MORALITY. 27

higher and more ideal nature ; if one, as it is said, gives his life
to an idea, be it an artistic, scientific, or political idea. Much
is meant by this, according to the present view of people. In
an ethical respect, however, it has but little importance. For
the man is by no means entitled to devote his life uncondition-
ally to any one other idea than that of the good ; the separate
calling ought never to assert itself at the expense of the
universal human one. But many have become famous as
poets, artists, men of learning, politicians, and nevertheless
occupy morally a very low, or at least limited, standpoint. In
all belonging to their calling, one may find in them the finest
feeling of duty, the greatest conscientiousness ; unweariedly
they overcome all the difficulties and obstacles opposed to
them ; subject themselves — of which there are to be found
splendid examples in the history of the natural sciences, of
explorations — to the utmost dangers and hardships. Nay,
not only is their faithfulness manifested in great, but also in
little things. They cannot allow themselves even the slightest
neglect of that which belongs to the execution of their under-
taking. On the other hand, outside this one sphere, their
morality may much resemble a cloak full of holes, seeing
they neglect the most urgent duties of private life, especially
watchfulness over the development of their own personality.
Johannes von Mliller says : " Who can be man, husband,
father, friend, and yet write so immoderately many books ? "
To the patriot, the man of learning, the politician, the man is
sacrificed, and life is sacrificed to the idea. The same thing
recurs in the lower busy callings, where "business" — be it that
of the official, the merchant, the mechanic — absorbs the life
of the personality, and disturbs its development, nay, makes it
impossible.

What induces a man to give up this ethical particularism,
and to follow after a " better righteousness," is a deeper self-
knowledge, or the discovery of his own ideal self, which is
elevated above these specialties. We may also thus express
this : he discovers in himself an unconditioned requirement of
duty, a command of conscience, which does not resolve itself
into this or that particular, but goes back into his inner depth,
into the core of his being, where with the requirement a
motive, an impulse is conjoined, by which he is compelled

28 PHILOSOPHICAL EIGHTEOUSNESS.

to seek a good higher than all that is to be found in the state,
in the family, or in any one special object whatever. For
states and state-constitutions may perish. And even as the
state, or otherwise, family and house may also fall a prey to
dissolution through many events. Friends may become untrue
to each other and separate, and sickness make a man unfit to
exercise the duty of his calling. We must therefore seek a
good that is unconditioned and unchangeable, sufficing and
satisfying the ideal man hidden within us.

Considerations of this kind must, as one should suppose,
lead directly to the need of religion and of faith. Yet ex-
perience teaches that they may lead to a purely ethical stand-
point, which is no religious one as yet, on which at any rate
religion has no foundational (constitutive) import. But the
man, through raising himself to this higher degree of morality,
comes in a deeper sense under the law ; for the law from
henceforth more and more augments its requirements.

PHILOSOPHICAL RIGHTEOUSNESS.

LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON.

§ 11.

After philosophical thought, that is to say, that which seeks
the universal, had once awoke, first in the Greeks, then in the
Romans, one had also necessarily to seek a better than civil
righteousness. Testing, all - investigating thought will no
longer receive the moral as a mere tradition, will not be
arrested by the authority of society and of inherited custom
(Socrates) ; but it leads men into their own inner being, in
order by means of reason to discover the highest good, and the
right way (art) of living. One now begins, more or less
independent of civil limitation, to inquire for the law valid
for the whole man, or the ideal of personality as such. And
this asking and seeking forced itself still more on men's minds,
like an inevitable necessity, when the decay of civil life and
of old venerable customs, and therewith the decay of religion
began ; for with the ancients, religion with its myths formed
only a component part of the life of the people and the
state. It is philosophy, or the wisdom of the world, that is

PHILOSOPHICAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. 29

now praised as the right means of virtue, the only way to
righteousness and peace (happiness). " 0 philosophy, guide
of life ! discoverer of virtue and disperser of vices ! what
might I, what might the life of man in general, have
become without thee ? Thou hast founded the cities, invited
men from dispersion to social life, united them first in
houses, then through wedlock, then through exchange of
writing and of oral speech, more intimately with each other.
Thou wert the lawgiver, the teacher of manners and discipline.
We take refuge in thee ; of thee we seek help ; we yield our-
selves to thee with all our heart, and entirely ! A single day
lived rightly and according to thy commands is preferable to
an eternity lived in sin (peccanti immortalitati}. Whose help
should I rather employ than thine ? who hast granted me
peace in life (vitae tranguillitatem), and hast banished the fear
of death." Such is the enthusiastic exclamation of one of those
ancients.1 We are content here to name Stoicism as the most
distinct type of philosophic righteousness. Amid unhappy
world-conditions, the Stoics seek a firm and immoveable point
within them, and make it their problem to gain the highest
good by each one developing himself to personal perfection,
herewith distinguishing between the things lying within and
those that lie beyond our power. Although internally elevated
above the state, they would not withdraw from the relation-
ships of civil life, rather even in these special and lower
relations, realize the ideal of the wise man, who, amid all
changes, preserves unity and agreement with himself, with his
own being and the law of the whole, and finds even in this
the true happiness.

As an eminent example, we mention that philosopher upon
the throne, the Eoman emperor Marcus Aurelius, with the
surname Antoninus, after his imperial foster-father. He has
left us a writing well worth reading : Meditations, Considera-
tions, and Exhortations, which he addressed to himself (et<?
eavTov), that is, moral monologues. He here declares he will
act as man, as Eoman, as statesman, will devote himself
entirely to the present age ; but under these relationships
his highest problem is only to exercise that which agrees
with his rational soul, to prove himself a citizen of the divine

1 Cicero, Tuscul. Di*pvt., V. 2.

30 PHILOSOPHICAL RIGHTEOUSNESS.

state, namely, of the whole world ; to work not merely
outwardly but inwardly especially, and so to manipulate and
form himself according to the doctrines of reason. " 0 my
soul, if thou mightst but become good, true, unchangeable, so
that thou mightst dare to show thyself naked (without hiding
and mask)."1 He is quite penetrated by the thought that virtue
alone has worth ; all else is transient. Short is the duration
of time during which each one lives, petty the corner on earth
where he lives, and even the most lasting fame is of small
significance. It is a succession of wretched men through
which the latter is propagated, men who will soon die, and
neither know themselves nor the departed. Therefore the
call is, Wake up ! One meets with similar utterances in the
books of his favourite Epictetus (a freedman), and of Seneca
(the teacher of the Emperor Nero). Antiquity shows us
women too who earnestly strove after their personal per-
fection, according to the principles of reason (for instance,
Arria).

§ 12.

If we turn from antiquity to the more and most recent
times, we find here an endeavour after the philosophical or
rational righteousness in a tolerably large number of indi-
viduals, who, alienated from Christianity, apply themselves to
a so-called "purely human" morality. The more progress
that is made by emancipation, it becomes the more possible
that, even apart from Christianity, an autonomous (self-
legislating) morality be formed, although this cannot entirely
withdraw itself from Christian reactions and influences. Not
only do we find it in the philosophers proper (Spinoza, Kant,
Fichte, and so on) ; not only in such as are specially cultured
by philosophical studies. No, even outside the immediate
influence of the schools, many at the present day are led
to a kind of practical philosophizing through mediate in-
fluences, through the tendency to freedom of recent times, and
through their own reflection. True, it must be allowed that
among these emancipated ones, who, setting aside Christianity,
praise the ideal of humanity, only a very few apply themselves
to follow it practically, that is, in deed and truth. As in
1 Compare Zeller, Philosophic der Griechen, III. 875 ff.

LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON. 31

ancient times the Epicureans, who merely pursued enjoyment
and happiness, formed the majority, the Stoics again remained
in the minority, so exactly is it also now. True, there are
also a great number of people who adhere to a so-called
morality of the via media, which will be more fully considered
in the sequel. The few, however, who really pursue an ideal,
and seek in earnest by the light of their reason, and through
the power of their own will, to realize a personal perfection,
come first to this, that they renew that Stoicism of the
ancients, so far as this can appear under the modifying
influences of the present everywhere. With more or less
clearness, they will occupy the standpoint which Kant has
thus formulated : Duty, and not merely this or that duty, but
universal human duty, embracing the whole man, must be the
highest norm for a life according to reason ; this duty must be
exercised for its own sake ; every regard to happiness and
external well-being must here disappear ; I must be content
to find internal satisfaction in the consciousness that I have
done my duty as a man. We can also, however, express the
same standpoint in a fuller, more comprehensive form, when
we say, with Schleiermacher, who in his Monologen (1800)
set forth with stoical enthusiasm an ideal of philosophical
righteousness : every man ought to exhibit humanity in a
peculiar manner ; each one ought to work out his peculiar
individuality, in and under his actual man fashion his ideal
man ; every one ought himself to will, agreeably to his ideal
freedom, and in the midst of time, to lead an eternal life.
" Begin, therefore, even now thine eternal life in constant
self-contemplation ; care not for what will come ; weep not
for what passes away ; but care, not to lose thyself, and weep
when thou rushest down the stream of time without bearing
heaven in thee."

Now, however differently this ideal of personality may be
modified, and in whatever varied individualized colours it may
shade off, still the unconditioned duty, which in itself is not
different from that ideal expressed as a requirement, will ever
remain the essential thing which one herein has to keep in
view. And for him who is concerned about its realization,
self-knowledge must remain the first problem, which embraces
not only the knowledge of my ideal, or of what I ought to

32 SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

be, but of what I ain in reality, of the obstacles that are
here to be overcome, and of the aids available to me for this
object

SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

§ 13.

All self-knowledge must be gained through contemplation,
through quiet self- consideration and self-inspection, in which
the universal human ideal gains for me a special, personal
form, in that I recognise the same in its relation to my
individuality, and so in relation to those dispositions, to that
definite talent, to that limitation, to that sphere of life within
which even I am to realize the universal-human. But how-
ever effective quiet self-consideration may be for self-know-
ledge, yet the latter will still remain merely one-sided; so long
as it is not developed by means of practical life, so long as it
does not teach us to know by experience as well the hindrances
of our moral effort, as also the sufficiency or insufficiency of
the means of progress that are at our command. A self-
knowledge consisting in mere contemplation might be an
exclusive knowledge of the ideal, without doing justice to
reality. Our soul were exposed to illusion, as if it were in
best agreement with its ideal, because, in the quiet and undis-
turbed hours of contemplation, it is enthusiastic for it, and in
the transient state of its exaltation makes too little of the
difficulties which have at any rate to be overcome, when it is
required to incorporate the ideal in the hard and opposing
material of reality.

As example of a self-knowledge mainly accomplished on
the standpoint of the ideal and of contemplation, . one may
mention fL-st the Stoic declamations on the wise man as alone
king, an unlimited ruler, the only freeman among mere slaves,
and again Schleiermacher's already mentioned famous Mono-
logue (a modern et? kavrov). Schleiermacher will here depict
himself from a purely ethical standpoint, after the standard of
his ideal. Against the attacks called forth by these so lofty
pictures of himself, he urged that one must distinguish between
what a man is according to his ideal and his caricature. But
only the self-contemplation that is absorbed in the ideal, con-

SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 33

tains, in his view, what is adapted for publication, while a self-
contemplation in the opposite direction — namely, aiming at
the caricature — loses itself too much in the obscurities and
nooks of the personal life, down to those points which, as a wise
man of the old time said, a man does well to hide even from
himself. The last sentence, notwithstanding the authority
quoted for it, we cannot approve. For it is the very problem
of every one who has planned his life ethically, to become quite
familiar with himself, evident to himself; whereas he who has
not planned his life ethically, will have many points and parts
in his outer and inner life which he not only wishes to hide
from others, but also from himself.1 But above all, we must
assert the position, that for a right self-knowledge it is not
enough to know one's ideal, but also to have a thorough
acquaintance with one's own caricature, which it is of im-
portance to get rid of, that the ideal may admit of being
realized. It is not with the ethical ideal as with the eesthetical,
so that it were enough for it merely to hover before our fancy.
It requires real existence.

It is thus his ideal which the speaker of the Monologue
depicts when he says, " With proud joy I still think of the
time when I found the consciousness of humanity, and knew that
I now would never lose it more. From within came the high
revelation, called forth by no doctrines of virtue and no system
of the wise ; a clear moment crowned the long search which
not this and not that would satisfy ; freedom solved the dark
doubts through action. I dare say it, that I have never since
lost myself (I). What they call conscience, I know as such no
more ; no feeling so punishes me, none needs so to warn me.
In quiet rest, in unchanging simplicity, I bear uninterruptedly
the consciousness of the whole of humanity in me. Gladly
and light of heart, I often survey my conduct collectively,
certain that / will never find anything that reason must deny."
Or when he solemnly swears eternal youth to himself, when
he requires of himself to be ever present with blossoms
and with fruits, to wed youth with old age, the ripeness of
age with the freshness of youth. In this ideal self-contem-
plation he exclaims, " It is this in which I greatly rejoice,

1 It is no doubt superfluous to remark, that in all this we are only speaking of
the Monologen, but not at ail of Schleiermacher as a whole.

C

34 SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

that my love and friendship is never of ignoble origin, never
mixed with any common sensation, ever the purest act of
freedom. Never has benefit gained my friendship, nor beauty
my love ; never has sympathy so mastered me as to impart merit
to misfortune, and to present sufferers to me as other and
better ; never has agreement in particulars so laid hold of me,
that I have ever deceived myself regarding the deepest inner
difference." Or, " Ever shall sorrow and joy, and what else
the world designates as weal and woe, be alike welcome to
me, while each in its own way fulfils this object, and reveals to
me the relations of my being. If I only attain this, what does
happiness matter to me ? I have felt joy and pain, I know
every grief and smile ; and what is there amid all that befell
me since I began really and truly to live, from which I have
not appropriated what is new to my being, and have gained
power that nourishes the inner life ? "

Such a one will he be. Such sentiments will he confirm
within him. His earnest effort is to go through with this
mode of action. He is quite conscious that he does not
correspond in reality to these descriptions ; and injustice has
been done when it has been said of him that, like a Narcissus,
he would reflect himself merely in his own excellence.
Nevertheless we must acknowledge a great one-sidedness
herein, that in these monologues, this els eavrov, as good as
nothing occurs concerning the reality, and concerning the
contradiction between ideal and reality, nothing of the
hindrances to the accomplishment of the ideal, nothing of the
helps to be here employed. For he indeed gays, " Shame*
upon thee, free spirit, that one thing in thee should serve
the other; nothing must be for thee a means." But then,
what avails us the feeling of freedom on the heights of the
ideal, when we yet in actual life need crutches ? when we still
must say with Claudius, " Footsalve ! Man of Sinope ! My
gouty feet cannot accompany you." However many in their
youth have strengthened and kindled their enthusiasm for the
ideal through those monologues, have received an impulse to
a higher moral development of their personality, yet it can
scarcely be denied that through such a monologizing, through
such a self-idealizing, we get a far too optimist view of ourselves,
and of what we in virtue of our freedom could accomplish, what

CONTRADICTION IN HUMAN NATURE. 35

a " temple of morality " we could erect in ourselves. As a
practical counterpoise, one might read Marcus Aurelius and
Epictetus with profit, just because both these Stoics, unlike
many others, do not express themselves in declamation, in
mere praises of the wise man, fix their glance not exclusively
on the ideal, which fills the mind with the consciousness of
human elevation and dignity, but constantly compare reality
with the ideal, and thereby pave the way to humility. " Thou
wilt soon die," says the philosopher on the throne to himself,
" and hitherto thou hast neither become upright nor free from
disquiet, from the fear of being injured by things that exist
outside of thee. Thou art still not placable towards all ; thou
still dost not make thy wisdom alone consist in living justly."
Epictetus also in several passages utters his deep grief for the
contrast between ideal and reality. " Ah," he says, " show
me a Stoic ! By the gods, I long to see one. But it is quite
out of your power to show me one who is really well-marked
(perfect and cast in one piece). Show me, then, at least one
who lies in the crucible in order to be cast. Pray do me this
kindness. Pray refuse not to an old man, from ill-will, the
sight of a spectacle that I have not seen till now." l

From the cheerful heights of the ideal we will therefore
descend to the plains of reality, and enter somewhat more
closely upon the hindrances to the pursuit of perfection, and
on the means to be employed.

The Internal Contradiction in Human Nature.
§ 14.

If we inquire after the hindrances to the higher morality,
a thorough self-knowledge cannot rest content with the
merely individual, the individual temperament, and so on, but
must revert from the individual nature to universal human
nature, from the many hindrances which we find in our
individuality, to the one universal chief hindrance common to
all men. If thou wilt know thyself, thou must know man.

1 Diatrib. II. 19, 24 ff. ; Earless, Ethik, 7 Aufl. p. 113 (translated in Clark's
Foreign Theological Library).

36 CONTRADICTION IN HUMAN NATURE.

How, then, do we designate this chief hindrance, this hostile
power present in us, which we have to combat under its many
eternally changing appearances, and which individualizes itself
in every one of us ? Many have named sense as this enemy,
and conceived the inner schism of human nature, of whose
presence we are reminded in so many ways, as a schism
between sense, as the unreasoning part of our being, and
reason. But sense in itself cannot be called bad, although
evil frequently clothes itself in the form of sense. We must
seek the enemy of which we speak deeper down and behind
sense, namely, where the egoistic will has its seat. Each one
may convince himself of this, that he is related to his evil
lusts and inclinations, by no means like a suffering innocence
which opposes to all evil allurements a pure and uncorrupted
will, but that his will is also implicated in those lusts. We
by no means discover in ourselves a merely weak will, but
also an impure will, in which egoistic motives are mingled
with those of duty. And hast thou ever noticed in thyself,
perhaps with horror, features of ill-will, hatred, falseness,
malice ; hast thou ever had occasion in thyself and others to
find the confirmation of La Eochefoucauld's often quoted
saying, that in the misfortune of our best friends there is still
something that does not entirely displease us : then thou
knowest something also of the will that has pleasure in evil
as such. Every one who goes to the bottom of himself will
further discover that the egoistic will in us is not of to-day
or yesterday ; that, on the contrary, we find it present in our
first obscure remembrances, and that it expresses itself pre-
ponderantly, either in the region of pride or in that of sense.

This will is the chief hindrance with which we have to
contend. For even the before-mentioned one-sided dominion
of the temperaments is at bottom connected with the perverted
egoistic will, which establishes itself in that mingling of elements
of soul and body which we designate temperaments. The
Sanguinist will flutter from flower to flower, will have such an
unsteady and flighty being. The Melancholist will hold fast
his sad humour, and plunge into his gloom, nourishes it
incessantly with new food, however much he suffers under it.
The Cholerist will carry through his will, his object, even if
he should perish in the attempt. The Phlegmatist will con-

RADICAL EVIL. 37

tinue in his slothful rest. The same holds of the faults
considered above, which cleave to the male and the female
nature. In each of them, for instance in the man's ambition
and the woman's vanity, the man's hardness or regardlessness,
and the woman's craft and mendacity, an egoistic will is
expressed, with the enticement to follow only the commands
of egoism, of self-love, of self-pleasing, a will that can only be
broken by a higher will, that is one with the will of the reason.
The inner schism, the inner contradiction in human nature,
we can therefore also designate as the double will. That is,
it is the schism between my ideal rational will and my egoistic
will, whereby I cease to be at one with myself. What must
be rooted out are not the impulses, — these have only to be
ordered and governed, — but the perverted direction of the will.
This must cease, if I am to attain unity and agreement with
myself.

One of the deepest and most honourable thinkers of the
newer humanism, Kant, has named this chief hindrance of the
good in us the radical evil, by which he understands a deeply
rooted inclination of human nature to give the preference to
the maxim (the principle) of egoism, before the maxim of
morality, — an inclination which is evil in itself, because i1
cleaves to our will, and must thus also be imputed to us.
Accordingly, he teaches that human nature bears in itself a
root bad in a moral sense, from which the whole multiplicity
of faults and vices springs up. As chief forms of evil he
adduces the following: the weakness (infirmitas) of human
nature, when one has indeed accepted the maxim of the good,
but does not stand his ground in the performance, and obeys
the maxim of egoism; then the uncleanness (impuritas) of
the human heart, when one follows indeed the maxim of
morality, but not purely, because we will not follow it except
mingled with motives of self-love ; further, the badness and
corruption (vitiositas) of the human heart as such, when
one actually and consciously appropriates the maxim of
egoism, and that as the highest, to which that of morality
must be subordinated according to circumstances.1 From the
merely human standpoint, there could hardly be possible a

1 Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzcn der Uossen Vernunft ("VVerke, X. 30 ff
Ausgabe von Kosenkranz).

38 RADICAL EVIL.

deeper insight into the essence of the inner schism of human
nature than that which Kant has developed in his treatise
Of ike, Radical Evil, a treatise usually ignored by those who
otherwise gladly appeal to Kant. Only Christianity helps us
to comply in the right sense of the word with that old holy
requirement, " Know thyself ! " Christianity teaches us that
the inner contradiction and schism of human nature lies still
deeper, that it is not only a conflict between the rational will
of man and his egoistic will, but a conflict between man's and
God's will ; that the original relation of man to God is dis-
turbed; that the fundamental and chief hindrance, which
must first be taken out of the way, is disunion (discord) with
God, and that only then can one think of likewise removing
the disunion (discord) of man with himself

But self-knowledge is chiefly and essentially gained through
experience. And he who uprightly and earnestly pursues
rational righteousness and harmony with himself, will in this
way also certainly attain a preparatory self-knowledge. Even
where the law (the moral command) is only acknowledged
and understood as the law of our reason, that truth must be
proved and confirmed, although in lower form, which the
apostle announces : " The law cannot give life, but by the law
conies the knowledge of sin."

Struggling Virtue and Insufficient Means. — Bondage of Duty.

§ 15.

Thus, in order that we may attain to harmony with our-
selves (to inner peace), it is necessary that the schism and
conflict between the two wills existing in us — in which is
included the schism between reason and morality — should be
done away. That this harmony with ourselves is only to be
gained through the most earnest struggles, that virtue, in order
to reach its ideal, must first appear to us as struggling (not
merely as springing up after divine order and power), needs no
discussion. But what helps do we possess, on our merely
human standpoint, to gain the victory ?

It would evidence an imperfect knowledge of human

STRUGGLING VIRTUE. 39

nature were it to be thought that the mere knowledge of the
good is an adequate means of becoming virtuous, and that the
struggle which must be waged for this is essentially only a
struggle against errors and prejudices. And yet even a
Socrates entertained this heathenish - naive illusion. He
thought that if men are bad, the reason of it lies not in
their will, but in their ignorance ; that if men could only
be brought to the right knowledge of the good, they would
also entirely love it, and would perceive it to be unreason
and folly to pursue seeming good, whereupon reason without
further ado would attain the dominion in them. This false
conception is still widely diffused at the present day, it
being thought that through enlightenment and progressive
culture, men and the world will become better. And yet
experience teaches that it is not so, that although now in the
long course of centuries an infinite fulness of the means of
culture and enlightenment has been heaped together, all these
means have proved inadequate to ameliorate mankind. Not
a few of those who had lived in that superficial belief have
afterwards, with bitter lamentations, confessed their illusions.
" So long as I believed," says one who with all earnestness
had pursued rational righteousness, — " so long as I believed
that improvement depended merely on the correction of our
errors of understanding, and that therefore men must become
better and happier through enlightenment of their understand-
ing, so long was the ultimate perfection of our race upon this
earth probable to me ; but now, when I daily experience that
the most prudent men so often fail, that men whose theories
are the best give themselves to vices, all faith in the attain-
ment of that ideal of virtue has died out of me. Yes, if it
were principles that made us villains, then the faults might
lie in perverted conceptions, and we would be better when
these were corrected. But how can enlightenment make
weak powers strong, unhealthy powers healthy ? how can it
transmute unnature and an artificial state into nature and
simplicity ? No, genuine goodness is no necessary conse-
quence of the enlightenment of the understanding ; it can only
dispel follies, but not vices." *

Knowledge is no doubt indispensable. But beyond know-

1 Fr. Perthes, Leben, I. 58.

40 INADEQUATE MEANS.

ledge a power is required by which knowledge may become
operative. In our present natural state there is found in us
all, in relation to our knowledge of the good, a " deficiency,"
a minus of power to will and to perform it. It is a chief
phenomenon of human nature, that between our knowing and
willing there exists a mis-relation, in that our knowing is
ever far in advance of our willing, in which, however, the good
should find its very existence, and that the right insight
must only too often be witness how the will acts contrary to
its requirements. He who strives after the moral ideal, will
indeed experience that there are certain virtues the exercise
of which is easy and natural to him — that is, when his ethical
virtues are supported by the corresponding natural ones ; but
that there are also others which he, despite his better insight,
is not able in practice to appropriate, or else the appropria-
tion of which costs him the greatest effort. It is natural to
him, for example, to show ability and fidelity in his calling,
and he is in a position also to make sacrifices for ideal
objects ; he cannot, however, and that notwithstanding better
knowledge, bear mortifications and neglects, cannot forgive
and forget, although he perfectly perceives that he should.
He is industrious, and work is his pleasure ; but to manifest
patience and resignation in suffering is exceedingly difficult
for him, and on the sickbed he loses courage. Or there are
certain humours, certain moods which sometimes come upon
him and make him disinclined to work, as well as to social
intercourse, certain suddenly emerging fancies which he cannot
escape inclining to again and again. Or there » are certain
sensual enjoyments which he absolutely cannot deny himself,
and that notwithstanding he has long and certainly known
that they are injurious to his health. Especially there is a
particular fault which he discovers in himself, and justly may
call his chief fault (bosom sin), whether it shows itself in a
sensual or more mental direction, and which constantly
returns, however often it may have been expelled. In all
these points mere knowledge evinces itself as paralyzed and
quite unfruitful. Knowledge, or what is the same thing, the
ideal will which utters itself in knowledge or the moral
consciousness, needs a power in order that it may become
operative. But this element of power, this personal element

INADEQUATE MEANS. 41

of nature, through which alone the will can become the deed
and embody itself, this element of productive genius through
which the ideal will can alone spring forth with effect and
realize itself, is just that which is wanting.

One often speaks of weak hours and weak moments ; and
who has not such ? But these are not hours of ignorance or
unconsciousness, but of powerlessness, whereby it is not ex-
cluded that they are likewise hours and moments of unfaith-
fulness, in which we become untrue to ourselves and to our
good purposes, times of perfidy, in which we betray the good
within us to the evil, and pass over to the enemy. In such
moments, passion uses the right of the stronger and effects its
requirements, even because the good in us is a mere idea, and
duty only an ideal requirement, while passion has flesh and
blood. Temptation promises enjoyments which — even if they
be recognised by the reason as deceit and delusion — yet foi
covetous sense, for my lust, have in the present moment the
highest reality. The tempter pays ready money, and affords
immediate satisfaction, be it for my sensual lust or my choler,
or any other passion, while the inner voice that speaks through
conscience and duty only draws a bill on the future or on
eternity. In such hours, knowledge appears weak and power-
less, " pale with thought," and shadowy, while temptation
emerges bodily, and strikes my eyes with the blinding colours
of the present. How, then, am I to begin to make my
rational knowledge naturally powerful and operative, so as to
be not merely a cold, feebly shining, and, as it were, expiring
light, but a light from which kindling, powerful effects pro-
ceed to burn up the bad in me ? How do I attain to the
unity of knowledge and power, of idea and nature, of duty
and inclination, of virtue and impulse, to the harmony of the
self-conscious and the unconscious ?

§ 16.

Aristotle, who blames Socrates because the latter was ot
the opinion that mere knowledge itself carries the power ot
the good in it, emphasizes indeed himself the indispensable-
ness of knowledge, but recommends beside it as a weighty
help : to educate the will through exercise, custom. As one

42 INADEQUATE MEANS.

only becomes a builder by building houses, as one only
becomes a cithern-player by playing on the cithern, so, he
says, we become more just by dealing justly, become more
temperate by exercising temperance, and so on. Through
exercise and ciistom, through the continued repetition of the
same actions, a readiness is gained, the natural inclinations,
or the irrational (alogic) part of our being, is gradually brought
under the dominion of the rational part, so that reason and
nature, virtue and impulse, the ethical and the physical,
thenceforth work together. This is incontestably an excellent
direction, especially when the exercise can be begun even in
childhood. But here there arises a very great difficulty.
For before I took courage to think philosophically, before I
began to plan my life ethically, I already possessed one or
other bad habit, which over against the new effort had the
right of antiquity, and a claim on me of priority. And
through habit not merely the good, but also the evil and bad
as well, becomes a second nature. Not only the mental
organs, but also the bodily, especially the nerves, acquire
through repetition a definite inclination to the same move-
ments. Consequently it will, at any rate, cost great effort
to drive the bad habit from the field by the good. For
mental and moral exercises must here go hand in hand with
bodily.1

But even granting that this relatively succeeded, and the
earnest effort for this end led to joyful experiences of progress
gained, — and that in this way much is attainable, the history
of the old heathenism itself proves to us, which affords admir-
able examples of moral self-conquest and self-control, — still
the most important part would remain. For by accustoming
oneself to right dealings, and exercising them to the point of
readiness, there will only be something external, so to say,
merely the bodily appearance of rectitude and virtue pro-
duced; yet the righteousness that I pursue is not only a
righteousness of work, but of sentiment, which ought to be
the soul of the whole external multiplicity. But how do I
attain the rightful sentiment ? For only too often I catch
myself in what Kant designates partly the impurity of the

1 Compare Luthardt, Ethik des Aristofeles, and the Moral des Christenthuma
of the same, p. 46. Sailer, Christliche Moral, I. 220.

BONDAGE OF DUTY. 43

human heart, partly the dim mixture of motives. Here, then,
there is needed an exercise of a higher kind, and to this
special attention must be directed. According to Kant's
direction, we must confirm in ourselves the immoveable
principle, not merely to will to act in external harmony with
duty, but from duty, that is, from respect to the law. Eespect
is a feeling in which nothing at all sensual or egoistic is
contained. It is exclusively filled with the objective value of
the object. We are compelled in our conscience to respect
the law, as you are compelled to respect an honest man, even
granting that you do by no means love him. This respect,
which is inseparably combined with respect for the moral
worth of our own nature, and which has the consequence that
we voluntarily subject ourselves, purely for the sake of duty,
to the compulsion of duty — this it is which we must exercise.
In the degree that this respect gains the dominion over all
other feelings and inclinations, our moral sentiment becomes
pure,

5 17.

That the sentiment here recommended is worthy of respect
we in no way deny, nor do we deny that a respectable, moral
conduct may proceed from it. And yet we must declare the
motive of respect entirely inadequate to procure for us the
essential thing: peace, inner harmony, and agreement with
ourselves. For we are thereby thrown back upon that con-
tradiction between duty and inclination, virtue and impulse,
which we were labouring to overcome. It belongs precisely
to the deep-rooted contradiction in our nature, that we men
often find ourselves in the position that we cannot love what
we yet are compelled to respect, and, contrariwise, although
under self-reproaches, must love what we cannot respect.
Only when respect and love are combined — only when I
actually love with my whole heart what I am compelled to
respect, love even that which I am bound in duty to obey,
and love nothing but what I must likewise respect — then only
is there peace and harmony within me. But who is to give
me love and enthusiasm ? who is to give me a heart that is
entirely of the same kind and sentiment as the requirement
of the law, so that it stands in no secret opposition to the

44 BONDAGE OF DUTY.

law, even although it forces itself to obedience and subjection ?
We speak here not of a love in this or that special direction,
as it was to be found in the old heathen, but of a central love,
which, from the centre of the heart, spreads itself out on all
sides over the whole periphery of existence, a love which
embraces the clear consciousness of the good in itself, but also
the power to will what at the same time bears the stamp of
the highest freedom and the highest natural necessity, and
which gladly, willingly, and with joy, fulfils all that the law
requires (" a gladsome, happy heart," as Luther says). But so
long as this union of respect and love is lacking, virtue can
only be compelled and whipped out with the rod, and the bad
inclinations and evil desires of the heart only held back by
the bridle and rein, of duty.

This, in a moral sense, unworthy, ungenial, and untalented
slavish state, where the living spring from which genuine
virtue must flow is not present, and where we must incessantly
ply ourselves with rod and bridle, is most strictly a state
under the law, in the bondage of duty — a state of discord and
of division, proceeding from the man's own twofold will. I do
my duty, but with inner resistance; for my willing and
desiring, my whole heart's longing strives for the side opposed
to my duty, and must therefore be constantly reined in and
restrained. Who has ever learned such a state from experience,
and not sooner or later felt himself weak and tired, to be thus
enslaved under the yoke of duty ? Who has not known hours
in which he felt himself tempted to shake off this yoke, to
give up his fruitless effort after a still unattainable ideal of
virtue, and to seek happiness in other ways, joining in the
poet's word :

" This fight I can no longer fight —
The giant fight of duty."

But no more does man reach the goal of happiness by
turning his back upon duty. In the course of action to which
he then gives himself, he feels himself quite condemned to
discord. Does he satisfy his sensual impulse, his lust, his
natural heart's wishes, he must pay for (" expiate ") this
satisfaction by living on under the unrest and the reproaches
of conscience; and, contrariwise, does he satisfy the require-
ment of conscience, he must suffer internally through the

AESTHETIC EDUCATION. 45

sting and the unrest of impulse, through the desires incessantly
assailing him, the tempting fancies and wishes which, even
if they be held down and quenched, are yet to be compared
to a subterranean fire, constantly on the point of flaming up
again, and never letting him find peace.

^Esthetic Education.
§ 18.

There is still one means which may be tried as a last
resource, and on which great hopes have been set. The ideal
of a harmonious morality hovered even before the Greeks, in
which the good is blended with the beautiful (Plato). It was
thought that a combination of the ethical and the aesthetic
would be the means to remove the schism between duty and
inclination, and to reduce the double being in our nature to
unity, that this end would be reached by combining the moral
with the aesthetic education of man.

It is Schiller who has inspired many of the noblest spirits
with this thought. He " was born in Arcadia," and bore
within him the consciousness of a lost Paradise, along with
the longing to regain it, while Christianity had become strange
to him and far removed. His deep ethical nature and his
inquiring spirit both led him to the Kantian philosophy. But
however inspired he was for this ideal view of duty, which is
to be obeyed unconditionally for its own sake, yet his poetic
nature could not be reconciled to the cold command of duty,
to that compulsion, that hardness, that Spartan discipline that
frightened away every grace. But from the sphere of Chris-
tianity he had retained a remembrance, at least one remem-
brance,— namely, that it promises and desires, instead of
slavish fear, in obedience to the law, which with threatenings
was given amid the thunders of Sinai, to evoke a free inclina-
tion or willingness, namely love, and by this to free man from
the bondage of the law. Now Schiller would produce this free
inclination by a means which he does not take from Chris-
tianity, but from the ancient heathenism, from the Greeks.

He is indeed conscious that the aesthetic is unable to pro*

46 AESTHETIC EDUCATION.

duce tlie moral, which must have its ground in itself, but
thinks it can support it and work along with it, and prepare
man to be a fitter organ for morality. Morality may, he says,
be supported in two ways : either by strengthening the power
of the reason, and of the good will, so that no temptation can
overcome them ; or by breaking and weakening the power of
temptation, so that even a weak but good will may be more
than a match for it. In the one respect as in the other, the
sense of the beautiful, the feeling of beauty, will work as a
support and furtherance. The natural enemy of morality is,
according to Schiller, low sensual impulse. But the power of
this is weakened, nay, broken, through aesthetic culture. For
taste requires moderation and respect, form and limitation ; it
abhors all that is rude and formless, and sympathizes only with
the well-formed and harmonious. Men who are destitute of
aesthetic culture have thus, he thinks, to undergo a severer
struggle with sensuality than the aesthetically cultured, in whom
the sensual impulse is ennobled by the sense of beauty. The
moral man without aesthetic culture has in his struggles against
temptation only a court of first instance to which he can
adhere, namely duty ; while he who is likewise aesthetically
cultured has another court besides, namely taste, which tells
him that the bad which he must oppose is at the same time
the ugly, the impure, the disagreeable, something therefore that
offends the sense of form ; and so the aesthetic interest here co-
operates with the moral for the same object. If order, harmony,
completeness, and perfection are required on the side of duty,
they are at the same time an aesthetic requirement. In this
co-operation of the aesthetic and the ethical, duty is wedded to
inclination, and thus a harmonious character is formed.

Yet the man cannot attain a harmonious morality in the
sense that an immediate harmony between reason and sense,
duty and inclination, always comes to pass. In a world in
which need and death rule, and in which the requirement is
so often addressed to man to suffer, to endure, worthily to bear
what cannot be altered, this is a thing impossible. The har-
monious can then only be shown in this, that the man even
in suffering preserves unity, full agreement with himself.
Therefore aesthetic education must not only develop the sense
for the beautiful, but also for the lofty.

.ESTHETIC EDUCATION. 47

A beautiful character is he who with ease exercises the
virtues which circumstances require of him : righteousness,
benevolence, moderation, fidelity ; and who, in a happy and
contented existence, finds his joy in the exercise of these duties.
Who but must find such a man amiable, and love him in
whom we meet the full unison of the natural impulses and
the prescriptions of reason ? But now, let a great misfortune,
an immense disaster, suddenly enter this man's life ; let him
lose his whole fortune, and his good name besides; let him be
stretched on a bed of suffering, or let those who are dearest to
his heart be snatched from him by death, and all in whom he
trusted leave him. If he then still remains the same that he
was in prosperity ; if even a severe misfortune has detracted
nothing from his sympathy in others' suffering and sorrow, the
experience of ingratitude has not embittered him against men ;
when it is thus only the circumstances that have altered,
but not his sentiment, then we admire the loftiness, the dignity
of his character. The feeling of the lofty is a mixed feeling.
In it we are penetrated with a living consciousness of the
weakness and dependence, of the limitation and transitoriness
of our own nature. But there is likewise excited a feeling
of joy and of internal elevation. We feel that in our being
there is an independent, an eternal, an enduring, and un-
changing part, over which the whole world of the senses, with
all its changes, has no power. Now, although the aesthetically
lofty by no means always coincides with the morally lofty, yet
it belongs to the development of our humanity to cultivate
our sense of it also, and to make ourselves familiar with it,
because it gives an elevation to our spirit that adapts us for
morality.

In order to cultivate our sense of the beautiful and the
lofty, Schiller directs us first to nature and the life in close
communion with it. To natural beauty there belongs a truth
and naivete, a simplicity and plainness, which forms a contrast
to all that is artificial and falsified in the life of man, and that
would constantly force itself upon us. Therefore it tends to
cleanse and purify, while it likewise harmoniously attunes the
mind, and inclines it to strive after a similar harmony in our-
selves. A steady and true love to nature prepares a good soil
fur the moral seed-corn, as it also bears witness to an originally

48 .ESTHETIC EDUCATION.

good nature that is favourable for moral culture. But just as
well as this sense of the beautiful, the graceful and lovely,
we must also cultivate our sense of the lofty in nature. A
glance away into the endless distance of the horizon, or aloft
to the mountains extending higher than the eye can reach,
the contemplation of the starry heaven, or of the boundless
ocean, are educational in an ethical sense, a preparation or
incitement to improvement, so far as we thereby are ele-
vated from the petty existence which in daily life would
confine and tie us up ; because we thus became conscious of
our littleness, as well as of the insignificance of so many
of our wishes ; because thereby the feeling of the uncondi-
tionally lofty and great, that we carry in our own breast, is
awakened. Who could well — provided that he is of a some-
what well-disposed nature — still cherish and nurse in grand
natural surroundings, or while gazing up to the sublime starry
heaven, his petty vain thoughts that revolve round his own
self, his own littleness ? On the contrary, it may confidently
be said that such elevated natural surroundings are fitted to
evoke far-reaching thoughts of light in a human brain, and to
awaken in a human heart heroic purposes and conclusions,
thoughts and efforts such as are hardly bred in gloomy cities,
in the narrow study, or in splendid drawing-rooms. And not
only should man make himself acquainted with creative and
preserving nature, but not less with destroying nature also,
which regardlessly annihilates its own works, pulls down great
and small into the same destruction, and so often, by lightning
and earthquake, by eruptions of volcanoes, by inundations and
hurricanes, destroys the lives of many thousands of men and
the works of their hands. Tor he who acquaints himself with
such phenomena, will at the same time become familiarized
with the thought of his own dependence and helplessness, but
also with the idea that dwells within us of that spiritual free-
dom which raises him above all these things, and opens to the
spirit an asylum in a higher order of things.

Yet nature is a mere lower school for the contemplation of
the lofty. The right school is history, which presents to us
the awfully glorious spectacle of a change of things destroy-
ing all, and restoring, and then again destroying. History
unrolls before us the great pathetic pictures of humanity as

AESTHETIC EDUCATION. 49

it lies struggling with fate, pictures of countless change of
fortune, of the false security of man, of disappointed calcula-
tions and mistaken carelessness, of triumphant unrighteous-
ness and of vanquished innocence, — deeply moving scenes,
which the tragic art by its imitations makes to pass before us.
What man, not quite morally abandoned, can well behold the
long, obstinate, but often vain struggles of heroes, statesmen,
and entire peoples, — struggles for a high historical goal, but
which resolved itself into humiliation, yea into nothing, — who
can tarry by the overthrow of kingdoms and cities, by the
ruins of Syracuse and Carthage, without bowing trembling
before the severe law of necessity, without instantly bidding
his low desires be silent ? without feeling himself impressed
by this eternal inconstancy and unfaithfulness prevailing in
all that is visible, without grasping something enduring, firm,
unchangeable, and immoveable within himself?

But aesthetic education is only finished by fine art, which
in its creations places the ideal before our eyes, and that freed
from the accidental additions and limitations with which in
reality it is burdened. That is to say, while we appropriate
the beautiful in the works of art, especially of poetry, make
it our internal property, it becomes thereby, as it were, a
component part of our own being, and we are thereby like-
wise fitted to introduce it into our own life, and to bring our
actions into harmony with the good. In familiarizing our-
selves with the lofty, with the pathetic representations of
the tragic art, we likewise become familiar with the world of
spirit, with the law of the spiritual world that rules in our
own breast ; we are prepared and strengthened to endure the
trials of life. Just in this consists the ethically, not merely
purifying, but ennobling and internally strengthening power of
the tragic art, that it acquaints us with the earnestness of life,
and shows how the same is transformed into true spiritual
freedom. In actual life it habitually occurs, that misfortune
surprises man and finds him defenceless. But misfortune,
as poetry presents it to us, serves as a means of education,
in order not to be surprised by actual misfortune ; and in
awakening our consciousness of eternity, in setting in motion
our freedom of will, that independent principle ruling within
us, it raises us above the temporal, visible, and sensual, and

p

50 AESTHETIC EDUCATION.

educates us to bear actual misfortune with dignity. The
oftener we, through yielding ourselves to the influence of the
pathetic, renew this inner act of freedom, this inner elevation
above fate, the sooner and more entirely this becomes a
readiness, so much the greater advantage does it gain over
sensual impulse. And then, when at last the aesthetic mis-
fortune comes to be an actual one, the spirit is able to deal
again with the actual as an aesthetic, and — wherein the
highest flight of human nature consists — to resolve actual
suffering into a lofty emotion. It may therefore be said that
by means of the pathetic, of which we become partakers
through the tragic art, an inoculation takes place, in which
inevitable fate is inoculated into us, and thereby loses its evil
character.

And as the tJuatre, the dramatic stage, unites all arts in
one great total effect, it is, as regards its true meaning and
destiny, to be viewed as a moral institution, whose effect is at
once to ennoble and to free, to educate and to amuse. As
certainly as sensuous representation has a mightier effect than
the dead letter and cold education, the effect of the stage
is likewise deeper and more abiding than cold morals with
its dry dogmas, whether the stage show us duty in a be-
witching vesture, depict before our eyes virtues that elevate
and transport the mind, vices that fill it with horror and
amazement ; or whether in comedy it represents follies and
weaknesses that excite our laughter, while we ourselves at
the same time receive secret warnings, which, although we
feel ourselves hit, are yet not disagreeable, and- do not make
us blush. And not only does the stage direct our attention
to men and human characters, but also to the course and the
form of earthly lots ; and it teaches us, as above said, to bear
them, familiarizes us with the manifold human sufferings,
which, when they occur in real life, will not find us unprepared.
Therefore the theatre, more than any other institution in the
state, is a school of practical wisdom, a finger-post through
life, a key to the human soul, that here confesses its inmost
secrets. And if it collects its spectators from all circles,
from all classes ; if thus all differences by which men are in
social relation divided from each other here vanish, — all filled
with the same sympathy, in which they forget themselves

AESTHETIC EDUCATION. 51

and the rest of the world, and come nearer their heavenly
origin ; if each individual enjoys the same rapture that all
enjoy, and has now only room for one feeling in his breast,
namely, that he is a man ; then certainly the theatre may
with full right and reason be called a temple of humanity.

We have in the preceding endeavoured to reproduce in
general outlines Schiller's doctrine of aesthetic education.1
Now this remains the chief ethical question : whether such
aesthetic education is able to beget a really harmonious
morality, and to free man from the bondage of the law and
of duty above discussed.

§ 19.

First of all, we must set forth certain limiting conditions,
without which the aesthetic education commended to us
absolutely cannot take place. The difficulty soon appears that
the aesthetic may not merely be promotive of, and co-operative
with, the ethical, but that it also presents hindrances and
dangers which have to be avoided and combated. Schiller
himself has drawn attention to this, by which he proves his
uprightness and moral earnestness, but likewise also has done
his part to weaken confidence in the belauded means. I
mean, although this is common to both interests, the aesthetic
and the moral, that each is an interest for something of
universal import, that both raise man above the merely
egoistic point of view ; yet there is this great difference, that
the aesthetic interest is essentially an interest of the imagina-
tion, and only requires that the form, the phenomenon, the
surface, fully reflect the contents, no matter what sort of
contents they be. The aesthetic interest is equally lively in
the terrifying as in the lovely and peaceful scenes of nature,
if only these natural scenes bring to view the phenomenon

1 "We refer here not only to the Briefe uber die asthetische Erziehung des
Menschen, Letters on the ./Esthetic Education of Man ; but especially to his
treatises, Ueber den moralischen Nutzen aathetischer Sitten, On the Moral Use
of jEsthetic Customs ; Ueber das Erhabene, On the Lofty ; Ueber Anmutli und
Wiirde, On Grace and Dignity ; Ueber naive und sentimentale Dichtung, On Naive
and Sentimental Poetry ; and Ueber die Schaubilhne als eine moralische Anstalt
betrachtet, On the Stage considered as a Moral Institution. Reference is, more-
over, to be made to Kant's Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Critique of the Judgment, as
the chief source from which Schiller derived his view of the beautiful and lofty.

52 AESTHETIC EDUCATION.

of the lofty, the brilliant. The mere sesthetist has just as
great delight in Correggio's heathen-mythological, as in his
Christian pictures. He never inquires about the what, but
only about the how. He takes as much interest in poetic
delineations of immoral, criminal characters (Don Juan, Lady
Macbeth, Richard III.), as in moral and noble characters ;
nay, not seldom he may even have greater interest in the
immoral and profligate, so far as these enchain the fancy
more, than in the moral, who sometimes may be somewhat
colourless and monotonous. Moral contemplation, again,
everywhere seeks for the relation to the moral law, and to
the ideal of morality. But now it follows from this difference,
that very frequently the aesthetic and the ethical come into
collision with each other in life. According to the prescrip-
tions furnished us by the aesthetic education, we are to
cultivate our sense for the beautiful, the harmonious, in order
to bring about agreement between duty and inclination, and
to facilitate the ei ercise of duty. But if there are undeniably
cases where for the aesthetically cultured the exercise of duty
will be easier than for the aesthetically uncultured, still there
are also cases where the contrary occurs. We will not here
enter particularly into the collisions which inclination for a
beautiful woman may evoke between the aesthetic and the
ethical, of which Goethe's Werther may serve as example,
to whose morality it did no good that his aesthetic sense was
so developed and fine, which likewise also applies to Tasso in
his relation to the princess. We will take another example.
Let us suppose a female, with developed sense of beauty,
whose duty it is in remote silence, unobserved and unregarded,
to nurse a sick man having a loathsome disease ; that she
must remain day and night at the side of this sick one, and
afford him every service which such sick-nursing involves ;
that during this exercise of duty she must renounce not only
every enjoyment of art, which many a time gave her joy,
but also the refreshing and enlivening enjoyment of nature,
for which indeed she often longs, but from which she is
excluded, because the sick man to whom she is chained by
feelings of piety needs her every moment: will not her
sense of beauty, her finer organization, become a tempting
hindrance to her, an enemy of her exercise of duty, such as

ESTHETIC EDUCATION. 53

has no existence at all to another who is not aesthetically
developed, nay, is poorly equipped by nature, in an {esthetic
point of view ? True, some one may here object that we are
not only to develop the feeling for the beautiful, but also
the feeling for the lofty, which transports us above the world
of sense, and makes us conscious that we are spiritual beings,
who in the midst of the misery of this life feel themselves
raised above all misery. We will leave it undecided whether
the Stoic ideals of sublimity, to which Schiller points, would
be effective enough to overcome, in the case mentioned, the
hindrances opposing the sense of beauty. But in general,
we will remark that in many cases the sense for the sublime
may also bring with it great hindrances. For that which in
the aesthetically sublime fetters the mind is the power which
is therein revealed, without any inquiry as to the moral
nature of the power; for only lack of power is aesthetically
objectionable. The sublime characters that poetry and history
represent to us, are distinguished by a spiritual power, which
spreads a shining light over them, surrounds them with a
nimbus. But this their sublime spiritual energy is very
various ; and the great characters that appear before us in
history and tragedy, have mostly an ingredient of sin and
guilt. Now, in this lies the temptation to approve, even in a
moral point of view, what we aesthetically admire, although
so much is present that one must morally condemn, — yea,
the temptation to frame a morality for oneself after these
aesthetic types. And there have been many who, in admira-
tion for the aesthetically sublime and great, allowed themselves
to be led into antinomianism, into a false geniality in morals,
who, with contempt of the low, the small, the Philistine, as
they called it, set duties aside which the actual relations
required, preferred to act, or at least to feel, sublimely and
grandly, instead of simply being righteous and true to duty.

Now from all this it by no means follows that the aesthetic
education should not have its value. This, however, does
follow, that no small degree of moral development and ripeness
is required beforehand in order to apply it usefully, and that
in any case care must be taken that it do not get in advance
of the moral education, but rather occupy the relation to this
latter of a mere concomitant. Wherever there is a want of

54 .ESTHETIC EDUCATION.

right insight in order to be able to control the aesthetic, the
latter will become, in more than one respect, dangerous and
obstructive to morality, will easily give the one concerned the
impulse to antinomianism, eudemonism, epicureanism, and
quietism, to effeminacy, moral sloth, and self-indulgence, of
which there are always only too many examples among poets,
artists, dilettantists, aesthetic reviewers, and theatrical critics,
theatre-goers and novel-readers of both sexes, in those rich
people who again and again make Italian tours to see works
of art, picture galleries, and the beauties of nature, people
whose morality, instead of being supported by the aesthetic,
goes to ruin under a thousand aesthetic temptations, and who,
not to speak of much else, manifestly become unfit for actual
life. Where, again, the power of judgment is ripened and
developed, thoroughly to distinguish between the ethical and
the aesthetic, and at the same time the moral will sufficiently
strengthened, to assign to the aesthetic in the development of
the personality the subordinate and auxiliary position belong-
ing to it, the aesthetic self-education will admit of being
usefully applied. For then there will occur a mutual action
between the ethical and the aesthetic. The ethical will then
rule the aesthetic and bear the sceptre. And the aesthetic,
again, will in many cases manifest a reactive power, to
strengthen and purify the ethical, to cultivate the finer moral
tact. But as the aesthetic education thus in a high degree
itself needs to be supported by that to which it was to serve
as a support and furtherance, it will be understood that only
a relative worth belongs to it, and that one cannot promise
himself a very great deal from its alliance.

But there is still another indispensable condition, if the
aesthetic education is to be usefully applied. It almost seems
superfluous to mention it, namely, that he who is to apply
it possess in his nature, that is, from the first, an aesthetic
disposition. As we distinguish between natural and ethical
self-acquired virtues, so we must, in reference to the aesthetic,
make a similar distinction. But now there are not a few
men who are only very imperfectly furnished with aesthetic
disposition, men in a high degree respectable, and in many
respects brave and able, who yet on every occasion must give
new proof of their want of aesthetic sense, their left-handed

.ESTHETIC EDUCATION. 55

and formiess ways, their indiscretion and want of tact,
whereby the impression of their otherwise excellent properties
is injured. If such people subject themselves to the aesthetic
education, the consequence will infallibly be, that nothing but
a new form of bondage to the law and to duty emerges ; while
they, in order to acquire fair forms and graces, must do them-
selves violence, use now the bridle, now the whip, in order to
satisfy the aesthetic rule, and yet all without success. If, for
example, the innate want of tact in many men be even over-
come in certain cases, certain social requirements, by means
of continued exercise and discipline, yet it will return, so soon
as new cases occur. The aesthetic disposition is, as Schiller
so often repeats, a gift of heaven ; and if the aesthetic is to
be helpful to us in reconciling duty and inclination, in per-
forming hard duty with ease, the aesthetic education must also
itself proceed with ease; respect and grace, as amid smiling jest
or play, must be exercised and learned. But if the aesthetic
education is thus conditioned by a favourable aesthetic nature,
and further by a higher as well intellectual as moral develop-
ment ; one may quite allow its human importance, but must
also so limit it as not to apply it to all men, but only to a
narrower circle of the gifted and cultured. It is in a spiritual
sense aristocratic. When Schiller, in regard to aesthetic
education, reminds us of Christianity, which redeems man
from the bondage of the law by substituting for it a free
inclination, we again must recall to mind that Christianity is
not possessed of this aristocratic pre-eminent character that is
inseparable from Schiller's view, as well as from all philo-
sophic righteousness. For Christianity does not direct itself
to the aesthetically gifted and philosophically cultured, but
begins by pronouncing those blessed who are poor in spirit,
and who hunger and thirst after righteousness; and under
this condition, this presupposition, it promises to every man
to help him to peace and to a deep harmony of his being,
that will free him in another way from the bondage of the
law.

§20.

But granted that the conditions for an aesthetic education
exist, will it then be able actually to bring to pass a har-

56 AESTHETIC EDUCATION.

monious morality, to which, however, there belongs not merely
a partial harmony of duty and inclination, but above all, an
undisturbed and indestructible peace in the inner man, a unity
in the depth of the human being, as the keynote of that
harmony into which each of the discords of human life must
be resolved? Or, in other words, can aesthetic education
bring that to pass which, according to the gospel, comes to
pass only through regeneration by God's Spirit and the re-
demption of Jesus Christ ? For at bottom this was the
opinion, as it was also thought with all earnestness that the
theatre, at least for those who were initiated into the higher
humanity, could suitably supplant the Church, as was also
actually the case with many.

We must here point out a fundamental error in the whole
ethics of Schiller, namely, that the opposition which is to be
reconciled is none other than the opposition between reason
and sense. If it were so that we had only to contend with
an undisciplined nature, with impulses only needing to be
controlled and regulated, with rudeness and want of culture,
then one might hope that a moral education, which accom-
panied and helped the aesthetic, would at length effect a
reconciliation in the being of man. But so optimist a view
of human nature does not agree with experience ; and as a
poet, Schiller himself in many cases has gone beyond this
view. We have not merely to fight with flesh and blood, but
with an invisible enemy ; for behind the undisciplined nature,
behind the sensual impulses, there stands the egoistic will as
the proper enemy that we must fight. We recall Kant's
doctrine of the radical evil, which Schiller did not appro-
priate. Of this radical evil one must say, however, that it
can be expelled by no aesthetic education and refinement of
taste.

And, further, we must repeat a truth of which one cannot
be often enough reminded, because it is constantly forgotten
again, namely, that no mere knowledge is able to redeem us
from the egoistic will. But the aesthetic contemplation, the
fancy- view which presents everything to itself in individual
forms, is also a sort of knowledge, although a more lively sort
than that which rests on abstract conceptions. And even in
this consists our great difficulty, that we find ourselves in an

AESTHETIC EDUCATION. 57

original discord between knowledge and will, or, as we may
also express- it, in a discord between the law and our will.
For a knowledge which makes an indefeasible requirement
from the will of man, is just an expression for the law ; and
it does not cease to be law because it clothes itself in aesthetic
forms, because it is not uttered as a command of duty, but
presents itself as a realized ideal For as soon as this perfec-
tion, be it in nature or in art, addresses if even only a silent
requirement to our will, we must therein acknowledge the
law. Even in the aesthetic contemplation we remain under
the law, so far as we cannot receive it into our will. Now,
it is not only the testimony of the apostle, but also that of
experience, that the law cannot quicken (help to regeneration,
to the new life), or, what comes to the same thing, that no
mere knowledge, no doctrine, is able to redeem us from egoism ;
that for this a new life's fountain, a new life's principle, is
required. True, knowledge is an essential condition for the
purifying of our will, in presenting to us the ideal and like-
wise the contradiction in which we stand to it. It may also
indeed partly work upon the will ; but where power fails the
will, knowledge cannot communicate it. And what holds
true of knowledge in general, admits of application also to the
aesthetic contemplation. This can give us a living view of the
ideal, as well in the forms of the beautiful as of the sublime ;
it can awaken a longing for it ; it can evoke feelings and moods
in which the spirit soars higher ; it can bewitch and transport
us into a dream-state, in which our egoism is put to sleep.
But to give to egoism its death-wound, to transform the will
in its centre, this art can do quite as little as philosophy.
In his treatise on The Stage as a Moral Institution, from
which Schiller promises himself so much, he himself makes
an admission on this side, when he says : " Moliere's Harpagon
has perhaps reformed no usurer yet, the suicide Beverley has
withdrawn as yet few of his brothers from the abominable
passion for gambling, Karl Moor's unhappy robber-history will
not perhaps make the highways much more secure." " But,"
he continues, " although we limit that great effect of the stage,
were we so unjust as even to remove (that is, deny) it,
how infinitely much of its influence still remains ! If it
neither destroys nor lessens the sum of vices, has it not made

58 AESTHETIC EDUCATION.

us acquainted with them ?" So the matter stands. This is
what the theatre effects. It can show us the world and men
in an ideal mirror, and can also tend to internally liberate our
mind by transporting us into a contemplative state, and with
this likewise communicating a humour which brings our
mental powers into a new and freer circulation. Art may
have the effect of confirming in us certain feelings and views.
In the deepest foundation of our will, however, no sort of
change has yet occurred.

We here again refer to Kant, who on this point forms a
contrast to Schiller. When Kant treats of the radical evil
in human nature, he makes the remarkable statement, that if
a good will is to appear in us, this cannot happen through
a partial improvement, not through any reform, but only
through a revolution, a total overturn within us, that is to be
compared to a new creation. When Kant uttered these
words, he stood immediately before the door of Christianity,
without however entering, or yet making any further applica-
tion of this acknowledgment. The revolution he here requires
is the regeneration of which Christ spoke with Nicodemus,
when the latter came by night to Him, and received from the
Lord the very instruction that with partial reforms nothing is
gained. Kant now quieted himself, indeed, by stating the
requirement: Man must undertake this revolution himself by
thoroughly reversing the previous relation between his maxims,
and by receiving, through an unchangeable decision, the prin-
ciple of morality into his mode of thought, and reforming in
detail accordingly, whereby one — since God ktoks upon the
heart — must be able to become well-pleasing to Him. And
yet in this only a lamentable inconsistency can be recog-
nised. It is really of no use to set forth this requirement,
if one cannot show the possibility of its fulfilment, and when
one has shortly before admitted that we ourselves are not in
a position to effect this revolution, because the radical evil
has destroyed our maxims, and thus we, by our own means,
cannot become pure in heart. We will only then be able
to fulfil the requirement when we can occupy a standpoint
fully independent of the radical evil outside our own natural
ego. (" Give me a standpoint outside the earth," said Archi-
medes, " and I will move the earth.") The true consequence

ESTHETIC EDUCATION. 59

of Kant's doctrine is grace, and this prayer, " Create in me a
clean heart, 0 God."1 Otherwise we stop short at partial
reforms, beyond which neither moral discipline nor aesthetic
education can go.

§ 21.

The fundamental error in Schiller's ethics is the assumption
that an autonomous (independent) freedom, a freedom without
divine authority and without divine grace, can really attain
to right unity with itself. Only in God does man come
to harmony and to peace, and the autonomous freedom is
condemned to the dualism between ideal and reality, to a
schism with itself and the world. This appears unmistakeably
in Schiller himself. He is penetrated by a deep ethical
enthusiasm, and may very properly be designated the poet
of freedom and emancipation. In his earliest youth the ideal
of freedom occurred to him in the form of a robber, who over
against a morally corrupt society stands relatively justified.
His Marquis Posa proclaimed from every stage, with glowing
captivating eloquence, emancipation from despotism, from
monarchical absolutism, from the rule of priests, from Catholi-
cism and inquisition, announced the freedom of the peoples, in
connection with the ideals of citizenship of the world, of free
thought, of the rights of man and the common weal. In his
riper works he depicted, from different points of view, the
ideal of freedom, as well as the temptations and collisions
of freedom ( Wallenstein) ; attempted even in the Maid of
Orleans to raise himself to the representation of the faith
that removes mountains. The suffering freedom that, with
elevation and resignation, endures fate and guilt, he depicted
in Mary Stuart and in the Bride of Messina ; and he closed
his career with William Tell, a popular hero, who gives the
impulse to the heroic self-help of a whole people, to its self-
emancipation from tyranny and bondage. In all these works
we acknowledge and admire, more and more in proportion to
his further self-development, the harmonious union of the
ethical and the aesthetic, of dignity and grace, of elevation
and beauty. And when we turn from the poet to the man, we

1 Compare Frank, System der christlichen Oewissheit, I. 120 ffi

GO AESTHETIC EDUCATION.

find in his noble, spiritually eminent personality, features of
the same harmony, and say with Goethe :

" For, him behind, in unsubstantial show,
The Common lay, that binds us all below."

But if we inquire after the chief thing, whether in his heart
he found peace and reconciliation, we receive no satisfying
answer. He has felt the solemnity of the law, has bowed
with veiled face beneath the majesty thereof, has in his
inmost heart become convinced that all human virtue and
greatness pales before the requirements of the law, that here
there exists a divergence that no one can fill up, a yawning
deep over which no one can throw a bridge, and in which no
anchor can find bottom. If we further ask him what we
shall lay hold of, we indeed hear him say :

"Admit the Deity into your will,
And from His throne of worlds He'll come. "

But how we are to obey this requirement, namely, to admit
the Deity into our will, who, as Schiller sings, dwells above
the stars (above the stars He must dwell), that he has not
told us, and could not even tell himself. He has no other
gospel beyond art ; and this he confides to us as his last :

"Thou needs must flee from life's oppressing throng,
Away into the heart's still, holy room.
Freedom is but in dreams, and but in song
For thee the Beautiful doth bud and bloom. "

And if we seek to penetrate deeper into his self-confessions,
we hear him as a pilgrim, a wanderer on earth, complain that
he set out into life with a quiet hope and an obscure word
of faith, to find an outlet from this labyrinth ; but the longer
and farther he had wandered, the more had he experienced
that heaven and earth would not unite ; that as often as he
approached the goal, it drew farther away from him into the
distance. Then we hear him lament that the ideals that
were his companions when he entered the way of life, faith-
lessly left him the farther he advanced on that way, and that
the suns which at first gave him light went out one after the
other. And if he has to say what then is left, what he has
retained, he names only friendship, and quiet, indefatigable
work ("occupation, that never wearies"). Now friendship

AESTHETIC EDUCATION. 61

and industry are undoubtedly noble blessings ; but if the
whole outcome of life is to be limited to these, we must
pronounce this a miserable result. Here also, as with Goethe,
une last thing is resignation. And here also, just as in the
ancient heathenism, resignation is the opposite pole to optimism,
in this case the opposite pole to Schiller's optimist view of
human freedom, of human nature's power of self-help and
self-redemption.

Yet we will not forget, that when he as a poet deeply felt
that the best must come to us as a higher gift, which we
cannot gain by the force of our exertions, he has herewith
given utterance to deep presentiments of the gospel, as
when he, in his poem Fortune (das Gluck}, thus beautifully
expresses it :

" From what is unworthy the will that is earnest can keep thee
All that is highest comes freely down from the gods ; "

or when he, in the same poem, says : No one becomes happy
(blessed) but through a miracle. For in these and kindred
utterances he speaks in manifest contradiction with the
principles of self-help and self-redemption, and declares that
the morality which is only our very own, even granting it to
preserve us from what is bad and unworthy, yet can never
advance us to the perfect, that the highest must be given us
from above, without any desert and worthiness of ours, and
that we have only to accept the same in humility and
unbounded thankfulness. Such presentiments, however, by
which he raises himself above his ethical (Kantian) principles,
only testify that he has not found inner harmony and peace,
but that he still seeks these blessings.

In Thorvaldsen's statue of Schiller, the poet is represented
with bent head. Many have blamed this, and thought that
the poet ought to have been represented with raised head,
elevated to heaven, as an expression of his enthusiasm for
the ideal of freedom. Others, again, are of the opinion that
Thorvaldsen here also has hit the right mark : that Schiller
must be given with bent head, with the bearing of dejected
thinking and brooding over the contrast between ideal and
reality, over the unsolved riddle of life. Among the defenders
of this view we name Francis Baader, who has remarked that
there belongs to the characteristics of Schiller's poetry the

62 THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY.

sadness of unsatisfied search, which like a tear dims the clear
glance, but in this very gloom is refracted in rich colours, and
appears like a rainbow in the cloud sinking to the earth ; that
thus the master has accurately expressed the character of the
poet by the head bent towards the earth.1

TJie Middle-way Morality.
§ 22.

The moral life under the law, in its previously considered
form, incessantly emphasizes the ideal, but ends with painful
resignation, because the ideal is not to be realized. In
opposition to this there is another direction of the moral life
which before all lays emphasis on reality and the practically
attainable ; on this, that one must take the world just as it is,
a direction which, without troubling itself about it, from the
outset renounces the ideal, which costs it no trouble, as it does
not know the ideal at all, and so also does not miss it. This
realistic direction of thought and life holds to the so-called
morality of the middle- way, or the middle-sort morality, which
is also well designated the morality of practical world-culture,
and that is alone of worth for life. One simply does not
permit himself ideal flights of mind, does not sink into brood-
ings on the unconditioned command of duty. Instead, one
holds to the special duties that daily life brings with it, and
makes it his chief problem to preserve the " golden middle-
way " between the extremes, and neither in any respect to go
too far nor to remain too far behind. Having regard to the
considerations imposed by actual life, and avoiding every lack
or superfluity, one moves on and on exclusively in the finite
and conditioned, without ever entering on a real relation to
the unconditioned, the absolutely precious, whereby thus the
deeper contradiction existing within man does not at all reach
the consciousness, however readily it be allowed that we are
all imperfect men. This morality we add to the rubric of
philosophical righteousness, so far as it also rests upon a

1 Baader's Werlce, V. 349 f. : "Ueber die von Thorwaldsen ausgefiihrte Statue
Schiller's."

THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY. 63

process of reasoning, and is not limited to single parts of
moral conduct, but extends to the whole life. Its consistent
followers pass through an entire long earthly existence without
ever raising their glance to the ideal. If this latter once
presents itself to them with its glance of eternity, with its
unconditioned and inviolable requirement, they do not stand
their ground, but at once take refuge again in finitude, in the
merely relatively valuable, in the conditioned relations.

Yet, if we would more closely estimate the middle-way
morality, and not only recognise its manifest defects, but also,
the relative validity, the worth that belongs to it, and which
makes it indispensable to every one, and that it must occupy
its position within every morality, but no doubt subordinated
to a higher ; we must now more thoroughly test a definition
usually named after Aristotle, namely, that definition by
which virtue is said to be the right mean between two
extremes.

§ 23.

The right mean is equivalent to the right measure. But
measure is a definition of quantity, a relation between magni-
tudes ; and the virtuous mode of dealing is, according to this,
defined as that which ever holds the mean between over-
measure and under-measure, between too much and too little,
between exaggerations and shortcomings, excesses and defects.
Thus charitableness (liberality) is the right mean between
prodigality and avarice ; bravery the mean between foolhardi-
ness and cowardice. The weak side of this definition is, that
it only determines the difference between virtue and vice
quantitatively, that is, only as a difference of degree, resting
on a more or less, and so on a moving boundary, while this
difference must be defined qualitatively, that is to say, as a
difference of essence, as an absolute thoroughgoing difference
of principles ; that one learns nothing of the proper nature of
the right mean and the right measure, nothing of what in this
measure constitutes the thing and the essence itself, just as
little as of the essence of vices and virtues, or of the extremes;
that it says nothing of the moral sentiment, from which
virtuous or vicious actions spring, as from their source,
nothing of the motive or the quietive, nothing of the position

64 THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY.

of the conscience and the will to the unconditioned command
of duty ; in short, nothing of all that morals chiefly inquire
into. It gives us nothing further than the determination of
a relation, which is thus so far a mere determination of form.
Now, as regards Aristotle, it is indeed right to bear in mind
that the definition quoted only characterizes the one side of
his ethics, namely, the side turned towards actual life, the
strictly speaking practical side, and that his ethics have also
an ideal side, on which the unconditioned finds its full recog-
nition.1 It is to be remembered that the actions falling under
that mean (77 /teo-or^?), according to Aristotle, first receive
their moral value when they have their foundation in the self-
conscious knowledge of the commandment of the reason, and
are undertaken for the sake of the good in itself; that virtue
does not consist in the external action alone, but in the
sentiment animating it, which must be free from all egoistic
motives. Yet the question may again be asked : whether in
Aristotle this ideal side really receives practical application,
and whether, in practice at least, all does not issue in the
morals of externalism and of works.2 "We will not, however,
here enter upon historical investigations on Aristotle and his
many followers, through the entire Middle Ages and down
to modern times. We wish to consider the conception in
question, of intermediate morality in itself; for as an inde-
pendent conception, it has ever itself played a great part in
human life, and does so down to the present day.

Although the conception of virtue as the mean between
two extremes is inadequate to express the essence of virtue
and of vice, it finds, on the other hand, a rich application when
we speak of the phenomena (appearance-forms) of virtue and
of vice. It is of great importance, not indeed for the essential
and internal, which is the proper morality, but at any rate
for the phenomenal (emerging in the world of appearance) or
aesthetic morality, which no doubt must take its origin from the
essential morality; and thus must not seek to be independent
of it. That virtue is the mean between two extremes, contains
the truth that the virtuous or the wise man must even in his
outward appearing produce the impression of the harmonious,

1 Brandis, das aristotelische Lehrgebdude, p. 143ff.

* Luthardt, drittes Programm tiber Aristoteles, 1876, pp. 17 if., 47.

THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY. 65

of moderation and of order, of form and of self-limitation;
whereas he that is given to a vice, or infected by a fault, will
in his conduct make the impression of the disharmonious, of
the unbeautiful, of one striving against form and the right
rules of conduct. In this its external appearance, wherein
both virtue and vice enter into the finite conditions of life
and relations, into their relativeness, changeableness, and
temporariness, the moral indisputably falls under quantitative
determinations of a more or less, although these first receive
their right moral significance through the deeper-lying quali-
tative, that is, essential determinations. Industry receives its
true moral worth through a qualitative determination, namely,
through the sentiment with which one works, through faith-
fulness in the service of duty ; and in duty itself, viewed
purely ideally, there is no more or less ; it knows only the
unconditioned : Thou oughtest, thou must ! But, on the other
hand, industry admits of being brought under quantitative
determinations. For the degree in which I exert myself — how
many hours a day, for example, I shall work, to what range
I shall extend my activity — depends on my power of work,
and must be decided according to circumstances. True, the
important thing here is to hit the right mean, in order on the
one hand not to become guilty of laxity and neglect, on the
other hand not to weaken one's strength through over-exertion,
or to fall a prey to a useless and fruitless over-activity.
Every life's enjoyment receives its moral worth through the
mental appreciation of the blessings of life and the thankful
sentiment with which they are enjoyed, and has in this its
qualitative determination. On the other hand, it must be
quantitatively determined according to the special suscepti-
bility of each one. Here it is important to hit the right mean,
in order neither to fall into immoderateness, nor into pedantic
abstinence. Economy receives its moral - qualitative deter-
mination through the consciousness of being the steward of
entrusted goods, the consciousness of responsibility, and of an
account to be rendered, through faithfulness in stewardship.
On the other hand, it must be determined quantitatively. For
it depends upon my income how much I dare spend, whether
for my requirements or for my pleasures, so as to preserve the
right mean between greed and prodigality. The difference

E

66 THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY.

between greed and prodigality may, quantitatively considered,
consist in a given case in a few dollars more or less. But
qualitatively, in principle, in essence, the difference by no
means consists in a more or less. Here prodigality and
economy are related like faithfulness and unfaithfulness, which
is no difference of degree, as if unfaithfulness were only a less
degree of faithfulness ; for, on the contrary, faithfulness and
unfaithfulness are related to each other as absolute opposites
mutually exclusive. The conception of virtue as the right
mean finds, however, its application not only to human actions,
but also to human affections — for instance, joy and sorrow. A
fool easily yields to an excess of joy and sorrow, while even
in this the wise man will know how to preserve moderation.
But the moral value of joy and sadness rests on deeper-seated
qualitative determinations of the sentiment. The moral value
that belongs, for instance, to the moderation of the wise man
in his sorrow is different, according as the principle or source
of his moderation is mere resignation, or faith.

The moderate morality, however, extends over the whole
moral world, in so far as the judging of it falls under quanti-
tative determinations (of more or less). In daily life each
one feels himself directly required to apply it in inter-
course with men, in walk and conversation, amid all business,
and especially also in social life. How often, for example,
one has to visit this or that acquaintance or patron, so as on
the one hand not to neglect them, on the other hand not to
become wearisome to them by too frequent visits ; or in
what degree one has to take part in social conversation, so as
neither to sit dumb and as if absent, or as one who in silence
criticises the whole, nor yet to usurp the conversation, and
fall into a lecturing tone; the decision thereon belongs entirely
to the point of view of the " right mean." But all this
receives moral significance in the proper sense only when the
outer side is brought into connection with the inner, and
thereby with the whole life of the personality. Sundered from
this, it has only aesthetic significance, that is, it shows merely
the surface of virtues and faults, their form-side, their pheno-
menon. Thus, to add an example to those already adduced
in Holberg's Wochenstube (Chamber of Confinement), an
advice is given to women to preserve the right mean in their

THE MIDDLE-WAY MORALITY. 67

conversation when they make visits on such occasions. We
are to guard, on the one hand, against the extreme represented
by the schoolmaster David's Else, and the other gossips who
deafen the lying-in woman with their chatter, fall out about
their snuff, about town rumours, and about the ship just seen
in the moon, so that the lying-in woman has to hold her ears
for their noise. On the other hand, we are, however, to guard
against the other extreme appearing in Engelke the hatter's
wife, entering immediately after them, of whom shortly before
it had been told that she sits in company like a statue, that
has neither voice nor speech ; who makes her bow, takes her
seat, but in her embarrassment utters not a single word, rises,
makes her salutation, and departs. An example that admits
of being translated into an infinitude of different forms, while
the moral remains the same, namely, that we must also in
intercourse observe a juste milieu, which in many cases
amounts to this, that we are to be as most people are, that is,
a lesson without any deeper determination of the essence. In
high society also the right mean plays a chief part ; for here
also the main rule is, to do neither too much nor too little; in
all that happens to preserve decency, moderation, equipoise,
in all relations a firm demeanour ; also, never to go too far in
one's utterances and judgments, not to let oneself be carried
away, for example, not to express too great admiration, but
also to blame nothing too keenly, as the tone of high society
requires a certain indifference to hover over all.

Men who order their whole life according to this moderate
morality, sundered from the unconditioned, will never arrive
at any other self-knowledge than such as is confined to
the knowledge of the externally decent and respectable, of
what simply belongs to their merely phenomenal life (spent
in the world of appearance) with an outward aim. To arrive
at a real self-knowledge, the unconditioned command of duty,
or the requirement of the ideal, must dawn upon them as the
one thing that, with all that is singular and special, is to be
that which determines and animates from within outwards.
So long as such people hold to the mere moderate morality,
and to the neutral mean (different from the central mean of
principle), they are only in the outmost periphery of morality.
Yet it must be allowed that in many cases the want of the

68 THE MIDDLE-WAY MOEALITY.

acknowledged ideal can in some measure be supplied by an
immediate tact, in which the ideal is instinctively operative.
Still, however excellent a thing tact may be, and however
much can in no other way be decided than by a right tact,
this is yet an insufficient substitute, where moral principles
and a moral view of life are required.

§ 24.

While the moderate morality moves exclusively within
finite things, it nevertheless develops in its prose an ideal
element, so far, namely, as it plays a chief part in the comic
conception of human faults and virtues. True, such a middle
sort of morality may, even through its ideal deficiency, appear
in a comic light. It also, however, sharpens the sight for the
comical existing outside itself, for the extreme, for immoderate-
ness, for caricature, whose significance just consists in being
an exaggeration of the personally peculiar and special, of the
characteristic (even as the Italian word caricare properly
means to overload). True, indeed, the comic embraces, besides
the extreme, other things and more. But the extreme re-
mains the chief element of the comic, as the passing beyond
moderation, although in an entirely different way, also forms
a chief element of the tragic. The morality that may be
deduced from many works of comic poetry is just the
moderate morality. The moralist who will lead men back
to the right mean, and, warning, points to the extremes to be
avoided, says : " Be moderate ! Not too much, and not too
little ! Else thou behavest like a senseless K man, and be-
cornest lad" The comedian, again, says, while showing us in
his hollow mirror the same extremes : " Be moderate ! Not too
much and not too little ! Else thou becomest ridiculous" Let
us here refer to Theophrastus, the Greek philosopher (about
the year 312 before Christ), and to the Danish comic poet
and moralist, Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754), in whom we
may learn the middle sort of morality, both in its advantages
and its defects.

§25.

Theophrastus, who in modern times has been followed by
the Frenchman J. de la Bruyere (bom 1644), has depicted in

THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY. 69

his Characters vices and faults, in order, more effectually than
through mere development of conception, to instruct and to
improve. As a disciple of Aristotle, he applies his master's
doctrine in the said point, so far as he taught men to regard
human failures and faults as extremes. Yet it is not a repre-
sentation of actual characters he gives us, but rather a col-
lection of features of character, in which a single vice or fault
is individualized — a sort of silhouettes. The following features
may serve as examples.1 He thus depicts the flatterer
(o KoXag) : " When he meets thee, he says, ' Dost thou not
see how the whole world has fastened its eyes on thee ? ID
the whole city thou art the only one forming the object of
such attention. Yesterday the Portico was still resounding
with thy praise. The talk was as to who may be the best
citizen, and among more than thirty persons that were present,
none was found who did not begin and end with thee.' " In
such features, Theophrastus proceeds to depict the flatterer ;
and we infallibly receive the impression that this man goes
into the extreme, that here there appears an excessive courtesy
and politeness. " Wilt thou relate anything, he at once bids
all present be silent, and whispers to them laudations upon
thee, but so that thou thyself canst hear them. As soon as
thou ceasest to speak, he breaks out before all the others into
superabundant words of admiration. Does a jest fall from
thy lips which is not just witty, he laughs with all his might,
and holds his handkerchief before his mouth to quench his
laughter. He buys apples and pears to bring to thy children.
He divides them in thy presence, kisses, caresses the children,
saying at the same time, Dear shoots of an eminent father !
Wilt thou pay a visit to a friend, he runs before to announce
thee, and then comes back and says, I have announced that
thou art coming, and so on."

" The talker (6 aSoXecrp^). This is a man who has not
the slightest scruple to address any one whom he does not
know at all, to sit down beside him, to force on a conversation
with him by uttering a eulogy on his own wife. Thereupon
he relates to this stranger what he dreamed last night, and
immediately afterwards he relates in all detail what he

1 After the text of Ussing's edition of Theophrasti characteres et Philodemi
de vitiis liber decimug.

70 THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY.

yesterday ate for supper. When once the conversation is in
progress, he raises his voice to declaim against the present
race, and insists that things are worse in the world now than
ever before. Then he passes on to speak of the price of corn,
that the times are bad, and that a rain in these days would
greatly benefit the ensuing harvest. Suddenly he asks what
we are writing to-day, and launches out fully upon what
every one knows, at what times of the year the religious
festivals are celebrated, and so on."

" The distrustful (6 aTTio-ro?). Whenever he sends one of
his slaves to market to buy provisions, he sends another slave
behind him to inquire how much he has expended for the
goods. It happens often when he has gone to bed that he
asks his wife whether she has closed his press well, whether
the court door is well secured; and although she assures him
that all is in good order, he leaves his bed, lights a lamp, goes
barefoot and without outer clothes through the whole house,
to convince himself thereof with his own eyes, and during the
whole night he does not fall asleep, and so on."

" The miser (o atV^po/cepS^?). If he gives a dinner, he does
not serve up as much food as is necessary. He borrows from
the guest who lodges with him; and when he divides the
portions at table, he first lays aside the double for himself,
saying, that he who bears the cost must also have a larger
share than all the rest. When sent out along with other
citizens on a public commission, he leaves the provisions for
the journey to his family, and lives at the expense of his
fellow-travellers. He overloads the slave that accompanies
him with baggage, and refuses him sufficient food. If his
children have through sickness left school for a month, he is
certain to deduct as much from the school fees. If one of
his friends is to have a wedding, or is about to have his
daughter married, he speedily undertakes a journey to spare
the bridal gift (the marriage present). He lends nothing
except entirely worthless things, and so on."

In this manner are the so-called characters of Theophrastus
maintained. No one will read them without pleasure, although
Holberg has said that he found them under his expectation,
and that Theophrastus is far excelled by Moliere. We may
add that he is also far excelled by Holbeig. In any case.

THE MIDDLE-WAY MORALITY. 71

his pictures of character illustrate what is meant by keeping
to the surface of the ethical. If we inquire, that is, after the
proper instruction which we can derive from such representa-
tions, it remains but superficial. We see, indeed, that all
those people have fallen into extremes that give the impres-
sion of the ridiculous, or at least border upon it ; but why
these extremes are irreconcilable with a truly moral character,
we are not shown. We have here merely aesthetic morality,
a morality of the phenomenal (of the demeanour that meets
the eye), but absolutely no essential and proper morality.
Such an aesthetic morality may indeed have an effect on " the
manners," understanding by a man's manners what is pre-
dominant and customary in the external manner of life and
action, but no effect on morality as such, which embraces the
innermost in man : the feeling of duty and pure sentiment.

§26.

Far more perfect than in Theophrastus are at any rate the
comic representations of human follies, vices, and faults in
the great comic poets. And here we would especially name
Holberg, and that because Holberg himself set before him the
problem to moralize by means of his comedies and other
works of genius, and was of the opinion that no more effective
means of moralizing has been invented than comedies.
Holberg also wished, exactly as we saw before of Schiller, to
work for the moral education of his people, and regarded the
stage as a moral institution, although he was far from the
high-flying ideal conceptions which Schiller united with that
institution, for this reason, if for no other, that he lacked the
organ for the sublime, which mainly served him only as an
object of travesty — this being one ground of those antipathetic
judgments that Schiller pronounced on him. However, he
meant the same thing as Schiller, so far as he also wished to
work for the moral by means of the aesthetic. He questions
whether the doctrines of the best and most thorough philo-
sophers have had greater effect, and have more successfully
opposed human follies, than Moliere's comedies, and therefore
reckons Moliere also among the greatest philosophers that
have ever lived, and have deserved well of the human race.

72 THE MIDDLE-WAY MORALITY.

He refers to another author who has doubted whether the
most forcible sermon can ever have better converted a hypocrite
than Moliere's Tartuffe. If we now revert to Holberg's own
comedies, it is not to say anything about their aesthetic value,
which might be superfluous, but to examine the moral gain
they may afford. And here we must maintain that the
morality of Holberg's comedies is to be viewed essentially
under the same view-point as the Characters of Theophrastus.
Holberg, in depicting human failings, especially the follies
and faults of his own age, lets us recognise their appearance
in human characters and actions throughout as extremes, as
degenerations now on the side of an excess, and now of a
defect. In representing these extremes as laughable, he aims
at once at entertainment and at ameliorative instruction.
The entertainment we see at once ; but as regards the instruc-
tion, it takes place indeed, nay, it strikes spectators and
readers, but is yet subjected to a great limitation. For
Holberg ever teaches us that we have to guard against the
faults made ridiculous ; but if we inquire after virtue itself,
after the ideal which we have to aim at, one can derive, as
little from his comedies as from his other works, any other
morality than the moderate morality, which is also sometimes
expressly put in the mouth of one of the persons. So, for
example, in the piece The Masquerade, a comedy in which
one may think on the pietistic dispute then waged on the
lawfulness of the so-called middle things. Here one of the
fathers (Leonhard) says, "Let us go the middle-way. I do
not condemn the masquerade, but do its abuse j for to go to
the masked ball thrice a week is to lose one's means, is to lose
one's health, is to steal three days of the week, nay, at times
the whole week ; by a life of revel and riot young people may
become quite unfit for work" Or at the close of the Busy Man;

" Full often it by no means serves

If one is all too witty.
So hot toil many a man unnerves,
And he's lost — more's the pity. "

Or at the close of Without Head and Tail :

" The golden middle-way alone
Leads surely to the station ;
Yet nature to extreme drives one,
And out of moderation. "

THE MIDDLE-WAY MOKALITY. 73

Still, far more emphatically than by such sentences the poet
teaches by means of the vis comica in the representation of
the extremes themselves.

It has often been urged as a special advantage of Holberg's
comedies, and that in a moral point of view, that he so
earnestly contends against a fault even then predominant,
namely, wishing to seem without being, pursuing appearance,
hunting mere shadows as if they were realities, be it social
and political shadows {The seeker of rank, The would - be
politician), or military (Jacob v. Tyboe, the boastful soldier}
or learned shadows (Erasmus Montanus, who comes home
from the university with his Philosophia instrumentalis), or
shadows of outlandishness, without root in the natural peculi-
arity (Jean de Prance), and more besides, belonging to the
hollow, shadowy domain of vanity. In opposition to all
affectation, to all pomposity and strutting with borrowed
feathers, he has insisted on the requirement of truth and
naturalness, and with sure tact, with the immediately effective,
fanciful power of humour, has given life to this requirement
in the consciousness of the nation. Now one would think
indeed that when appearance and shadow are combated, we
must above all be directed to the essence, and the ideal
must somehow come to light in the comedies of our poet,
But this is not the case. For if we inquire, " What is
truth ? what is nature ? " to which in the world of moral
freedom above all the normal belongs, for which precisely
morality asks, and which is the true existence, agreeing with
the proper destiny of man ; nothing at all is brought before our
eyes but the comic masks themselves that reflect actual life,
always indeed in exaggerated pictures, but yet with striking
truth. For our moral meditation, nothing farther will be
found than the following : The true and the natural, that is,
the normal, is only present when all such untruth as here
appears in the light of ridicule is excluded. But it is left to
ourselves to discover wherein consists that which lies midway
between the degenerations, the extremest ends, or what is the
genuine reality.

The morality to be found in Holberg one must therefore
reduce to this, that he has ploughed through the field and
drawn furrows, has prepared the way for something higher

74 THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY.

which he himself, however, was not in a position to give. By
this we no doubt place his comedies lower than he himself
would have them placed. But if in Holberg's time there were
many who too much undervalued his comedies, nay, even
regarded them as injurious, he himself overvalued, not his
comedies in general, but his morality, of the merely relative
and limited value of which he was unconscious. No one will
call in question that by his comedies and other elegant works
he exercised a purifying influence on the manners of his age,
exercised a preparatory (propaedeutic) discipline in the outer
court of morality, wielded, as it were, a severe besom over
society, by which much impropriety, as well in the way of life
and intercourse of men, as also in social institutions, was
swept away, or at least corrected. As little can it be disputed
that his influence on manners was at the same time a
certain influence on the mode of thought, in so far as he
enlivened in men's minds the already mentioned, although
only undefined, requirement of truth and naturalness. But a
moral view of life, in the ideal meaning of the word, he has
not uttered, at least has given it no comprehensible form.
For he himself boasts of it indeed as an effect of his comedies,
" that our Danish theatre has recast the citizen class of these
kingdoms as into another form, and has taught them to reason
about virtues and faults, of which many had hitherto only
had a vague idea " (Epist. p. 179) ; but the question is just
this, After what categories and points of view has he taught
them to reason ?

The want of the ethical, and wholly of the religious ideals,
shows itself in all his writings. That sparks of them appear
in one place and another of his very numerous works, as
also in his life, we will certainly not deny. In his comedy
Jeppe vom Serge, which depicts the wretched, degraded, and
demoralized state of the Danish peasant under the then bad
rule of the landlords, but likewise also shows how the same
peasant, after he has been by a strange change transposed into
the position of his landlord, immediately rebounds into the
opposite extreme, and becomes an insufferable tyrant, abusing
those beneath him — in this Jeppe and his strange change, to
which belongs his supposed awaking in Paradise and amidst
its harmonious sounds, several (for instance, Steffens and

THE MIDDLE- WAY MORALITY. 75

Sibbern) have found deeply touching elements, something by
which our sorrow over human misery is awakened. And
Holberg's personal life permits us to recognise the working
of higher ideal powers in his mind, for instance, his love of
music, no less also his frequent sad moods, in which he was
oppressed with a feeling of the vanity of human life.1 But
nowhere in his works does it come to a real victorious
breaking through of the ideal. If he engages in his Moral
Thoughts or in the Epistles in the discussion of moral
problems, or gives a moralizing representation of the materials
of the history of the world, the state, or even the Church, —
for everywhere he appears as moralist, as he declares it to be
his chief task "to revive the neglected study of morals in
these northern kingdoms," — we never get beyond a prosaic
intermediate morality. "All virtue," he himself says, "con-
sists in mediocrity (moderation), and as soon as it passes the
boundary of it, it is metamorphosed (changed) into a vice.
The great Chinese philosopher Confucius has composed a
moral and political system, which he named Medium magnum,
or the great middle-way, by which he would make known that
the middle- way is the foundation of all good things, and the
chief rule that man has to observe. The best may tend to
destruction if not exercised with moderation. I have known
certain persons who were destroyed through their diligence,
and others who by their saving and hoarding became poor.
Activity is a great virtue, and has excellent effects. It is
like a noble horse that must be held in with bit and bridle.
Nay, it is like the wind that can move the ship onwards, but
can also wreck it. Eeason must therefore be the steersman,
and see that the wind is employed, but only for help." Here
we, on our side, must point out that if it were really so, that
all virtue consists in mediocrity, which as soon as it passes
its limits is metamorphosed into a vice, that thus sin and
vice is nothing else than an extreme, — a too-much or too-

1 When the organist Scheibe, in Trinity Church, Copenhagen, arranged some
rehearsals of the funeral music for the burial of Christian vi., Holberg was
present each time, and stood among the other hearers in the chancel ; and when
a particularly mournful passage was given by a numerous choir, on each of these
rehearsals he burst again into tears ; each time, when the passage occurred, he
withdrew, handkerchief in hand, behind tho altar. — N. M. Petersen, Danish
Literary History (in Danish), IV. 736.

76 THE MIDDLE- WAY MOKALITY.

little, — then the difference between good and evil would only
be a difference of degree, an easy passage from the one to
the other. But that is not how the case stands. The
difference between good and evil is a difference of essence, a
difference between two opposite principles, which mutually
exclude each other, and are in mortal conflict. Badness and
wickedness is not a goodness driven too far, or a merely
defective goodness. Envy and malice are not an excessive
justice, hypocrisy not an excessive religiousness or morality.
Theft, murder, adultery, are, as Aristotle himself allows,
injustice in themselves, and can by no means be derived
from virtues that are merely driven too far, or perhaps not
far enough. In ordinary life it is usual to say that truth lies
in the middle, which may also often be correct in the outer
world. Thus faith often occupies its position midway
between superstition and unbelief. But with the declaration
that one must neither believe too much nor too little, one
would certainly give but a poor guide to faith. What the
mediocre or intermediate morality lacks are just the deeper
essential definitions; and where it enters upon higher things, it
will not escape the fate of falling into the commonplace.

If, then, one can still read Holberg's Moral Thoughts,
despite their want of all depth, for entertainment and
instruction, it is because of a quality common to them with
his comedies, namely, the vis comica (the tone that involuntarily
provokes to laughter or smiles), the salt that is intermingled,
and removes from the otherwise poor observations their
insipid taste. Here also he often applies with incomparable
humour — for humour is with him the essentially ideal, his
intellectual burning-glass — the requirement of naturalness
and truth, insisting that we must distinguish between the
mere appearance and reality (seeming and being) of the
virtues as well as vices, although he at any rate gives us a
much better account of the appearance, the external mani-
festation of both, than of their reality, their inner nature.
But he has also often opposed and ridiculed something in his
amusing writings as a shadow, which was no shadow at all,
but a higher reality for which he only lacked an eye. And
with his great influence on the nation — no Danish author
has gained so general an influence as he, and no one stands

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE PHAEISEES. 77

so fiimly in the favour of the nation — he has led many of his
admirers into the same path. He has greatly nursed and
strengthened our natural national Danish inclination to that
intermediate morality, as well as that inclination, pretty often
occurring among us, to turn earnest into jest, and to dispose
of weighty questions with a joke. He has — not only so far
as it has a good sense, but also with disadvantageous effect —
emphasized the lesson that it is most advisable to remain
pretty near the earth, and to engage in no too high ideal
flight, so as not to lose oneself in the clouds.1 For the rest,
we at the same time by no means forget that there is also an
opposite tendency, represented by men like Kingo, Oehlen-
schlager, and others, which belongs to the character of the
Danish nationality as well, and that both tendencies in their
very opposition may promote the national culture, if the
opposition leads them mutually to limit and complement each
other.

And herewith we close these our considerations on the
intermediate morality and the defective ideal.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE PHARISEES AND SCRIBES. THE

WEIGHTIER MATTERS OF THE LAW.

§27.

From the different manifestations of philosophic righteous-
ness we now turn to the righteousness of the Pharisees and
scribes, with which we enter into an entirely different sphere,
which is not to be viewed as a continuation or higher develop-
ment of the preceding, but constitutes a contrast to it, even as
Israel is not a higher development of heathenism, but forms a
contrast to it, and must be understood from its own pre-
suppositions. The righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes
stands on the ground of revealed religion, where the law is
acknowledged as the law of God, sin as disobedience to God.
Herein consists the great advantage of Pharisaism. If it were
sought to find the defect of it in this, that it limited righteous-
ness to a single people, the descendants of Abraham, and that

1 To this applies what Grundtvig has said regarding Holberg in his little
Chronicle of the World (1812;.

78 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE PHARISEES.

it bound the moral to such an extent to the religious that the
former attained no self-dependence, not even a merely relative
independence of the religious; it must be remarked, on the
other hand, that this particularism was largely founded on
the special position which the people of Israel, according to
the counsel of Providence, was to occupy in the economy of
revelation, although Pharisaism perverted this position to
national pride. The peculiar fundamental fault of it we must
recognise in the sense and spirit in which it, within the once
divinely ordained limits, always conceived the relation to God
and the righteousness with which it was herein occupied.
And this it is that the Lord had in view when He said,
" Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the
kingdom of heaven " (Matt. v. 2 0).

If we would form a judgment on the old Pharisees, we
must not direct our view merely to their hypocrisy, which the
Lord so often rebukes. There were also honest Pharisees, who
earnestly pursued the righteousness of the law ; and we need
here only name men like Nicodemus, Gamaliel, and the
Apostle Paul, who testifies of himself that he was before his
conversion " after the law a Pharisee, touching the righteous-
ness which is in the law blameless " (Phil. iii. 5, 6), and that
therein he had " lived in all good conscience before God "
(Acts xxiii 1). Thus he tells us himself that this his
Pharisaic righteousness had been no mere mask of righteous-
ness. But its defect, as he afterwards owned, was its super-
ficiality, its external work-system, its imperfect understanding
of the proper spirit of the law, and along with this also the
lack of the consciousness that the disposition of man, the
human heart, needs a renovation, a thorough transformation.
The more deeply he went into the requirements of the law,
and the more he penetrated into its meaning, the more was
he led towards "the better righteousness" which Christ
teaches in the Sermon on the Mount ; the more he became
conscious of what he declares in the seventh chapter of his
Epistle to the Romans, that the law is spiritual, embraces the
inmost part of man, that by the law there comes only the
knowledge of sin, but the law cannot "give life" (GaL iii. 21),
cannot bestow the power for its fulfilment, can make no new

THE WEIGHTIER MATTERS OF THE LAW. 79

heart. And the law was to him a pedagogue to Christ
(ver. 24). For "through the law he died to the law, that he
might live unto God" (Gal. ii. 19), in order to receive of grace
what he could not give to himself, to gain Christ's righteous-
ness, the righteousness of faith, which even Abraham and the
truly pious in Israel had typically possessed by believing in
the. promises of grace, the meaning of which also now became
plain to him.

The majority of the Pharisees, however, went the opposite
way. They understood the promises in a purely carnal man-
ner, and conceived the law merely as an external letter. The
righteousness with which they busied themselves required at
the same time too much ; the observance of an intolerable
amount of external commands and prescriptions ; and again
too little, for the chief thing in the law was left aside, — the
spirit was lacking. We may briefly designate their standpoint
in the words of the Lord, that " they tithed mint and anise
and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law,
(TO, ftapvTepa rov VOJAOV), judgment, mercy, and faith" (Matt,
xxiii. 23). With these words he designates the spirit of the
law. By the word judgment (/e/ucrt?) we must first under-
stand the application of the law they ought to make to them-
selves (Luke xii. 57 :" Why even of yourselves judge ye not
what is right 1 "), that judgment which they themselves in
their own inward part should undertake between light and
darkness, the interior self-examination that they should insti-
tute. In like manner they lacked mercy, which also belongs
to the weightier matters of the law — love to the unhappy, the
suffering, the poor. The observance of the minutest but easy
statutes of the Sabbath law was more to them than helping a
man in need (Luke xiv. 5). And when, lastly, the Saviour
reckons faith among the weightier matters of the law, we
must understand the first and chief commandment, love to
God (" Give me thine heart ! "), which has its root in faith, in
the heart that opens to its God and yields itself to Him.
Thus the Lord shows them that they deny the law in three
respects : in the relation of man to himself (one's own soul),
in relation to his neighbour, and lastly in relation to God.

The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican may serve as
an illustration. The Pharisee, who thanked God that he was

80 THE WEIGHTIER MATTERS OF THE LAW.

not like other people, neglected judgment (the crisis), forgot
to prove and judge himself, lived thus in respect to his own
life in an uncritical state. He neglected mercy, in judging
publicans and sinners unmercifully. He neglected faith ; for
however dogmatically correct his faith might be, yet there were
wanting the right pious motives in his heart. His faith was
nothing but an approbation of a certain sum or system of
doctrines, an external bowing under the authority of the
divine word, but not a sure confidence in the God of grace
(he " believed rightly, but was not a right believer ").

§ 28.

Amid all the changes which the history of the Christian
world brings with it, there recurs at all times, even in the
Church of Christ, the righteousness of the Pharisees and
scribes — that is, wherever an external ecclesiasticism takes
the place of the true internal righteousness, and extends its
superficiality over the whole moral life. The motives of this
kind of virtue are fear of punishment and hope of a reward.
Through obedience to the Church it is hoped to purchase
heaven, to avert the punishment of hell. At one time the
individual yields himself to a false security, in which one
thinks and hopes the best of himself, notwithstanding that
judgment as well as mercy and the faith of the heart are
neglected; at another, such an one is possessed by a spirit
of fear, fears to have offended God through some omission or
transgression, and seeks to make it good through' some external
performance or some sacrifice. Catholicism is extremely rich
in examples of this tendency. But Protestantism also knows
this kind of righteousness, namely, when one sets his trust
upon the ecclesiastical confession of faith, or upon a system
of dogmas, instead of the living God and Saviour ; when one
depends upon the possession of the true doctrine of the order
of salvation, instead of living in this order; when one sets
the means of grace in the place of saving grace itself, and
makes idols of pulpit, baptism, altar, confessional, with which
there is great temptation to hypocrisy. Something of this
leaven appears constantly among the Church party conflicts,
where, with the legal service that is performed with the lettei

THE SEEKERS. 81

of the Scripture and of the Confession, the three things,
"judgment, mercy, and faith," are neglected. Whether a
whole Church occupy the dangerous standpoint in giving itself
up to the imagination of its " infallibility," or a single man
take that position, peace and salvation will ever be to be
gained only by descending from this standpoint, and occupying
that of the publican in the gospel.

Over against modern humanism the ecclesiastical Pharisaism
occupies a hostile and recklessly condemning position. On
the other hand, it must be content with constant persecution
from that tendency and party which has made it one of its
chief tasks to free the world from its yoke, and to carry
through its " Cultur-Jcampf" (culture-conflict) against all that
is Pharisaic. It attacks Pharisaism for its particularism, its
superficiality, its pride, and not seldom accuses it of hypocrisy ;
and all that not without a certain relative justification.
But after the modern humanism has given to Pharisaism its
lesson, it finds itself very often in the illusion that it has itself
no need of the Church and Christianity, to which, as it main-
tains, such great aberrations adhere, and retires, self-satisfied,
to its philosophic righteousness. But however great the differ-
ence may be between philosophic and Pharisaic righteousness,
one thing is common to them both: self-righteousness. Let
us but place one of the old Stoics together with one of the old
Pharisees of the better sort, who unquestionably had to show,
in the earnest fulfilment of the many requirements of the law,
of all the fasts, of all the temple duties, a high degree of self-
control and self-conquest. How different soever the presup-
positions from which they set out, yet they both would attain
personal perfection through their own power, their own efforts,
their own performances. They are both penetrated with self-
respect, live in self-exaltation and self-glorification. What
they both lack is the standpoint of the publican.

THE SEEKERS.

§ 29.

There is still, however, a class of men to be spoken of, who
can find satisfaction in none of the various kinds of righteous-

82 THE SEEKERS.

ness which we before depicted, but yet are also alienated from
Christianity, and now are seeking a standpoint on which they
would find rest. Very many of them we can designate as
seekers and non-finders, so far as their religion remains an
unsatisfied longing after God. They approach Christianity,
but are repelled by " the positive," " the historical," which, as
they declare, is irreconcilable with their culture ; and if they
would then hold to the ideas of natural religion, God, provi-
dence, and immortality, they feel again that they lack life and
fulness. With Jacobi, they complain that they are Christians
in heart, but heathen in head, that they " swim between two
streams," of which one lifts them, but the other lets them
sink. " They are ever learning, and never able to come to
the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. iii. 7). Of these seekers
and non-finders one may say that they indeed constantly hold
fast the very standpoint that they would fain give up, nay,
feel a need to give up, namely, the standpoint in which the
man has the centre of his life in himself. It never comes in
their case to a real yielding to God ; they constantly prefer
their own wisdom to the revelation given to us, and always
also hold fast their own righteousness, while lamenting that,
in consequence of their culture, they are unable to obey the
invitation of the grace of God. When they complain that
they are Christians with the heart, but heathen with the head
or understanding, they must be answered that they are no
Christians with the heart; for to be a Christian with the
heart requires a fundamental consciousness of vsin and guilt,
that we have an open heart for the requirements of God's holi-
ness, a heart willing to be judged by God's law. But they have
a secret antipathy to God's holiness. They want God only as
love and omnipotence ; but holiness is obscured to them, and
with this also the consciousness of their sin. If these seekers
are really to attain to finding, they must first come to the stand-
point of the publican. To find this is what is so hard for them.
There are others among the seekers who, their longing not
being deep enough, content themselves with natural religion,
mixed, it is true, with many Christian elements. It were
unjust to deny that on this standpoint, the more naive it is,
the more readily may real religion be found, a certain trust in
God's providence, combined with upright striving after fulfil-

THE SEEKERS. 83

ment of duty, a need of thanksgiving and prayer, although the
prayer has predominantly the manifold earthly needs for its
object. Yet this standpoint is also combined with self-
righteousness. They need religion only as a prop for their
morality, as a help amid the fatalities of life. But the
principal thing is to be performed by their own efforts. Eeli-
gion has not yet become a fountain of grace to them, from
which an entirely new life is to spring. They know not the
entire helplessness in which a man becomes aware of his guilt,
and so of his desert of punishment before God, of his need of
a real forgiveness of sins, and of an entirely new beginning
for his life. On the contrary, they live in the endeavour of a
partial (fragmentary) improvement (single reforms of their
morality), on which, however, Kant has already remarked that
it is thoroughly insufficient, that rather a revolution is needed.
That men can endure to live under the law is founded
partly on their ignorance, the meaning of the law coming only
imperfectly home to them ; partly on the dim hope or presenti-
ment that good will yet gain the victory, although in a way
incomprehensible to us, and that honest effort cannot be in
vain. Even Holy Scripture also tells us (Acts x. 35) that in
every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness
(that is, according to the measure of his knowledge of the
divine will) is accepted (Se«To<?) of God, doubtless not in him-
self, but only accepted or acceptable to this extent, that the
light of the gospel dawns on him with the righteousness of
faith; that thus even in the morality and religiousness which
leads no farther than into the court of the Gentiles, something
is contained which God recognises, which He acknowledges.
True, it is not self-righteousness that is acceptable and well-
pleasing to Him, — it is rather an abomination to Him, — but
no doubt the elements, open to His eye, of true and inner
righteousness, elements ?f obedience, of self-denial, of mercy,
of faith, which are present with that insufficient righteousness
in a state of bondage, and which Christianity would redeem.
For nothing of all that is true and genuine in the previously
considered standpoints is to be lost It is only to be set in
its right, that is, subordinate position ; it is to be co-ordinated
to the whole, and that under the higher principle that renews
the whole man.

84 IMMOKALITY AND SIN.

BUT.

IMMOKALITY AND SIN.
§ 30.

The moral life under the law which we have hitherto con-
sidered has its opposite in the immoral life under the law.
But the one, like the other, is included under sin. For sin is
not only the immoral, the properly immoral; its inmost essence
is the irreligious, is unbelief, which, according to experience,
is also found where life in the worldly sphere is relatively
moral. But even if we cannot say that all sin in the worldly
sphere shows itself as immorality, yet we may, nay, we must
say that all immorality is sin, because it is a breach of God's
law (" sin is the transgression of the law," avopia, 1 John iii.
4), because it is unrighteousness (aSiicia, John vii. 18), per-
sonal abnormality, not merely in the relation of the man to
himself and to other men, but specially in relation to God.
And even so we must say, that as there exists an inner con-
nection between the moral and the religious, so also between
the immoral and the irreligious. Irreligiousness or frivolity,
consistently carried out, must land in immorality ; and carried
out or dominant immorality must, as experience confirms by
numberless examples, at length lead to irreligiousness, to
enmity to religion. The irreligion may long lie hidden, may
remain latent beneath the merely immoral, yet it must at last
appear. But irreligion may also hide, and remain hidden from
the man, under the forms of morality ; and it lies latent at the
foundation of every form of legal righteousness, in which the
man has the centre of his life in himself; but at last for this
morality there must come a point of time when it is placed
before a great alternative : either to give up all its own
righteousness, and to bow under the gospel of grace, or else to
enter on a conflict with this gospel, whereby it is then led to
self-deception and lying, as we see it in the Pharisees in the
time of Christ, and since that time in many other forms. In
the beginning of our race, sin in fact took its origin from the
religious sphere, and had in this its root, as revolt from God,

TEMPTATION AND PASSION. 85

as unbelief and disobedience to an express commandment.
And in the same sphere it must also end; and the conflict
between faith and unbelief becomes the last great and decisive
conflict which must be fought out, as well by the race as by
the individual man.

The chief forms of sin against which each one who follows
after righteousness must contend we know already.1 Every
man that comes into this world of sin and illusion is also led
into that mystic wood that Dante depicts in the introduction
to his Inferno, where he strives upwards to a sunny height
(that of the ideal), but where three monsters meet him, — a
spotted panther, the type of sensuality ; a lion in the rage of
hunger, the type of pride ; and a voracious lean wolf, the
type of the covetousness that is never satisfied, however
much it may get. Against these monsters the nobler in the
heathen world have already fought. Christianity has thrown
a new light on this conflict, in teaching us that there is a
higher spiritual power, a higher principle of will, that works
through these monsters, and shows us in the background the
demoniac powers and the devil, as the enemy of God and
man (Eph. vi. 12), and shows that the fight that man has to
fight in this world is interwoven with a conflict of the higher
world of spirits. And although in this conflict there is offered
to man a superhuman help, the grace of God in Christ, yet
here again the great danger threatens of man repelling this
grace. And hereby there is formed a new kind, an entirely
new circle of sins, unknown to the old heathenism.

TEMPTATION AND PASSION.

§ 31.

As our problem here is to represent the development of sin
in the single personal human life, we first consider the single
sinful action. This is committed by the man falling into
temptation, according to the profound teaching of the Apostle
James : " Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted
of God : for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth

1 Compare the General Part, § 29.

86 TEMPTATION AND PASSION.

he any man : but every man is tempted, when he is drawn
away of his own lust, and enticed. Then, when lust hath
conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished,
bringeth forth death" (James i. 13-15). God tempts no
man to sin, although God proves man, to confirm him in good.
Man is tempted to sin by his own lust, which does not exclude
the presence of an external tempter. Lust is egoistic desire
under the incitement of impulse. But the action is not yet
performed ; it still lies with the man to combat the lust, or
by the free choice of his will to yield himself to it. There-
fore it is said by the apostle, " When lust hath conceived, it
bringeth forth sin." Lust is represented as a woman that has
to be fecundated in order to bear. By what ? We answer,
by the fancy. For between the lusts (the desires) and the
fancy a magical relation exists. While lust awakes, there
is formed a fancy picture, which presents itself to lust with a
mighty " incitement and allurement," a magical juggle, be it a
picture of sensuality or of honour and worldly greatness, of
might and influence, of a crown, a laurel wreath, the applause
of public opinion, or else a picture of earthly possession, like
Naboth's vineyard to Ahab (1 Kings xxi.), or fancy pictures of
far smaller realities, but which have a mighty attraction just
for this man's lust. The picture first presents itself to the
lust only in the mirror of possibility, but with the colours of
reality, and works like magic by promising pure happiness and
joy. If the man is able to put to flight this fancy picture, he
conquers in the temptation, and the voice of truth is again
distinctly heard within. But in many histories of temptation
it recurs, that instead of being expelled, it is retained ; one
stands before it, finds pleasure in the quiet contemplation of
it (" pray tarry, thou art so fair ! "), yet with the reservation
that one does not need to yield to it, and to admit it into his
volition. That this secret delighting, this tarrying to view
forbidden fruit, is something very dangerous, is usually per-
ceived all too late. For by such inner occupation with the
thing, one comes more and more under the power of the fancy.
Lust gains inner strength, and increases to passion. We
deceive ourselves with the idea that we still possess our free-
dom of choice, and that we can still retreat, till we discover
at last that this is impossible.

TEMPTATION AND PASSION. 87

The theologians of the Middle Ages designated this very
dangerous delighting as delectatio morosa, that is, lingering lust,
lingering, namely, in beholding forbidden fruit. We already
have a picture and example in the history of the Fall, in Eve,
who, instead of saying to the tempter, "Depart from me,
Satan ! " continued to view the tree, that it was good to eat
of it (lust of the flesh), that it was a pleasant tree (lust of the
eyes), and that it made wise (pride of life). All this glittered
from the tree to her, promising enjoyment and happiness. Her
delight, her lust in beholding, ended accordingly with the sinful
action, while she took of the fruit and ate. Of every tempta-
tion it holds true, that in the sense here indicated there is
periculuin in mord, danger in any delay, in any tarrying. For
in temptation the moment has an infinite import; with each
moment passion rises ; and many a one had been preserved
from sin, redeemed from evil, had he but used the few
moments that were granted him to flee, while the immediately
following moments belonged exclusively to passion. As a
deep connection exists between duty and the moment, so also
between passion and the moment. Joseph, as regards Potiphar's
wife, at once saw that there was periculum in mord, tarried
not, engaged not at all in contemplations and transactions, but
took to flight, and let the temptrees retain only his mantle.
Schiller has excellently depicted the destructiveness in the
delectatio morosa in another sphere, namely, in his Wallenstein.
The latter tarries by the possibility present for him to break
loose from the emperor and take the command into his own
hands. He sees himself in spirit as a mighty prince, com-
manding and giving laws in the affairs of Europe ; while he
constantly reserves to himself the possibility of giving up these
criminal plans. He engages with the enemy in preliminary
negotiations, yet with the tacit reservation that he can break
them off at pleasure, till at last he sees himself so entangled
in a web, which is now more than a web of thoughts, that he
cannot retrace his steps, and is forced to the decisive choice.
Even external circumstances, fate and accident, have conspired
with, and help the tempter, till " the sin is finished."

In passion " lust conceives," in that the fancy picture so
penetrates it that it becomes the fertilizing, impelling, and
compelling motive for the choosing and deciding will. Then

88 HABIT AND VICE.

sin is born. With the inner decision sin is already born. For
the man has now made his choice. Yet sin is finished only
when by means of execution it becomes an action. And when
the sinful action is finished, it brings forth death, that is,
inner and outer misery, — a witness of the deceitfulness of sin
(aTrdrtj rfjs apaprlas, Heb. iii. 13 ; comp. Eom. i. 11, Eph. iv.
22) which allured the man, promising happiness from that
which led to so sad an issue.

HABIT AND VICE.

§ 32.

By repetition the individual gains readiness in sinning, and
sin becomes Tidbit, by which the organs of the soul as well as
of the body are changed into "members and instruments ot
sin" (Eom. vi. 13, 19). But the animating principle in habit is
passion, which is now no more acute but chronic, has assumed
the character of the constant, the regularly recurrent, so that
it can also be designated as desire (desire of honour, dominion,
gain, etc.). The relation between passion and habit corresponds
to the relation between the dynamical and the mechanical, or
that between soul and body. By means of custom passion
builds its body, and exercises as well the spiritual as the bodily
organs for the service of sin ; and conversely, while the organs
gain a greater readiness in committing sin, they on their side
again set passion in motion by their natural impulse. An
action and reaction here takes place. " Out of the heart,"
says Christ, " come evil thoughts : murder, adultery, fornication,
theft, false witness, blasphemy. These are the things that
defile a man ; but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a
man" (Matt. xv. 19 f.). And again the apostle says, "As
ye have given your members as servants of uncleanness and of
iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield your members as servants
of righteousness unto holiness" (Kom. vi. 19), whereby he indi-
cates the importance of the organs as well for good as for evil.
The union of habit and passion is vice, in which a man becomes
a bondman to a particular sin. In the language of daily life,
one is accustomed to designate only those sins as vices that

RAMIFICATIONS OF SIN. 89

dishonour a man in the eyes of the world, like drunkenness,
thieving, unchastity, and the like ; as also one understands by
an irreproachable, spotless walk in general, merely one that
shows no spot on the robe of civil righteousness. But why
should not one be at liberty to designate every sin as vice,
that gains such a dominion over the man that he becomes its
bondman ? Why should not pride, envy, malice, gossip, un-
mercifulness not be called vices, that is, when they have gained
such a dominion that the man has forfeited his freedom ? On
the other hand, we may no doubt speak of faults, failings,
weaknesses, when we want to designate a smaller degree of
sin, such that the power of resistance is not yet broken.

RAMIFICATIONS OF SIN.

§ 33.

Among the vices there exists a mutual connection, and one
easily leads to another. The three chief directions of sin are
closely related, and have a power of attraction for each other.
They mutually entwine into each other, like twigs of the same
tree (of egoism), and grow out of each other. Faust and Don
Juan are always anew becoming comrades, and Harpagon in
every way supports them in their undertakings, and himself
receives from both of them impulse as well as teaching.
Pride, even the most intellectual and spiritual, is not far from
a fall into sensuality ; and if sensuality must needs defend
itself against the accusation of the conscience, it seeks in pride
to set itself above the law. Cupidity is akin to both. The
covetous man places his trust in uncertain riches instead of
in the living God (1 Tim. vi. 17), and while, blinded by the
splendour of gold, he trusts in earthly mammon, he yields
himself to a false self-exaltation (boasting), which was even
reproved by the prophets in those merchants of Tyre whose
trade with the riches of the whole world collected there such
immense treasures, that the prince of Tyre presumed to say,
" I am God ; I sit on the throne of God, in the midst of the
sea" (Ezek. xxviii. 2). On the other hand, avarice and
cupidity, because bound to the earth, are akin to sensual grati-

90 RAMIFICATIONS OF SIN.

ficatiou. For though many of these servants of mammon deny
themselves sensual delight, and are satisfied to possess the
representation of all earthly delights, namely, money, yet they
seek a sensual delight in the security and comfort of their
earthly existence, which is guaranteed to them by money.
We find also among the covetous not a few who, after they
have gathered a supply for many years, and have obtained the
security that seems needful to them, then combine the service
of mammon with that of the belly, the ways and means to
which are afforded them more richly than others, like that rich
countryman in the gospel, who says to himself, " Soul, thou
hast much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat
and drink, and be merry " (Luke xii. 1 6). Covetousness is
also (what is often overlooked) near akin to wastefulness, as
both rest upon an egoistic self-willed position towards the
earthly mammon, both are qualities belonging to the unfaithful
and unjust steward. The common element, the atmosphere,
in which all the three chief tendencies of sin find their growth
and increase, is illusion and lie.

§ 34.

Each of the chief tendencies has again its inner ramifica-
tions. Pride is inseparable from despising man. Neverthe-
less it presents itself as the desire to rule, because it will enjoy
its elevation by making those despised ones the slaves, whether
of its commands or of its opinions and views, and receives
their admiration. With this is conjoined envy, since pride
does not suffer anything to be recognised in others, as every
preference of others is felt by the proud one as an injury to
his own prerogatives. Does pride meet with opposition, it
proceeds to passionate violence, anger, and hate which would
annihilate the personality of the adversary, to revenge and
cruelty. Distrust also is attached to pride, since the proud
one claims that others shall bow before him, and despise them-
selves in comparison of him, regards the opposite as a kind of
rebellion, and therefore is constantly as on the watch whether
any such secret sedition arises on any hand, which is a stand-
ing feature in tyrants. In relation to religion, pride appears
as opposition to the truth, as the proud man will not be sub-

RAMIFICATIONS OF SIN. 91

ordinate and serve (non serviam}. Self-exaltation and self-
idolatry may here gradually pass over into mockery, scorn, and
hate of what is holy.

But above all, it must be insisted on that the lie proceeds
from pride, in that the creature which would occupy an inde-
pendent position before God, must invent a false image of
itself, of God, and of the world, to occupy the place of the
truth. The lie ramifies through the whole world of sin ; for
there is no sin without an ingredient of conscious or uncon-
scious lie and illusion. Next to the lie in the religious
sphere, we name, as the strongest utterances of the lie in
the worldly sphere, false witness against one's neighbour,
defamation, faithlessness and deceit, treachery, dissimulation
and hypocrisy.

§35.

The lust of the flesh, with gluttony and drunkenness, with
such excesses, in which Bacchus leads to Venus and Venus to
Bacchus, gives birth to all manner of evil : speaking un-
advisedly, anger, quarrelling, striking, revenge, murder. Every
one knows, from his school-days, how David's sin against the
seventh commandment led him to transgress the sixth also,
and murder Uriah. Fleshly lust easily combines with faith-
lessness, unreliability and unfaithfulness in stewardship, with
sloth and carelessness, with dishonesty, which is often a condi-
tion of procuring the means for the satisfaction of the lusts,
with extravagance, as in the prodigal son, who " devoured his
living with harlots." A usual feature in those who give
themselves to fleshly lusts, and to an undue care of the body,
is effeminacy, which may be developed to a refined pleasure-
seeking in the most various directions. In certain periods of
history, pleasure-seeking appears in connection with luxury as
a predominant tendency in all classes of society. Think, for
instance, of the fall of the Eoman Empire in the time of the
imperial rule, when pleasures more and more assumed the
character of the repulsive and unnatural, because the natural
no longer satisfied ; or think on the period preceding the first
French Eevolution ; or, in fine, on our own time, when in
certain circles of society the money-power appears united with

92 RAMIFICATIONS OF SIN.

an epicureanism degenerating on all sides, forming a striking
contrast to the poverty and want in an innumerable mass of
individuals, who desire to become partakers of the same
pleasures, and threaten society with the overthrow of all that
exists.

§36.

The lust of the eyes, when it appears under the forms of
covetousness, desire of gain, the passion to grow rich, easily
unites with hardness of heart and mercilessness, and breeds
usury, falsity, fraud, robbery. The desire of gain, the passion
for riches, and the vices connected therewith, may especially
be studied in the history of the children of Israel, who early
danced around the golden calf, and in whom the longing for
gold forms a national feature. In the evangelical church the
publicans — among whom many were rich, and were not with-
out ground so severely judged from the side of the Pharisees
— show us a picture of cheating combined with love of money,
wherefore the Lord speaks even to them of the unrighteous
mammon. The unfaithful steward in the gospel, who besides
his unrighteousness appears to have been fond of pleasure and
effeminate, — who felt himself unfit to dig, and was ashamed to
claim the help of strangers, — and who lets the debtors of his
lord re-write their bills, is a type of cunning cheating combined
with greed of gain, which recurs down to our own days in
great and small stewardships, with false exchanges, swindling
schemes and joint-stock concerns, fraudulent bankruptcies,
artificial money crises, artificially raising and lowering the
funds, and so on. Much unrighteous mammon is in our time
gained in this manner, and it is at the same time to be
remembered that unrighteous mammon is not only what is
gained in unrighteousness, but also what is possessed and used
in unrighteousness.

Another chief branch of the lust of the eyes, but which has
a more ideal stamp than avarice and covetousness, is pheno-
menalism, by which we mean a pursuit of the phenomenal
merely as such, — a pursuit which, with entire indifference to
the essence, is directed only to the forms and shells of things,
apart from the kernel. In relation to the person himself,
phenomenalism expresses itself as vanity, as delight in seem-

KAMIFICATIONS OF SIN. 93

ing, in shining, in representing. Many who are greedy of
money, and grudge both themselves and others an enjoyment,
appear on another occasion as squanderers, for instance with
magnificent illuminations and banquets, with splendid contri-
butions to one or another public object, not as if it lay in their
heart thus to delight or profit, but in this manner to let the
lustre of their gold shine out into the world.

In relation to the things in the world, phenomenalism
appears as an ardent longing ever to see or hear something
new, for which in Scripture the Athenians are specially blamed
(Acts xvii. 21), who regarded the Apostle Paul and his sermon
as an interesting (piquant) phenomenon, as entertainment for
an hour, but without taking any interest in the thing itself.
In phenomenalism the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the
ear with hearing ; but pleasure is taken only in the surface
of life, in appearances merely as such, of which enough cannot
be had. The man lives on the news of the town, on anecdotes,
jokes, and the reading of newspapers. To very many people
in this special sense the text is applicable, " We spend our
years like a tale that is told." Their life passes like an
insignificant street-talk, a passing drawing-room conversation.
The serious allotments of which they are witnesses, in the life of
individuals as of whole nations, the world-moving conflict between
light and darkness, righteousness and unrighteousness, becomes
to them only a play for idle contemplation, that asks nothing
farther about contents and meaning, but only, " What is there
new ? " Phenomenalism casts itself on all objects ; and also
the interest that many have in art and science is to them only
an interest in novelties, " the newest appearances." The same
applies to the political interest of a countless number : a seek-
ing and pursuing changes of scene merely for the sake of
change. In ages when phenomenalism is predominant, there
is at the same time developed an empty and meaningless
rhetoric, a fine mode of speech, only for the good sound, where
the only question is whether the speaker has words at his
command, — a verbosity which in our days has received a
dangerous development in our Parliaments and other political
assemblies, in the manifold meetings for the so-called testing
of weighty and generally useful questions, burning questions
of the day, of which now-a-days there are so many. Here

94 RAMIFICATIONS OF SIN.

certainly the statement finds its fullest application, that men
spend their days " like a tale."

To phenomenalism belongs also the idle activity, the un-
wearied but empty and objectless busying, in which one makes
himself believe that he is doing much, or at least is entirely
occupied by weighty tasks, while in truth he is living without
any serious task, without any right object of life ; is executing
only seeming works, is playing with hollow nuts, and pouring
into the cask of the Danaids. Holberg, to whom the great
merit belongs of having scourged phenomenalism in its most
various forms, has given us a type of this empty activity in
his comedy, The Man who never has Time (the Busy Man).
Mr. Muchcry never finds time to collect himself and rest, is
fully occupied by his business, from morning to night in a
constant collision of duties, because he wants to fulfil a
number of duties at once, but accomplishes nothing, fulfils
none of his many duties. To the same category belongs also
inconstancy, unsteadiness (17 aKaraa-racria), when one, allured
by the multitude of phenomena, lets fall what he had just
taken in hand, in order to seize something new, as none of all
the objects really fills the soul. To-day one is a liberal,
to-morrow reactionary ; to-day one is an enthusiast for Hegel,
to-morrow for Kant ; to-day one joins the Home Mission,
to-morrow goes over to Grundvigianism ; 1 the day after, one
finds that the Union of Protestants (Protestantenverein} and its
rationalistic theology have after all their great significance.
But nowhere is the foot planted firmly, for the man " is
unstable in all his ways " (Jas. i 8). Holberg's comedy,
The Inconstant One (the milliner Lucretia), in whom more
than one soul lives, moves in a lower sphere. She wants
incessantly to enjoy her freedom of choice in relation to the
things (the phenomena) that come before her, but never attains
to an actual choice. For when she has made an apparent
choice, and begun to carry out a decision, another picture
appears in her fancy, and she leaps to a new choice. At last
she would marry ; but when the wedding is to take place, she
is thinking of another, and nothing comes of it. The special
mark of phenomenalism in all its forms is this, that the will
is not to be filled by any contents nor bound by any neces-
1 [Grundvig, a Danish High Churchman. — TRANS.]

RAMIFICATIONS OF SIN. 0.5

sity. What, then, he who is possessed by such a desire lacks
is earnestness; for earnestness is only present where definite
contents become a power determining the will. Or, so
far as a certain earnestness is to be found in the pheno-
menalist, it is but a narrow-minded earnestness, which feels
bound by merely finite forms, forms of the most trifling kind,
as in pedantry and city life, or else by fashion, convenience,
etiquette, the valid court ceremonial, and so on, so bound that
such things are to him of enormous importance, and are the
only things he is In earnest about. In phenomenalism there
is ever an element of lying. But as this element is limited
to illusion and empty vanity (77 ^araiorrj^), one cannot at
once put it on the same footing as the proper and earnestly
meant lie, by which the man seeks to escape the necessity of
the law, of the good and the true, or to evade them, and by
which he is bound to some egoistic object, as to a feigned,
false necessity. Yet there are also among the phenomenalists
such as find pleasure in the so-called innocent and harmless
lies, and who have pleasure in entertaining others with
untruths about the most unimportant and indifferent things,
pleasure in all manner of invented phenomena or events.
Then the transition is very easy to manifest and earnest lying
and mendacity in character.

5 37.

The mutual ramifications of the vices go, with the infinite
difference of human individualities and of the relations of
human life, themselves also into infinitude. One and the
same vice may be developed from entirely different starting-
points, and thereby receives its special character. Envy, for
example, may be developed from pride in equals, who grudge
each other their real or imagined advantages ; but it can also
be developed from pride in those more humbly placed in
society, who envy those above them, and endure nothing that
distinguishes them, nothing eminent, as that frequently
occurs, especially in all democrats. It may be developed
from covetousness ; it may arise from love or being in love,
where one envies a more fortunate rival. Calumny may
proceed from enmity and hatred, but also from mere pheno-

96 DIFFERENCES IN SIN.

menalism, because one needs a new subject for entertainment
(Sheridan's ScJwol for Scandal), wherewith, however, as a rule,
an ingredient of malice and self-satisfaction is combined.
Lying may proceed from pride, and the source of the lie at the
creation was pride (" Eritis, sicut Deus ") ; but in daily life
the lie may also be born of sensual lust or greed of gain, as
a means to the end, as a bad supposed necessity. The same
holds true of other derived vices. A complete catalogue of the
vices (as also of the virtues), where the single vices figure as
firm, delimited powers, is, on account of the infinite com-
binations in which they occur under ever new shades, an
impossibility.

DIFFERENCES IN SIN.

§38.

In their great and manifold multitude, sins are distinguished
from each other, not only by the difference of the objects to
which the lust is directed, the difference of the forbidden
fruits, as well as of those good things of life and duties which
are injured, not only by the different instruments by the
help of which they are practised, be they those of thought and
of the eye, or of the tongue and the hand, not only by the
different form in which the law is injured, according as they
are transgressions or omissions ; but also by the different
degrees in the energy of the sinful will. The degree desig-
nates the inner strength as well of the good as of the bad will ;
and is measured by the hindrances, the resistance that must
be overcome. The good will must overcome the temptations
to evil ; the evil and bad will must overcome the hindrances
that conscience, in connection with external relations, places in
its way. It belongs to the paradoxes to deny the difference
of sins, to maintain that he who steals a penny and he who
kills his mother are both in equal measure guilty. The
Stoics, who set up this paradox, appeal no doubt to this, that
he who is only a yard deep under water drowns just as much
as he who is 5 0 0 fathoms deep, that in both cases one is bad,
or the opposite of what he should be ; wherefore also Draco,
the first lawgiver of Athens, imposed the penalty of death

DIFFERENCES IN SIN. 97

for every crime. They also lean on the argument that it is
indifferent whether one is only one mile or a hundred miles
distant from the city ; for in both cases he is outside the city
(outside morality), while the point is to be inside. The truth
in this paradox is the absolute difference of essence between
good and evil, virtue and vice, the untruth, the opposite
one-sidedness to that of the moderate morality. For if this
lays all the weight on quantity, while disregarding quality,
Stoicism holds fast spasmodically to quality, and places
quantity entirely out of view. It stands exclusively on the
essence (the idea) of the thing, but does not regard the
relation between essence and reality, nor that the good as
well as the bad will, in entering into actual life, gets a history,
under which it, as it were, takes a bodily form, and thereby
assumes new determinations. It is certain, indeed, that even
the smallest sin injures the essence of virtue, the principle of
the good; that all the unrighteous also have the brand of
unrighteousness on themselves. But if the will is to develop
itself into character, if the essence is to assume an external
form, if the moral power must contend with hindrances, there
necessarily occur differences of degree, where one may speak
of a more or less, of a nearer or farther ; and by means of
these quantitative determinations, new determinations of
quality or inner essence may also be developed, since a man
by continuing in a sin may attain at length to a new degree
of egoism and of evil will. Common sense and moral feeling,
as expressed in ordinary life, will also ever oppose the pro-
position that there is no difference between sins. Holberg,
who agreeably to his whole standpoint cherished a preference
for the quantitative determinations in morality, has on this
point combated Stoicism con amore : " If one steals an apple
from the garden of a wealthy man, cuts a twig from another
man's wood, and commits several actions of this sort about
the same time, he yet sins less than he who murders a single
innocent man, if one would not make, say, the arm or head of
a man equal to an apple or twig." Against the Stoic paradox
which would annul the difference between nearer and farther,
he remarks with reason : " What lies a mile distant from a
place is divided from it indeed, as well as what lies a hundred
miles from it ; but it does not follow that both things lie

G

98 DIFFERENCES IN SIN.

equally distant from the place. All that deviates from the
truth is a lie, but not equally great ; for one lie may approach
the truth more nearly than another, as one wrong way may
conduct the wanderer farther from the highway than another,
although both are wrong ways. He goes most astray who
wanders in the way that leads farthest from the goal ; as the
mariner most misses his way who sails before a wind blowing
directly from the harbour. For though the north-west is not the
same as the north wind, yet the difference is not so great as
between north and south." He adds to this, in his peculiar
way : " If one earnestly considers the thing, it appears that
the Stoic doctrine on this point is not only false and unfounded,
but also foolish and childish, and one may wonder that so
many eminent men have zealously defended it." 1

The Holy Scripture unites both the points of view men-
tioned, essence as well as reality. The Apostle James says,
"Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one
point, he is guilty of all" (Jas. ii. 10). He looks into the
essence of sin, and from thence contemplates all sins and all
sinners as alike. He who commits one sin has thereby
essentially committed them all. By each sin we insult not
only the majesty of the law, but of God the holy Lawgiver,
by setting our will in the place of His ; by every sin the
unity of the just and pure sentiment is destroyed, that
requires a perfect agreement between the human will and
the will of God. But in many other passages the Holy
Scripture occupies the standpoint of reality, and emphasizes
the difference of degree. Christ says to Pilate, " He that
delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin" (John xix. 11) ;
and again He says that it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and
Sidon at the day of judgment than for all those cities where
He Himself had preached the gospel of grace (Matt. xi. 24).
Those are mentioned who are not far from the kingdom of
God (Mark xii. 34), those who are nigh and those who are
far off (Eph. ii 1 7 ; Acts ii. 3 9) ; whence it clearly appears
that the Lord and His apostles do not teach that it is indifferent
whether one be one mile distant from the city or a hundred.

The difference of degree between sins is expressed in the
distinction between sins of ignorance (1 Tim. i. 13) and

1 Holberg, Moralske Tanker, p. 126 fi., Rode's edition.

STEPS OF DEVELOPMENT OF SIN. 99

deliberate sins (1 Tim. iv. 2), between sins of weakness (like
Peter's denial) and sins of wickedness (Judas, the mockers,
2 Pet. iii. 3), flagitious sins (Jas. v. 4, of the rich who
withhold their wages from the labourers), between human,
bestial, and devilish sins. As a special class may be mentioned
the so-called " infinite sins," l the greatness of which is undefin-
able and immeasurable, when, namely, the single sin is followed
by an infinite, immense host, wherefore they have also been
called peccata caudata (tail-sins). Thus an unjust and
unconscientious declaration of war involves an immense and
quite innumerable host of injustices against the life, health,
property of men, peaceful family and civil life, trade and
industry, and so on. A false bankruptcy, or an unprincipled
joint-stock swindle, which at last breaks out in a crisis or a
crash, which produces an incomputable destruction of the well-
being of innocent and guileless individuals and families,
likewise belongs to the infinite or unmeasurable sins, sins
with an illimitable tail. Finally, a distinction has also been
made between remissible sins, that is, those for which there
exists the possibility of forgiveness, and sins unto death
(1 John v. 16), — a distinction which, no doubt, admits of
application to the Christian life, as we must understand by
sins unto death those in which men so sin against offered,
or even against already received grace, that they thereby
become excluded from grace, and fall a prey to spiritual death ;
whereupon it is true the question again is, Whether the death
be only temporal, or that death from which there is no moral
resurrection.

STEPS OF DEVELOPMENT AND STATES OF THE LIFE OF SIN.

§ 39.

However important the distinctions we have discussed may
be, yet the single sin can only be rightly estimated when we
observe how it emerges and is connected with the entire
degree of development of the sinful will, in which the man
now is. For when the man yields himself to sin, there inevit-
ably occurs a reaction from the side of the good. Under the
1 Sailer, Christlicke Moral, I. 257.

100 STEPS OF DEVELOPMENT OF SIN.

continued struggle with the power of good, whose highest
manifestation within the Christian world is God's revealed
law and gospel, sin grows not merely in its degree, its inten-
sity, but it advances to another, a higher step. On each of
these steps the egoistic will gives itself a new impress of
character ; and to each of these steps there corresponds a
definite state, a form of personal existence, which in the
meantime is to be considered as standing and remaining.

In the history of the development of sin there occurs a
constant progress from nature to spirit, since at first it emerges
in relative unconsciousness, and from this is developed to
self-conscious, purely pneumatical egoism. This progress may
be more fully described as a progress from particularistic to
universal egoism. The man at first gives himself to sin in a
single, special way of manifestation ; his will is bound in a
single direction, and he has some bosom sin, without his whole
sentiment being already poisoned by it. But the farther the
man proceeds in self-deception and lying, the more does
egoism assume a pneumatic (conscious) character, and that
so that it more and more embraces the whole man, and
extends its impurity over all departments of the soul's life.
No doubt egoism will reveal itself in the single individual
predominantly in one of the chief directions of sin ; and not
without reason has it been remarked that, on account of the
limitation that is given to each individuality, no single man
can have all vices. But the special dominating tendency of
sin may well become the throne and seat for universal (all-
controlling) egoism ; and where circumstances favour, the latter
will also be inclined and ready to proceed to every conceivable
form of sin that ever occurs in actual life.

As different steps and states of corruption, we mention
security and self-conscious bondage, self-deception, hypocrisy,
and obduracy.

Security. — Self-conscious Bon doge.
§40.

Security, as commonly understood, is the state in which
one fears no danger, where one is cheerful and hopes the best.

SECURITY. 101

We all begin our life in security. For security (securitas,
that is, freedom from care) is the state of the natural man,
that of heathenism, the state where the man lives on " without
law." We all begin with unbiassed faith in life, and are
unfit to believe in death. For even when we see before our
eyes and around us death and misfortune, for a long time we
cannot imagine, nor make ourselves familiar with the idea,
that these things should also hit ourselves ; at any rate, we
think of it as of something infinitely remote, as a quite in-
definite and cloudy possibility. And just as we begin with
belief in life, so also with believing in our own hearts, and
do not suspect that we have within us an enemy who
threatens us with spiritual death. We are thus all born
optimists, spun round by "Maja,"1 by illusion, as it is said of
man in Claudius :

"Born and nourished
Of woman wondrously,
He comes and sees and hears,
And learns not the deceit."

And as we do not mark the deception and fraud in the
phenomena of this world, neither do we see through the
deceitfulness (17 airdrif) of sin, which mirrors before us an
enjoyment in which we are to find mere happiness. Security,
as a sinful state in a more special sense, consists only in this,
that a man in committing a sin, and beginning to fall a prey
to passion, makes light of it, and in his levity does not con-
sider the consequences, neither the external nor the internal
consequences for the development of his own character. He
thinks, " There is no need ; there is no danger in the matter."
True, he becomes aware of the reaction of the law and of the
conscience, forms also likely the purpose to desist from this
sin ; but as soon as the temptation recurs, he discovers, with
some astonishment, that the previous fall is repeated. How-
ever, that does not much affect him ; for, of course, he will
have a care in future. He has his free will, and can always
enter on a better way. But, contrary to all expectation, he
finds that he is involved in the bondage of sin, bound by a

1 Maja is an Indian goddess, the emblem of deceptive appearance, of the
illusions of this world. She is a deceiver.

102 SECURITY.

fetter that he cannot shake off, and discovers that it is quite
otherwise with the freedom of the will than he had thought.
He notices by degrees that there is yet another view of life
than the optimist. With most men this process, in which
the fair illusions of security evaporate, only occurs gradually
and slowly. With some, again, these mists part all at once,
when, that is, a specially strong temptation brings them
suddenly to a deep fall ; as with the disciple Peter, who denied
the Lord shortly after he had thought himself in the com-
pletest security, or as with Gretchen in Faust. One now
begins to understand that word, that every man has his price
for which he can be bought, that is, that there is for each one
a temptation to which he is unequal.

In very many cases, the surroundings of the man participate
in his transition into the bondage of sin. For, in unspeakable
security, parents and tutors allow it to happen that their
children assimilate, appropriate what is fitted to feed the
sensual impulses, let them, without judgment, without the
application of any moral and pedagogic criticism, take part in
social pleasures of every kind, and altogether let the aesthetic
tendency gain an undue advantage over the ethical. Care-
lessly, in the schools, the endeavour is to develop in the
children ambition and rivalry as the chief motives, and thus
the germs of pride are fostered. Carelessly parents develop
in their children respect for the earthly mammon, impress
upon them, by their example, or by the views of life which
they constantly express, the extraordinary importance belong-
ing to an eminent social position, or how the great thing is
" to make a good match." One need not then be surprised
that the rising sons and daughters "trust" — which the prophet
calls a folly — "in their own heart," when their tutors day
after day have preceded them in this.

§ 41.

When any one has become conscious that he is in the state
of bondage, the internal conflicts begin. He would free
himself from this state, with which his conscience reproaches
him. But where sin fully carries out its course of develop-
ment, he is more and more fettered by passion, which after

SELF-CONSCIOUS BONDAGE. 103

each gratification again desires a new one, and is never
satisfied. Ever anew purposes are formed, and ever anew
their execution fails in the vain struggle. One defeat follows
after another; and by each defeat the power of sin grows
stronger, whether the man is dominated by a sensual passion,
or carried away by the demons of avarice or of ambition,
through their alluring phantasms, to actions, and thereby
involved in relations, in which the dark powers hold him fast,
and drive him forward on the way to destruction. Now, as
the execution of every purpose is conditioned by the hope
that the execution is possible, but as this hope more and
more fails, the purposes also more and more become mere
weak purposes, mere desires, unfruitful wishes ; and at last,
when every hope is extinct, the man allows himself to be
carried along the stream of destruction. Now, it is not
indeed the case in all individuals, that the state of bondage —
which the honest striver also knows, who groans under the
hard yoke of duty, of which the Apostle Paul (Eom. vii.) has
given us a picture — leads to this extremity, to this abyss.
There are in this a multitude of transitions varying from
each other, a great difference in the strength of passion and
of habit, as well as in the power of resistance, whereby the
progress of passion may be checked. But one thing is
common to all who are in this state. That levity which
belongs to the state of security has been changed in them all
to a secret dejection. For dejection is a consequence of the
arrested development of the good, of hindered freedom, as
well as of the urgent requirement of the law, which weighs
upon their soul like a burden that grows ever heavier. As a
fact, dejection is already present in the state of levity, and
rests within like a background of care and anxiety, although
the man is not conscious of it. In the midst of security it
often asserts itself ; in the midst of light-hearted joy it breaks
forth for a moment, and the man does not then himself know
what makes him so sad. He is sad and out of humour about
— nothing, that is, nothing definite. And this secret dejection
does not proceed, as many think, from the state of the body,
though this may contribute to it, but from indwelling sin,
from the disturbance and dissipation present in the deepest
foundation of existence. And in the state of bondage the

104 SELF-CONSCIOUS BONDAGE.

man experiences that dejection is the inseparable companion
of sin.

The more that sin and corruption grow, and the man
becomes fully conscious of it, the more does dejection grow
also, and changes at last into despair, which is a state of
entire hopelessness, where all possibilities have vanished, all
gates and ways are closed to a man. There is a despair for
a hard fate ; and it happens not seldom, that a man, in con-
sequence of a single severe stroke, makes a sudden leap from
his natural state of security into the state of despair ; be it
that he has lost a beloved human being, or has lost his
means, or in any other misfortune. Against this form of
despair even heathenism has a remedy, namely, resignation,
submission to the inevitable. But the deepest despair is that
in which the man gives up hope, not merely for this or that
which he called his own, but for — himself as a moral being.
Yet there is here one sustaining and saving power, namely,
faith in God. Despair may, and should become the transi-
tion to salvation, if the man only desponds and despairs of
himself and his own power, but does not give up his God.
Nay, the relatively moral man must also at last despair of
himself, must cry out with the apostle, " O wretched man
that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death ? " But in this expression of entire inability, of
deepest helplessness, there is latent a hope of redemption, the
hope that what is impossible with man is possible with God.

Meanwhile there is still, apart from conversion and faith,
another way by which the man may attempt to escape from
the oppressive state of bondage, free from the reproaches of
the law and of the conscience. This way is self-deception.

Self-Deception. The Morality of Compromises. — Scepticism. —
Denial of the Moral Order of the World. — Indifference.
— Nihilism.

§42.

Through self-deception the man may imagine that he can
avoid as well the dangers of despair as the pains of con-
version. Sin, that is, may philosophize. The egoistic will

SELF-DECEPTION. 105

may take the understanding into its service, and may form
for itself a morality of sin, that is put in the place of duty
and of conscience, and lets sin appear to it in a new and
different light, which pacifies it, and helps it to recover the
lost security (antinomianism).

The beginnings of a morality of sin are found in a great
number of men, who will not quite break with the morality
of conscience, but would make compromises between it and
their own natural inclinations (the "two masters," Matt.
vi. 24). Many men spend their whole life in constant agree-
ments between sin and conscience, whereby the sting of
conscience is more and more blunted. At first the man
persuades himself, or lets himself be persuaded, that the idea
of the unconditioned requirement of the law is one too high
and overdrawn, by which one must not let himself be en-
tangled. He understands, indeed, that without morality the
world cannot stand, and that he himself cannot stand without
it. But now he gives ear to the current doctrine, and appro-
priates it, that one must not commit oneself to extreme ideal
requirements, and that it is a dangerous thing to plunge into
religious and moral over-refinements. He sympathizes there-
fore with a " sound " (reasonable) morality of the middle- way,
in opposition to a vigorous morality of duty. But the mediocre-
morality he so understands that in many cases it is allowed
to sin, provided that one does not push it quite too far, but
preserves moderation in sinning. The longer he practises this
doctrine, the better does he also learn to discover excuses,
nay, fit grounds, by which he justifies his open sins. He
learns more and more to forgive himself, and forms for himself
a system of absolution, in which the chief ground for absolution
is wont to be this, that " others," nay, " many," do the same,
and that it is something that one must needs allow to human
weakness. After he has attained this knowledge, he has no
longer even the design to lay aside the sins with which he is
reproached. He now feels himself at rest, although at times
he may have to endure a small contest with conscience, from
which, however, he soon betakes himself again to business and
to needful diversions. Among the abilities which he exercises
there is conspicuous the ability to forget whatever has been
wrong in his previous life, and to banish from his mind moral

106 THE MORALITY OF COMPROMISES.

inconveniences. Yet this contentment or security of his is no
longer that immediate, naive, and relatively innocent thing of
which we previously spoke. It is a reflected, an artificially
made security. The levity in which he lives is no more the
naive, so to say, accidental levity in which innocence, without
well knowing it, comes to a fall. It is a levity in which
there is method, and by which he wards off the dejection
connected with the state of bondage, combats it, or when it
has overtaken him, can struggle and escape from it. In reality,
he is in a moral state of dissolution, a progressive moral and
spiritual decay.

An author,1 who for the rest regards moral phenomena as
mere natural phenomena, has aptly depicted the system of
absolution that is found with many men of the world : " He has
an excellent, good, amiable wife ; but despite this he does not
cease to engage in a new amour, to-day with one, to-morrow
with another, is not even afraid to declare himself for
polygamy — that is, in practice ; for he is not disposed to
deny the moral importance of marriage. But he appeals to
this, that others do it also, or quotes in justification of his
way of life even this or that prince, to whose majesty such
relations did no injury. He is quite a patriot, enthusiastic
perhaps for his fatherland, and yet permits himself to defraud
the revenue. If his attention be drawn to the injustice, he
can mention so many otherwise respectable houses of business
who often evade taxes and stamps. He is conservative,
values authority, values his bishop and his burgomaster. But
when the year 1848 comes, he conducts himself like a radical,
speaks against State and Church, and subscribes and hawks
about addresses. If one points out to him the immorality of
his conduct, he declares that his sentiments have remained
the same. He calls his procedure behaving according to the
relations of the time (howling with the wolves among which
one lives)." This is indisputably a true picture from the life.
Only one must call in question whether it is justifiable, with
the author quoted, to conceive such an individual as a mere
natural phenomenon, the consideration being confined entirely
to the domain of "natural science" (Ke*e, I. 137). "We for

1 A. Ree, Wanderungen eines Zettgenossen auf dem Gebiete der Ethlk (Wander-
ings of a Contemporary in the Field of Ethics), Hamburg 1857, I. 113.

SCEPTICISM. 107

our part have an entirely different judgment on this well-
known moral phenomenon.

As another example of the process of moral dissolution, and
of the morality of compromises, we may quote the Danish
poet (died 1877), Paludan Muller's Adam Homo, a poem
which paints before our eyes a picture of moral decay, cor-
ruption under all forms of respectability, a progressive sinking
and falling of the inner man amid continued concessions to
the flesh at the cost of the spirit, a continued lulling of the
conscience amid light-hearted appeasements, a continued for-
getting of the past, whereby it is sought to preserve and
maintain one's secure rest of soul. Adam Homo's history is
in actual human life a very common history, which the poet
will express even by the title of his poem.

Yet these are all mere weak beginnings. There are deeper
stages of destruction. The morality of compromises, in which
the moral requirement of the conscience is still in part recog-
nised, is only a half-measure. Where sin thoroughly and
logically philosophizes, one must advance beyond this in-
completeness. Eight security is only gained when, instead
of the single and partial indulgence hitherto granted to one-
self, one can obtain a general indulgence once for all; or,
in other words, when one gains the view and conviction that
remission or forgiveness of sins is something that one in
fact has no need of, because the entire morality of duty
and conscience belongs to an antiquated and overcome stand-
point.

§43.

The fundamental philosophical beginning to the morality
of sin is scepticism. We do not in this place investigate the
importance that may theoretically attach to the proposition
that one must doubt all things in order to attain truth.
Neither will we here consider that nobler manifestation of
doubt which may serve a man as transition to truth, because,
that is, in his doubt there exists a secret faith in truth, and
likewise a longing after it. We speak here of the doubt by
which a man seeks to escape from the truth, because he
would gain a security against conscience and against the
fulfilment of duty. He then makes a practical application of

108 SCEPTICISM.

the sentence, that one must doubt all things, that not only
for free thought, but also for free will, nothing dare be fixed
beforehand, if one would find the truth. He even finds a
solace in the thought that it is by no means decided whether
there is a supernatural and supersensual world, not decided
whether there is a moral order of the world, and whether
duty and conscience are real powers, as they may also possibly
be mere imaginations, originating through habit, convenience,
custom, tradition, and education, and possibly also have only
arisen in ignorant ages, when right views had not yet been
attained. In consequence, however, of the inner connection
which in fact exists between religion and morality, this
scepticism is also applied to religion, to Christianity, and the
man is consoled to find that it is by no means sure that
there is a living God. Possibly there is no other God than
nature, possibly man is only a " product of nature," the history
of the world, as one has read somewhere, only " a physico-
chemical process." He who is animated by the wish to
deceive himself in this direction, by this mode of thought,
gets in our days the help of a very extensive literature not
only God-denying, but spirit-denying and purely naturalistic,
in which he will find abundant support.

After the individual we have here in view has ranged
about for a time on the "dry heath" of scepticism, his
scepticism at last passes over into dogmatism, that is, into a
body of definite dogmas that deny the moral order of the
world. He now convinces himself that what stands fast is
not the ethical and religious, but the physical, this world of
the senses, of which he himself forms a member, with his
impulses and inclinations. Instead of the old morality of
duty and conscience, he now constructs for himself a morality
in which instinct and natural impulse take the place of duty ;
in which the object of life is placed in the greatest possible
sura of earthly enjoyments ; in which the opposition between
good and evil is replaced by the opposition between the agree-
able and disagreeable, the useful and hurtful, what is prudent
and what is stupid ; in which the highest moral principle is
as follows : " Thou shalt love thyself above all, and all others
and all else for thine own sake (or so far as it is of use to
thee)." In this his merely physical view of life he is covered

DENIAL OF MORAL ORDER OF WORLD. 109

and secured against God, against Christianity, against a moral
order of the world, against imputation, responsibility, and
judgment. He knows he is perfectly secure ; for he knows
what stands fast. He knows the truly positive, what rests on
experience.

That men invent theories to enable them quietly to sin on,
is denied by those who derive all human error from ignorance,
from human imperfection and limitation. Now, although the
Holy Scripture by no means denies that error may arise from
ignorance, yet it by no means explains error from ignorance
alone, but finds its deepest spring in the human will. Thus
the Apostle Paul speaks in 1 Tim. i. 19 of " some who have
put away a good conscience, and thereby concerning faith
have made shipwreck." The ethical is here represented as
determining and deciding for the religious and dogmatic, in
opposition to the ordinary view, which in other passages is
likewise found in the apostle. But here he designates the
sinful walk, the sacrifice of the good conscience, as the cause
why these men afterwards also gave up the Christian faith
and the knowledge rooted therein. They feel themselves
hampered by the doctrines of the faith in the satisfaction of
their sinful lusts, wherefore they by degrees let go those
doctrines which are accompanied by such inconvenient
remembrances and warnings, and give ear to and receive
instead false, but for sinful man at any rate more convenient
doctrines. This invention and adoption of erroneous doctrines
in the interest of sin, the Holy Scripture designates as TrXdvrj,
that is, as an error, a wandering that is founded in the will
of man, which deliberately puts phantasms in the place of
truth. The apostle warns against this self-deception when
he says to people who denied a moral order of the world,
" Be not deceived (JJLTJ >jr\avaa-6e, wander not), God is not
mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap " (Gal. vi. 7). Of this the Apostle John speaks when he
says, " If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves (eavrovs
TrXavwpev}, and the truth is not in us " (1 John i. 8). Nay,
Paul says that God, in punishment for the sins of men, " sends
them strong delusion (evepyeia Tr\dvT]<f, 2 Thess. ii. 11), to
believe a lie." To believe a lie — with this the apostle
declares what there is in the so-called conviction of such

110 EMANCIPATION OF THE FLESH.

men. Their conviction is only a sham conviction. For real
conviction consists in the truth itself being present in a
personality. Yet their conviction is a faith, a confidence and
certainty, though imaginary, in which they feel themselves
secured, and as under guarantee. And this their security
grows from day to day. For the farther they remove them-
selves from the supernatural and supersensual world, in which
the law of holiness and righteousness rules, the deeper they
sink, as to their inner man, into the lower regions, and that
according to the law of gravity, with ever-increasing swiftness,
the more must the higher region of truth lose all reality for
them. Their eyes become dull for the supersensual, their
ears deaf for the voices of the spirit, that everywhere sound
in the world, although these voices are not heard in the
streets. They require proofs, and know not that, if they do
not grasp the truth, the defect lies in their organs, in their
faculty of comprehension. This lower material region is
alone real to them, and they most decidedly deny that there
is any other beyond it. That word of the Lord, Matt. VL 22 f.,
is applicable to them : " The light of the body is the eye : if
therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of
light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full
of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness,
how great is that darkness ! " That there is thus in their self-
deception an element of ignorance, we by no means deny.
On the contrary, it follows from their whole state that their
ignorance must be constantly increasing. Thev spirit of the
time has also a great share in their aberration. They deceive
themselves, and submit to be deceived.

§44.

In individuals of a higher spiritual endowment, the morality
of sin may appear with an impression of cleverness and
geniality ; and in more stirring times it occurs that it extends
over great masses of people like a kind of enthusiasm and
fanaticism. It is then loudly proclaimed as a new gospel, of
which the kernel is the emancipation of the flesh. This is
inseparable from the emancipation of the proud ego, which,
even when it declares itself a mere natural product, cannot

INDIFFERENCE. Ill

deny its false spirituality, and therefore eagerly boasts ul the
progress of our race and the immense advance which it will
yet make in future, if once Christianity and all connected
with it were swept from the world. Yea, from the overthrow
of existing, of course long antiquated ordinances, there is pro-
mised to the human race a new golden age. The adherents
of this gospel of the flesh often appear in a state that may be
designated enthusiasm for falsehood, for the powerful errors
by which they are inspired. We may here refer to an earlier
section of this work, which treats of the antinomian systems
especially of Carpocrates and Epiphanes.1

In opposition to these fanatics, there is a far larger number
of people who quite quietly, and without attracting the least
attention by their views of life and principles, and while
observing the traditional ordinances of society, live their life
in worldly prudence, after the morality of sin. The state in
which they live is, as the opposite of all fanaticism, in-
differentism, entire indifference to religion as well as morality,
— a state, however, that is not less dangerous than that of
fanaticism.

§45.

Where indifference has become prevalent in an age, or has
become widespread, scepticism has always preceded it. Men
have said good-bye to faith, and at the same time have already
seen so many philosophic systems, which, as eloquent
witnesses of the uncertainty of all human views, only pre-
sented the spectacle of mutual conflict and disunion. They
have also seen so many political systems, succeeding each
other, without any result being produced by the change. And
as they would not pay heed to the voice of conscience, which
constantly testifies to a moral order of the world, they have
given up truth and righteousness, and adhere only to the
deities of happiness and interest (utility), as alone reliable.
So was it at the time when Christianity appeared in the
Eoman world, in which a low physical view of life had
displaced the ideal and ethical, where the philosophical
didactic poem of Lucretius (born 99, died 55 years before
Christ), Of the Nature of Things, with the tendency to hold

1 See Christian Ethics, General Part, § 127.

112 INDIFFERENCE.

up nature as the only deity, was a widespread and favourite
study, even with Koman ladies. Even so has it been more
than once in modern history ; for example, during the period
of the French Eevolution, when religious and moral in-
differentisrn often occurred along with fanaticism for self-made
idols. So also very widely in our own time. When now-a-
days any one falls into indifferentism, it is undeniable that
the prevailing time-spirit comes mightily to his help in this,
and gives him the word. But, on the other hand, there are
in our time many other testimonies and voices that have
reached his ear, which he must reject. And only when he
has closed eye and ear for these reminders, can he get into
such a state of moral obtuseness that the higher life
of the spirit is extinguished. He is now secured against
all spiritual powers, for morally and spiritually he is on the
Dead Sea.

The gospel history puts before our eyes a type of indif-
ferentism in Pilate, with his question, " What is truth ? "
(John xviii 38). He was done himself with this question
long ago, which he utters with the completest indifference.
Everything supersensuous he holds as mere fanaticism. He
knows that the real truth is only the Eoman Empire, with its
now reigning emperor; then official business, circumstances,
relations. We have another type in the rich man in the
gospel (Luke xvi. 19). He suggests to us the party of the
Sadducees, who denied that there is a spirit, a resurrection,
and angels, and in consequence of this denial, promoted an
Epicurean mode of thought and feeling among their people.
He seems attached to those then widespread doctrines. Not
as if he had precisely philosophized ; yet he has appropriated
the results, and has thereby fallen more and more a prey to
indifferentism. He has taken no notice of " Moses and the
prophets," but regards them as antiquated. The testimony of
Scripture for the supernatural world, for the future judgment,
and a coming reckoning, he regards as something for which
" sufficient proof is lacking," and which has long become an
overcome standpoint, and is transcended by all that was then
called enlightenment and education, progress of culture, and
the modern view of the world. He has not for the rest
entered upon closer investigations, as all these things are far

NIHILISM. 113

too uninteresting to him. Standing on such a basis, he lived
then — and in this he has become a type of countless numbers
in our age — every day splendidly and in joy, till he died and
was buried. A third type is given us in the discourses of the
Lord on the last times, when it shall be as in the days of
Noah : " They ate, they drank, they married, they were given
in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark,
and knew not till the flood came and took them all away."
" Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot. They ate, they
drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built. But
the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and
brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Matt.
xxiv. 3 7 ff. ; Luke xvii. 2 8 ff.). The form of sinfulness here
manifestly emphasized by the Lord is indifferentism, indiffer-
ence to higher and holy things, combined with devotion to
objects of earthly culture and earthly enjoyment. " Con-
formed to this world " (Rom. xii. 2), they live on in full
security, till suddenly judgment breaks in upon them. And
as with the rich man who despised Moses and the prophets,
their security rests on their special depreciation of the testi-
mony of the truth. They would not hear Noah, who was a
preacher of righteousness. They vexed just Lot (2 Pet.
ii. 5-7). Even so in our time great multitudes live in the
self-deception that they need not regard the testimony of
Christ and the apostles, and that they are sufficiently guaran-
teed, by the splendid progress of culture and civilisation, against
God and the world of spirit, and the nearer and nearer
approaching judgment.

§46.

As indifferentism in itself is spiritless and wearisome, indi-
viduals who had given themselves to it indeed, but for the
rest belong to the more spiritually gifted, are very apt to
escape from the tedium by seeking to give to indifferentism
an element of spirit. This may be done by raising oneself
above the world and life in an all-comprehensive unbounded
irony, a play of wit which lowers and levels all things sacred
and profane, good and bad, high and low, and seeks to find
its satisfaction and rest in the reduction of all things to
nothing, or Nihilism. And that is a mental tendency in which

H

114 II STOCKIST.

one may be greatly strengthened by the study of those poetic
and aesthetic authors (and our age has plenty of them) whose
characteristic sign it is that they take nothing in earnest,
want nothing, and strive to deny all reality in life, down to
piquant wit and aesthetic enjoyment — " Clouds without water,
carried about of winds ; trees whose fruit withereth, without
fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots ; raging waves of the
sea, foaming out their own shame ; wandering stars" (Jude, vers.
12, 13). Their books are properly amusing reading for indif-
ferentists, for men to whom morality and religion are indifferent,
but who require pastime and redemption from tedium, who
therefore willingly take a hint how they can enjoy their own
self, while hovering ironically over all that exists. Indif-
ferentism may also obtain a mixture of spirit by combining
irony with a pessimistic pathos, a tincture of world-pain,
which constantly complains that nothing affords satisfaction,
while, however, the man may find himself interesting, and
enjoys his own imagined greatness and superiority, to which
nothing whatever is right and as one would wish.

True, a higher standpoint has here been occupied than is
occupied by simple prosaic indifferentism, but yet also a
higher step of sinfulness. If one still, forced by the power of
circumstances, somewhat respects in life what is moral, far
above which he sets himself in judgment and discourse, there
is always a pride at the bottom of this ironical nihilism which
dares to ply its mockery of God and the world, and does not
spare the holiest when there is an opportunity for a jest,
which pride may be designated insolence, and which on due
occasion changes to hatred of what is good and holy, especially
of Christianity. In writings of the tendency here designated,
there are sometimes found passages which testify a glowing
enmity to what is holy, sporadically naming up sparks from
hell.

Hypocrisy.
§47.

The deeper a man enters into the morality of sin, the more
does he grow into the kingdom of falsehood. A new and

HYPOCRISY. 115

wider step in this kingdom is hypocrisy, where a man is
entangled not only in self-deception and its illusions, but also
deliberately lies and masks himself to others, in order to
deceive them. "We speak here of hypocrisy as a state (a
habitus), as essentially determinative for the whole way and
manner of the existence of an individual. Partial hypocrisy
is already present in the previous steps. Each one who
follows egoistic objects will soon discover, that is, that the
order of the world, as well as social order, is opposed to caprice.
Although in his heart the egoistic character separates himself
from the community, and in a bad sense goes his own way,
yet he needs society, and cannot dispense with the friendly
hand and help of other men. He certainly dare not reckon
on men humouring bare egoism. Goodness is a power
dominating them so much, that even he cannot find entrance
to them except under the appearance of goodness. He thus
uses the good, the holy, as mere masks, in order under this
disguise to accomplish his objects. Hypocrisy occurs in all
the relations of life, — in the intercourse of love between man
and woman, when the seducer swears his false oath ; in the
intercourse between man and man, when friendship is feigned ;
in the political sphere, when tyrants as well as men of freedom
pretend a deep care for fatherland and human welfare, and
thereby lead men according to their designs, as also much
hypocrisy occurs in diplomacy ; in art and science, when a
pure unselfish love to the higher idea is pretended, while yet
the applause of the multitude is alone pursued, incense is
offered to the idols of the time-spirit, and the bad inclinations
of others are flattered, as well as one's own, opposed to truth,
religion, and morality ; in the religious sphere, when the mask
of the saint is taken to attain worldly advantages and the
satisfaction of the lusts, or in order " to be seen by men," " to
appear to them " (Matt. vi. 5, 16). Partial hypocrisy is found
at bottom everywhere in life ; and in social intercourse people
constantly deceive each other, by abusing speech in order
mutually to flatter their vanity, although quite conscious of
the inner untruth and emptiness. Wherever mere phrases
occur, that is, words without corresponding truth within man,
there is hypocrisy.

Still the men are always but few who go so far as to make

116 HYPOCKISY,

hypocrisy their personal form of existence, or the fundamental
feature of their character, — those, namely, who consciously have
given themselves to falsehood, and who, to accomplish their
egoistic objects, must always go masked. Their whole life is,
so to say, a single great " need-lie." For if they would gain
the goal they have once set before them, they cannot but lie.
Hypocrisy leads down into the depths of wickedness in the
measure that it is developed to virtuosity. It forms a chief
element of the demoniac state. There is no completely bad
character that is not likewise a hypocrite, apart from what in
the kingdom of evil he may otherwise represent. Shakespeare
has a clear view of this. The tyrant Richard IIL is a master
in hypocrisy. Macbeth does not appear a hypocrite from the
beginning ; but the deeper he sinks into sin and the deceit-
fulness of sin, the deeper also he sinks in hypocrisy. Lady
Macbeth, from the moment that the evil purpose is formed,
gives her spouse the counsel to dissemble, and clothes herself
in the garment of hypocrisy :

" To beguile the time,

Look like the time ; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue : look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under 't. "

Macbeth, I. 5.

Hypocrisy hides in its bosom a deep cowardice, which is
characteristic of the essence of eviL Evil does not dare to
be itself, to confess itself to itself, but must walk in the stolen
clothes of goodness, and hereby pays an involuntary acknow-
ledgment to goodness. On the other hand, there lurks in
hypocrisy a monstrous pride, a most outrageous audacity.
For indeed the audacity is outrageous that would make its
own caprice lord and master of the holy, to lower what ought
to be the object of man's deepest reverence to a hollow mask ;
and in the same sense it is audacious to use other men as
mere means and tools of an egoism, to deny social duty
towards them, in withholding from them their fundamental
right to truth (Eph. iv. 25), and in withholding oneself from
being known to them. This audacity may assume a demoniac
character, while individuals who have become familiar with
this mask-play may even find pleasure in the deception itself
and the mere lie, even without regard to the question whether

HYPOCKIST. 117

it yields them anything. If we said above that the existence
of the hypocrite is a great need-lie, we must now limit this
statement by saying that there are some who lie not only from
need, but from pleasure. There are men who find pleasure
in lying, in disguising themselves in the eyes of others, in
intriguing for intrigue's sake, only to have the satisfaction of
leading others astray, of surrounding them with a web, in
which they may be caught and confused, while the egoistic
self secretly enjoys itself and the experimental play that it
makes with them. Yet we will not conceal that the pleasure
of masking oneself, and thereby leading others astray, may
also occur in individuals whom we can by no means designate
as turned from the ethical, but who are earnest, close natures,
that are internally busied with themselves and their future
plans, and do not wish to be manifest to others before the
time. But such close natures have need to take good care
of themselves, and to watch the boundary, lest, while practising
a mask-play, supposed to be allowable, they at last imper-
ceptibly get drawn in with their psychological and other experi-
ments to demoniac and pernicious masquerades.

In order that the accomplished hypocrite, who uses all
things as means for his egoism, may in some measure preserve
rest and security (securitas) within him, he needs a nihilistic
view of life. He must incessantly exercise himself in the
self-deception that all in this world is illusion, that truth is
a chimera, that duty and conscience, responsibility and ac-
countability, God and immortality, are mere imaginations and
prejudices ; with which he must likewise practise contempt of
men, who are worth nothing better than to be deceived, as, in
short, the world wants to be deceived (mundus vult decipi,
decipiatur igitur). Yet no hypocrite will succeed in attaining
full security in this view of his. Eeality will disturb him
therein, by showing him, amid the conflicts of life, that the
good in which he will not believe is yet a reality, a power
that inexorably combats evil, makes a revelation of it through
the illumination of truth, and rebukes it ; that there is still a
rock here on which wickedness and the lie must ever be
stranded anew. Through being persuaded of this resistance,
that affected contempt of good is changed into hatred. One
despises what is empty and vain, but hates only that to which

118 OBDURACY AND DEVILISH EGOISM.

reality is attributed. By this means egoism is confirmed still
more deeply in itself. The character becomes more and more
hardened, and aims at combating and annihilating the good.

Obduracy and Devilish Egoism. Hatred of G-oocl. — Hatred of
Christ. — Sin against the Holy Spirit.

§48.

Obduracy, which may already partially take place in the
preceding stages, is the state in which receptivity for the good
is extinguished, in which one "with seeing eyes sees not, with
hearing ears hears not, and understands not with the heart "
(Isa. vi. 10) ; a full insusceptibility, in which one, void of all
(moral) feeling (^77-17X777*0x69, Eph. iv. 19), is dead to every
higher and nobler care, to every better motion, and so in a
moral sense is become like a corpse.1 Yet this is only the
passive side of the obduracy. The active side is the egoistic
self-assertion, which is brought to its highest point when,
with entire insensibility for the good, for all that is higher,
egoism will have only itself, not for any advantage, but for its
own sake (in order to assert itself), when the only endeavour
is to make evil and the kingdom of evil dominant ; on the
other hand, to destroy good and the kingdom of the good.
Although egoism will reason away the power of good, yet it
cannot dispense with this power as its opposite, but only exists
by it. It cannot, like good, rest in itself; it can make and
fashion nothing. It is a never-satisfied hunger, which seeks
its satisfaction in hatred and enmity of good, in the over-
throw and destruction of all living (of natural good). This
utmost development and last form of egoism is devilish. For
the devil would, in the lie of pride, make himself God ; but
can only do this by raging in his hatred against the one true
God, in order to destroy His kingdom and dominion.

Now, the question may no doubt be asked, Whether this entire
obduracy towards God, this devilish egoism, can occur among
men at all ? whether we have not merely, so to say, pointed
to an imaginary perfect image, an ideal of wickedness, but to

1 Compare Sailer, ChristL Moral, I. 275.

HATEED OF GOOD. 119

which the reality always but imperfectly corresponds ? In a
certain sense we allow this. For the apostle speaks indeed
of "the Man of sin, the Opponent who shall be revealed in the
last time, and sit in the temple of God, and give himself out
as God " (1 Thess. ii. 3, 4). But so long as we are in this
age, and the opposition between good and evil is not ripened,
so long can perfect wickedness be only sporadically and
approximately realized among men. In principle, however,
the last stage of evil may be occupied even in this world, in
so far as men may place themselves in the service of the
devilish principle ; wherefore the Holy Scripture speaks also of
men who are " children of the devil " (John viii. 44, compare
1 John iii. 8). And although wickedness can only then be
fully unfolded when such men have passed from this world of
sense into the proper world of spirits, yet experience abun-
dantly shows us the presence of the devilish principle among
us also, shows us manifestations of wickedness in which a
demoniac energy is expressed, that unmistakeably testifies of a
connection with the demoniac kingdom. That there is in the
world of men an actual hatred, an enmity against good, as well
against the morally as against the physically good, the living,
is shown in that " pleasure in unrighteousness " which is not
rare (1 Cor. xiii. 6) ; is shown in the frequently occurring envy,
malice, cruelty, that finds pleasure in torturing other men with
the most exquisite pains, bodily or mental; is shown in a
pleasure in destruction and annihilation, which may appear as
frantic mania, as in the Eoman emperors, in a Nero or a
Caligula, who wished that all the heads of the Eoman people
had had but one neck, that he might at one stroke cut them
all off together.1

But hatred and enmity against good is at the very bottom
hatred of the Good One. For, like love, hatred ever applies
itself to persons. And who can deny that there is a hatred,
an enmity to God, in which the man with passionate fury
would tear asunder the bonds that bind him to God (Ps. ii. 3),
would tear himself free and cast away his dependence on God,
of which in his inmost being he is yet conscious; and now
mocks the thought of God as a foolish imagination, now,
feeling the reality of it, utters blasphemies against Him, from
1 J. Miiller, die christliche Lehre von der Silnde, I. 233.

120 HATRED OF CHEIST.

whose holiness and omnipotence he cannot escape ? In the
Scripture it is said, "The devils believe and tremble" (Jas.
ii. 19). So there are men who believe indeed, but only in
this sense, that they have an involuntary certainty, internally
forced upon them, of the reality of the God-consciousness, but
who tremble at it, and seek by blasphemies to allay this
trembling. In our days such blasphemies have often been
heard in democratic assemblies, at revolutionary congresses,
and they may also be read in writings that are intended to
stir up the multitude.

Hatred of God is combined, however, with hatred of men,
especially of those who believe on Him and would serve Him,
and who have declared war with unbelief. Especially we
may here recall the hatred of the clergy, the ministers of
religion, as it finds expression on certain occasions. True, one
must guard — as need hardly be mentioned — against indis-
criminately confounding hatred of priests and preachers with
hatred of religion itself. On the other hand, it is by no
means superfluous to remark, that hatred of priests in very
many cases is the simple outflow of enmity to religion. State-
ments like this, that the last king must be hanged with the
entrails of the last priest, testify of a hatred that indicates far
more than a mere hatred of a certain class of men.

Above all, however, we must direct attention to the hatred
of Christ, that is, to that form of enmity to God which is
directed against the central point of the revelation of God's
love, and which we therefore may call the central enmity to
God. Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world with
this testimony, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"
(John xiv. 9), stands as the living witness of the holiness and
love of God, of the God-consciousness, of the reality of sin and
of grace. The great fact of the appearance of Christ is the
practical proof of the being and government of the living God
among us men, and speaks more loudly and powerfully than
all reasonings. If one, then, would get rid of God, one must
first of all get rid of Christ. He is the One with whom the
worldly mind especially takes offence. And even so must the
men who believe on and confess Christ be banished from the
world, as they are the living personal witnesses of communion
with God. The persecution of Christians is inseparable from

HATKED OF CHRIST. 121

the hatred of Christ, whether it be executed with fire and
sword, or with words, with the arrows of mockery and scorn.

§ 49.

The hatred of Christ has, however, this peculiarity, that it
does not necessarily presuppose a general enmity to God and
a vicious life, but that it may also be developed from a certain
standpoint of human virtue and righteousness. We recall the
Apostle Paul, who, before his conversion, as Saul hated Christ
and persecuted the Christians, and yet with all this was still
leading a pious and righteous life according to the law.
Hatred of Christ, that is, is always developed from the offence
that is taken at the appearance of Christ. But that offence
springs from man's natural heart, and does not by any means
merely occur in such as are "sinners before others;" but also,
and that with a peculiar colouring, in such as pursue their
own ideals of virtue, and in secure repose of soul depend on
their own virtue and righteousness. Herein consists the
danger of the offence, that by it in itself, even without pass-
ing through other ways and regions of sin, a man may by a
few steps fall into regions of evil closely connected with the
demoniac kingdom ; nay, may fall into a sin which, if con-
sistently carried through, must at last end as the sin for which
there is no forgiveness. In this sense it may be said to be
dangerous for a man to come into contact with Christ, into a
closer relation to Him. For, by entering into a relation with
Christ, we are brought into the central and direct relation to
God, which may become not only " for our rising again," for
raising, but also " for our fall " and destruction (Luke ii. 34).
In this one relation, namely, that to the Eedeemer, to redemp-
tion and the forgiveness of sins, the difference vanishes
between those who are " sinners above others," and those who
are sinners in general ; between the unrighteous and the
relatively righteous. In this relation only the one question
avails, whether one will accept the forgiveness of sins which
all need, or will despise it, and thereby place himself in a
relation of direct enmity, direct defiance to God, and contract
a guilt that is the heavier the more it is developed into
conscious hatred, to scorn and mockery of the divine grace.

122 HATRED OF CHRIST.

Sooner or later a turning-point must occur in every man's
life, when he is placed face to face with Christ, and must
make his choice. And here what we said above is confirmed,
that as sin in the history ot our race has originated within the
religious sphere, it must also end in the same sphere, as well
for the race as for the individual.

§ 50.

Offence is the umbrage that the human heart in its natural
(unconverted) state takes at the appearance of Christ, at the
testimony that He bears of Himself, and that His disciples
bear to Him ; at the requirement that He makes of man, and
which amounts to conversion, faith, and holiness. By nature
our heart finds all this in contradiction to its own conceptions
of God and man, and is thereby provoked. But although the
understanding is offended at the gospel, yet it is essentially
the will to which it is offensive. It is human pride that
feels itself humbled by the appearance and entire revelation
of Christ, and will not have this humiliation. The more
urgently the gospel, and the gospel testimony, directs its
requirements to man, and the longer the pride of man resists
it, the more does the offence that has been taken pass over
into hatred. One wishes to rid the world of this form, a
form which constantly crosses the path of human virtue and
righteousness to disturb it, and condemns so much of what
one would insist upon and maintain. One becomes more and
more conscious of this, that if He is the truth, then there is an
end of all our wisdom, and we are walking in ways from which
we must turn, which we must leave. Thus one is set fast in
this temper : we will not have it so ; we will not have this
Man to reign over us. It is then sought to bring it about that
Christ is anew accused and crucified. All arts are sought to
invalidate Christ's own testimony and that of His disciples, to
tear the crown of divinity from His head, to deny His sinless-
ness and holiness ; His royal dignity is mocked, His utterance
is scorned that all power is given to Him in heaven and on
earth. In this respect it is interesting in our days to hear
from the mouths of the enemies of Christ the assurance that
Christianity has long since ceased to be a power in history

SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT. 123

and in life, it has long belonged to the things that are done
away, and there is no longer any one -who really and uprightly
believes in Christ ; faith in Christ is an overcome standpoint,
given over to forgetfulness. According to this, one would
expect them to speak of this dead thing with all quietness
and indifference ; nay, that they would hardly find it worth
while to speak of it at all. But the anger and passionate
heat, the suppressed bitterness with which these assurances
are again and again brought forward, without these people
growing weary of the repetition, clearly betrays that He who
forms the object of their hatred is no dead one, but a living
one ; that hatred of Christ is inseparably connected with fear
of Christ, the secret fear of the risen, truly living Christ,
present in the midst of us.

§ 51.

Where hatred of Christ is developed to its utmost point, it
becomes the sin against the Holy Spirit. The Pharisees had
been witnesses of one of the miracles of the Lord, and there-
upon they declared in their hatred, " this fellow doth not cast
out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils " (Matt. xii.
24). They accuse the Holy One, whom God had sent into
the world, of standing in league with the devil. Then Christ
spoke the solemn, weighty words : " All sin and blasphemy
shall be forgiven to men ; but the blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven to men. And whosoever
shall speak against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ;
but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall
not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world
to come."

We are not to understand this utterance of the Lord as if
the sin against the Holy Spirit were something in its essence
entirely different from the sin against Christ. The sin against
the Holy Spirit is always sin against Christ also; for the
wish of the Holy Spirit is nothing else than to glorify Christ,
and He never speaks of His own, but takes all from Christ
(John xvi. 14£). But the difference consists in this, that
there is a hatred, an enmity against Christ, which is more or
less without the right knowledge of Christ, an enmity which

124 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIKIT.

has such an element of ignorance that that word of the Lord
may be applied, " Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do" (Luke xxiii. 34), are not conscious in what
degree, how frightfully they sin. Such hatred of Christ, and
the mockery or blasphemy springing from it, must be had in
view when the Saviour says, " Whosoever speaketh against the
Son of man, it shall be forgiven him " (of course on condition
of repentance and believing conversion). Where, again, the
Spirit has so glorified Christ that His truth and righteousness
have appeared to the heart of the man, who yet, internally
resisting, hears this testimony that he has within himself, and
still mocks and blasphemes, that is the sin against the Holy
Spirit. And this sin cannot be forgiven, because the man
thereby thrusts from within him the sin-forgiving grace itself
and salvation, and substitutes blasphemy for it. In the sin
against the Holy Spirit, then, the man does not merely deny
an external fact, — as long as anything is merely external and
strange to one, it may still be doubted, — but an internal fact,
denies the inmost and holiest truth of his own consciousness.
He tells himself and others the lie that the gospel of Christ
is a false gospel; and he yields himself to believe this his
own lie — despite the clear testimony of the Spirit in his
conscience and heart.

This sin can only be committed by men who have come
into such a relation to Christ, as to be internally touched and
laid hold of by the effects of the divine holiness and grace.
And whether we are to regard the word that Christ spoke,
owing to the bold scorn of the Pharisees, as a warning against
the sin which they were in the utmost danger of committing,
or as a direct accusation against those that had committed it,
that word equally assumes that the Pharisees to whom it was
spoken had received through the operations of the Spirit an
impression of the truth and holiness in Christ, nay, a know-
ledge of Christ, which they resisted from a wicked disposition,
and wantonly opposed. By the sin against the Holy Spirit
we must, then, specially understand men who have entered
into a relation of discipleship to Christ, which, however, is
not yet sufficiently confirmed to exclude the possibility of
falling away. Such men the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews has in view when he writes, chap. vi. 4-6 : " It is

SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT. 125

impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have
tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the
Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the
powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew
them again unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to themselves
the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame."

§52.

One cannot then imagine the sin against the Holy Spirit
without a falling away from Christ, whether the man was
already an actual disciple, or occupied a preparatory stage of
awakening and enlightenment. But every fall from Christ is
not a sin against the Holy Spirit. To know whether a man
has been guilty of falling away from Christ, in the sense of
committing the sin that cannot be forgiven, it will be needful
to know how far the falling away was internal and conscious;
but this can only be perfectly known by the Searcher of
hearts.

In order to show how various in kind may be the falling
away from Christ, we will mention the instance of a notorious
fall, which yet can by no means be viewed as sin against the
Holy Spirit. We mean the Eoman emperor Julian the
Apostate. In the sense of a spiritual and internal act, he
certainly never fell away from Christ, for he never consciously
belonged to Christ. True, he was baptized and confessed
Christ ; he also read the Scriptures of the New Testament,
which he sought to answer. But from the history of that
time it unmistakeably appears that the Spirit had made nothing
of all that clear to him, at least not in such a way as that he
had ever gained a clear understanding, or even merely a
deeper presentiment, of the truth. In his youth, compelled, by
relations in whom he must have seen political opponents, to
perform a service in the Christian Church (as reader of the
Holy Scriptures), the imperial prince remained enthusiastically
devoted to heathenism, its wise men and poets. Christianity
was only presented to him in caricature. He saw in Christian
worship only an empty ceremonial service ; and even so he
could only see in the theological disputations of those days
a hair-splitting worship of the letter, which seemed to him

126 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT.

disgusting and ridiculous. It must also have repelled him to
see Christianity in the service of cunning politics, and men
who were the most zealous representatives of orthodoxy defile
themselves with hypocrisy and the coarsest immorality. But
to distinguish here between caricature and ideal, between the
abuse and the thing itself, between the degenerate and the
original, was not given him by the Spirit. According to the
picture of him presented to us by history, he cannot have
sinned against the Holy Spirit by his falling away from the
Church. What has made his name famous, is his bold
imperial thought to combat Christianity and to revive
heathenism. This his struggle for heathen ideals of life and
humanity has made him so worthy to many adherents of a
heathenish humanity in our own day, to people who see in
Julian a spiritual greatness, but know the essence of Chris-
tianity just as little as he did, and therefore think to combat
it, while they only fight against a shadow, a caricature,
which is all they know of it ; although we are very far from
denying that many combat something else, and more than a
mere caricature. In his struggle, that word of the poet was
fulfilled in him :

" It is a vain and empty venture
To fall against the wheel of time ;"

and this is the tragical part in his fate. The last word
assigned to him, " Thou hast conquered, Galilean !" — and that
this, if not his last word, was at least his last thought, can
hardly be doubted, — tells only of his consciousness of Chris-
tianity as an external historical power, which had for and
with it the stream of time. But not the slightest trace would
lead us to think that the inner essence of this power, against
which he became more and more embittered, and which he no
doubt hated, had ever appeared to him, or that in his own
heart there had ever occurred a struggle between heathenism
and Christianity. To the last moment he remained bond fide
a heathen, and is said during the last night of his life,
with Greek philosophers, in great composure, to have made
observations of heathen wisdom on the elevation and immor-
tality of the human soul. If in the Church, with a certain
shudder, mention is often made of a Julian apostasy, and a
Julian enmity against Christianity ; this Julian enmity takes

SIX AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT. 127

Us place indeed in the history of human sin, and human
errors ; but a high pneumatical importance cannot be assigned
to it. To quote Heb. vi. 4 ff. against Julian, is altogether
unwarrantable.

The Julian apostasy is the type of the merely external
apostasy, an apostasy from an outward confessional relation
to Christ, the type of an enmity to Christ which in several
respects is to be attributed to ignorance, and to lack of the
light of the Spirit, without regarding it as therefore not to be
imputed. It has often recurred under other forms ; and it
may be asked whether, in the attacks of a Voltaire and
kindred spirits against Christianity, which they mainly knew
only as a caricature, much does not belong to the Julian
category ?

If we seek, again, a type for internal apostasy, we do best
to follow the Scripture, which shows us in the circle of the
most intimate disciples a Judas Iscariot. That Judas had
received a deep impression of the holiness of Christ cannot
be doubted, and appears at last in the confession which he
makes after his crime : " I have betrayed innocent blood "
(Matt, xxvii. 4). As one whom Christ Himself had chosen
("Have not I chosen you twelve?" John vi. 70), he must
have made a good beginning. But as he loved the darkness
rather than the light, filled imagination and heart more and
more with the ideal of an earthly Messiah, who should procure
his disciples worldly honour and glory, while Christ con-
stantly showed them a Saviour who was not of this world;
as his life with the Lord and that whole circle, the longer it
was continued, became the more burdensome to him, while he
felt himself in his heart judged and rebuked ; he conceived a
hatred to Christ, yet so that he yielded at once to hypocrisy
and sin, and he committed his evil deed. It has been dis-
puted whether this apostasy, this betrayal of Judas, can be
called sin against the Holy Spirit. The Scripture gives us
no express answer to this question. As an extenuating cir-
cumstance, it may indeed be urged that, when Judas com-
mitted this sin, the Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out.
" The Holy Spirit was not yet given," we read in John vii. 39,
" for Jesus was not yet glorified." But, on the other hand,
we may mention that preparatory enlightenment is to be

128 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT.

regarded as preceding the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and
that the Lord Himself says of Judas, " It were good for that
man if he had never been born " (Matt. xxvi. 2 4), a word in
which, at any rate, this dreadful meaning seems to He, that for
his sin there was no forgiveness.

Among those who have accused themselves of the sin
against the Holy Spirit, we instance from the history of the
Church the well-known example of Francesco Spiera. Spiera,
who lived at the time of the Reformation (he died 1548), was
a talented Italian jurist, who enthusiastically exchanged the
Popish for the evangelical religion, of which he bore witness
as one awakened to a living faith. On worldly grounds, and
in contradiction to his clear conviction, he afterwards fell away
from the evangelical faith, which he publicly abjured. He
accused himself of having committed the sin against the Holy
Spirit, because the inner voice of the Spirit had most strongly
warned him from this apostasy, and he had nevertheless
defiantly resisted. He despaired, would accept no comfort,
but constantly complained, "God is mine enemy," and died
a frightful death, in unutterable anguish of conscience. The
idea that he had really committed the sin of which he accused
himself may find confirmation in this, that in his life-history,
unhappily after as well as before his awakening, there are
found many traces of bad tricks of advocacy, of hypocrisy and
lying. On the other hand, in extenuation of the judgment on
him, one may bear in mind that his terrible unfaithfulness
never seems to have been hatred to God and Christ, although
at times in his mania he exclaimed, " I hate God, for I know
that He will not have mercy upon me." Without exalting
ourselves as judges over him, we add only the general remark :
Because any one accuses himself of having committed this
sin, it by no means follows that he has committed it. It
often recurs in the history of temptations, that men accuse
themselves of this sin, while the sincere pain, the dread of
the sin, the eager longing for God's forgiving grace, for com-
munion with God, that they express, testify that they have
not committed it. This sin is not committed by a man, in
levity and self-forgetfulness, uttering a doubtless very bad
and blasphemous word ; or by any one, from weakness, denying
his Lord, denying recognised truth or his own conviction, as

SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT. 129

Peter denied them. It consists rather in an internal per-
version in the attitude of the heart to God and the truth, an
inner defiance, a conscious yielding to the spirit of lies, not
merely a partial, but so central a yielding as to involve a
permanent enmity to God, and with this a permanent
insusceptibility for the forgiveness of sins. "We are not,
indeed, in the present state in a position in any way to
assign sure criteria for this permanency. But so long as truth
and uprightness are still in a man's heart, so long as he not
only trembles before the holy and almighty God whom he
has offended, but also feels in the depth of his heart a longing
for God's mercy and His sin-forgiving love, he has not com-
mitted the sin against the Holy Spirit. But in this there
certainly lies for all of us the earnest requirement to pray :
" Search me, 0 God, and know my heart : try me, and know
my thoughts : and see if there be any wicked way in me, and
lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24).

The awful manifestations of sin considered above only attain
their full development in the kingdom of darkness beyond
the grave. The assurance of unbelief that no such kingdom
exists, is destitute of meaning for any one who has already
seen here on earth the working of the power of darkness
and of the demoniac kingdom. On the contrary, we acknow-
ledge that there are depths of wickedness that we cannot
conceive, and which are not meant to be objects of our
conception in this life. The practical side of the matter is,
that we must recognise the destructive power against which
we have to contend, the abyss against which we have to be
on our guard.1

If we have above attempted to show a progression in the
development of sin, we by no means overlook the fact that

1 As a warning against a perverted endeavour theoretically to conceive the
kingdom of darkness, and to look through it, Franz Baader quotes from Schiller's
ballad, The Diver, the well-known strophe, which he applies to the mysteries
of wickedness and of hell :

"Let him rejoice

That breathes here in the rosy light ;
But down there under it is frightful ;
And let not mortal tempt the gods,
And never, no never, desire to see
What they cover in grace with night and horror.*
I

130 IMPUTATION AND GUILT.

life, history, poetry exhibit before us, besides a multiplicity
of intermediate forms, an infinitude of combinations and
crossings of different elements of evil, which cannot be brought
under general categories, whose development rather belongs
to individual contemplation, entering into personal relations.
Our object was only to point out the chief ways, whose last
issue is destruction.

IMPUTATION AND GUILT. PUNITIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

§ 53.

By sin man becomes guilty ; for his sin is imputed to him,
that is, brought back to himself as the free cause thereof.
God is not the cause of sin, nor a blind fate ; and when the
poet says of " the heavenly powers " that " they bring us into
life, let the poor man become guilty, and then leave him to
his pain," that is simply fiction, and not truth. It lies in the
conception of guilt, that sin has proceeded from the man's
own will, and that the man who by his sin has made a breach
in God's holy world-order, has thereby become liable to an
atoning punishment. And even granting that this punishment
only takes place in a distant future, or in the other world,
yet it hovers from the first like a threatening sword over the
head of the guilty, of which even the hardened sinner has a
dim presentiment. But not only are those people affected
with guilt who are wont to be called sinners before others,
not only such as have committed great and horrifying crimes,
but we are all debtors, as certainly as we are all shiners,
wherefore we have all to pray in the Lord's prayer, " Forgive
us our debts." Yet it may be said that, on the whole, there
is far more consciousness of sin in men than consciousness of
guilt, because men do not distinguish between sin and guilt.
Many men think that, could they only become free from sin,
reform, and cast their sins behind them as into an abyss, all
would be in order. This is, however, a great error. Even
if the sin may be regarded as past and gone, guilt yet
remains as an ever-present requirement, as an unpaid debt
cleaving to him who has sinned. It is by no means sufficient

IMPUTATION AND GUILT. 131

for a man to reform, even if he could ; a satisfaction must be
rendered for the fault and crime of the past. Goethe was
wont, when he had freed himself from this or that passion,
this or that perverted tendency of spirit, to represent it in a
poetic work, and thereby entirely to free himself internally
from it. Much-admired poetic creations have thus, it is true,
originated ; but ethically it must be declared that the matter
itself was hereby by no means adjusted. For the guilt which
a man has contracted in such circumstances of passion, for
instance, by unfaithfulness in this or that love-affair, is
certainly not got rid of by freeing oneself from, and rising
above the passion, by glorifying the whole for his own soul
as a fancy picture, and now looking back like a convalescent
on the sickness he has endured. In an aesthetic point of
view, indeed, the practice of Goethe cannot be imitated by
others who cannot reproduce their circumstances in poetic
works like him. But in an ethical point of view it is very
common, and is followed by many, who consider that the only
important thing is to turn one's back on sin, and leave it
behind one, to look back upon it as a finished, past affair,
without thinking further on the guilt, the unsettled debt.
True, men are much disposed to forgive themselves this guilt,
or to let their good friends forgive them. But, in truth, God
alone can forgive it, and He forgives it only on the condition
that He Himself has established in the gospel.

§54.

What is imputed to a man is not merely the single action,
but the whole moral state in which he is. For it is by his
own will that each one makes himself what he becomes.
One may indeed inquire whether there is not something in
the moral state of every man that may be regarded as fate,
whether the inborn sinfulness, the influence of environment,
of education, do not justify this point of view, for instance,
when children in early years are bred by their own parents
to wickedness and sin. We in no way call in question the
justice of this view. The Searcher of hearts will know to
distinguish in the judgment between what in the sinful state
of a man is his fate, and what is his guilt. But we must

132 IMPUTATION AND GUILT.

most strongly maintain that what we call fate has a side on
which it entirely falls under personal imputation. Fate is
constantly transmuted into personal guilt, so far as a man
appropriates and voluntarily continues the evil that has come
upon him from without and pressed into him. Man is will ;
God's holy law is the proper law of the human will ; and man
cannot avoid judging himself and submitting to be judged by
this law.

It is a not unusual error, that only intended, self-conscious
sin is imputed to a man. The circumstance that a sin is
committed in ignorance may indeed mitigate the judgment
upon it. But if ignorance ought to set me free from all
imputation, the obligation of the law for me must depend
merely on my accidental and changing knowledge of the law.
But the law is the law of my being, whether I know of it in
particular cases or not, and each of my volitions is subjected
to its judgment. Through ignorance and unconsciousness a
thing may indeed appear as innocent. But if unconscious
sin comes to light, it is not only recognised as sin, but also
imputed. And in the ignorance itself, when viewed in con-
nection with the character, there is also guiltiness, a neglect, a
not-hearing of the voice of conscience. In the contest which
was waged in the seventeenth century, and beyond it, between
the Jansenists and the Jesuits, this point came to be fully
handled. The Jesuits define sin as a voluntary (conscious)
transgression of the Divine commandment. The less con-
sciousness of sin, the less imputation. The more he sins in
anger, in passion, in states where a man is not his own master,
the more claim has he to be freed from imputation. The less
I think on God while committing a great sin, the less I trans-
gress His commandment; the less I was disturbed by a
scruple of conscience in committing a sin, the more easily can
I be absolved ; whereas I am more deserving of punishment
if I had scruple and misgiving in the commission. The
sophistry with which the single action was here torn asunder
from the whole preceding course of actions, and which was
applied to absolve from the most audacious sins, found its just
castigation in Pascal's Provincial Letters (the fourth). That
ignorance does not do away responsibility, is seen in the
prayer of the Lord for His enemies : " Father, forgive them :

PUNITIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 133

they know not what they do " (know not in what degree,
how frightfully they sin). Ignorance is here indeed regarded
as an extenuation ; but if it could do away the guilt, it would
surely be superfluous to pray for forgiveness. Christ also says
expressly, " That servant which knew his lord's will, and
prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall
be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did
commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few
stripes" (Luke xii. 47 f.). Here again it is expressly said
that he who sins in ignorance shall be punished, although in a
smaller degree than he who consciously sins. Various degrees
of responsibility are recognised in the Holy Scriptures through-
out. " It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the
day of judgment than for this generation" (Matt. xi. 22, 24;
Luke xi. 32, the men of Nineveh). For in Christ's days
the strongest motives were presented to men, the purest
knowledge of the truth, of which earlier generations were not
partakers. Only degrees of responsibility by no means exclude,
they rather presuppose that sins of ignorance are also imputed.
The Apostle Paul says of himself, that he persecuted the
Church of Christ "ignorantly in unbelief" (1 Tim. i. 14);
nevertheless he accuses himself as the chief (greatest) of
sinners (ver. 15). The history of missions bears witness to
the psychological fact that savage peoples who were sunk in
the vilest superstition, in which they had yielded themselves
to all impurity, to an unnatural cruelty and lust, as soon as
the light of the gospel shines upon them, by no means feel
themselves excused through their deep ignorance, but accuse
themselves in sorrowful repentance.

§ 55.

Where there is unatoned sin and guilt, the punitive justice
of God must also be revealed. " The wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,
who hold down the truth in unrighteousness " (Rom. i. 1 8).
Punishment is the reaction of righteousness against sin, the
retribution that comes upon the sinner's head, gives him to eat
the fruit of his doings, and thereby maintains the moral order
of the world, disturbed by sin, and gives effect to it. A con-

134 PUNITIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

ception of punishment that sets forth its object as exclusively
the reformation of the sinner, springs from a weak humanity,
that exalts goodness and grace at the expense of righteousness.
The proper conception of punishment is retribution, that
"judgment shall return to righteousness (Ps. xciv. 15), the
law be maintained (Ps. cxi. 7, 8), and man may reap what
he has sowed " (Gal. vi. 7). That regard to reformation does
not necessarily belong to the conception of punishment, but is
only an additional element, so far as punishment is admitted
into the teleology (the final cause) of grace, is clearly seen
from the discourses of the Lord concerning the last judgment,
where the damned are banished into the outer darkness.
Here there is no mention of reformation, but only of retribu-
tion. But so long as the time of grace lasts, so long as a
man, even outside the region of redemption, is an object of
the educative providence of God, one may no doubt discover
a pedagogic element in punishment, in which reforming grace
makes itself manifest. In the stricter meaning of the word,
however, no punishment can reform man ; at the best it can
only exert a preparatory influence, to induce the man to seek
reformation, to lay hold of the gospel, which alone can bestow
the power for thorough reformation and renewal of the man.
Only in the region of redemption, only for those who are
become God's children, punishment is transformed into paternal
discipline (ira&eia} ana trial.

It may indeed be said that the sinner carries his punish-
ment in himself, in the unrest, the dispeace that fills his
heart ; that the deeper he sinks into sin, the more this word
is fulfilled in him : " Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul
of man that doeth evil" (Rom. ii. 9). But righteousness
must also manifest itself in the external state, in the destinies
that retributively visit man, whether they immediately and
directly proceed from the laws of the disturbed order of the
world, or come upon him by special leadings. That this
outward, actual revelation is often delayed, and in many cases
is hard to be recognised as such, lies in the nature of the
present life, or in this, that the last judgment is not yet come,
that will clear and rectify all things. But that partial judg-
ments can be recognised even here, not only in the history of
the world and of the nations, but also in the life of families,

PUNITIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 135

of individuals, can be denied by no one that believes in a
righteous God. Divine reactions against human sins, now as
retributive punishments, now as educative chastisements,
appear often and in many ways. At one time these divine
reactions reveal themselves indirectly. Hindrances are then
opposed to sinful purposes and undertakings; sufferings are
sent, adversities, checks in the way ; one or other blessing is
withdrawn from the man. At another time they reveal them-
selves directly, and as it were palpably, especially when a
man in pride and defiance has sinned against God. Then the
word is often terribly fulfilled, "He that exalteth himself
shall be abased." A sudden, deep humiliation is then decreed
to the man, humiliations in which God the Lord makes him
aware of His insulted majesty. Even the old world had a
glimpse of this; and, in the Greek tragic poets, the chorus
often makes observations on the punishment which the angry
deity inflicts on human pride and arrogance. At times the
punitive justice may appear as a divine irony, that lets the
sinner attain an entirely different result, an entirely different,
nay, opposite outcome of his purpose, to what he had planned.
It is among the most fearful of the revelations of God's
righteousness, when sin itself becomes the punishment of sin ;
when God gives men over to their sins (Bom. i. 26, 28),
blinds their eyes and hardens their hearts, that they may not
see with their eyes nor understand with their heart (John
xii 60) ; that the measure of their iniquity may become full,
and thereupon judgment come upon them the more terribly.
This revelation stands written in the history of the nations in
capital letters. But it may also be read in the history of
individuals, provided one can and will read such divine
writing.

§ 56.

For the infliction of punishment it is necessary that the
man come to recognise it as a deserved punishment, that is,
that he acknowledge his sin, and likewise reckon it to him as
his guilt. Sooner or later this acknowledgment of sin and
guilt, that is, not only of this or that sin and guilt, but of the
whole sinful guilty state, will come for every man, be it in
this life, at the hour of death, or in the future life. When

136 PUNITIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS

such a moment occurs, the man stands face to face with a
great alternative. This knowledge, in which each one who
has not been reconciled to his God will necessarily feel him-
self unworthy of communion with God, must either lead to
repentance, to godly sorrow, in which he then lays hold of
grace, in faith in the forgiveness of sins ; or it must pass
into despair, into an absolute renunciation of all hope
(desperation).

Despair is the last result of sin, except an escape from this
hell can be gained by means of repentance. Despair is the
essence and the proper meaning of hell, wherefore the Inferno
in Dante bears that inscription : " All hope abandon, ye who
enter here." That sin not repented of must lead to despair,
is evident in those men who have made greater progress in
the path of sin. The farther a man proceeds in this path, the
more a secret despair moves within him.1 However many
false prospects and hopes the guilt-laden one may conjure up,
there yet lies at the bottom of his soul a secret hopelessness,
not merely regarding the event of his special egoistic efforts,
but above all, a hopelessness in regard to his own person, his
future. Despite all his lies and all his defiance, yet the
power of God, the power of good, so asserts itself for him,
that he fears the truth and reality of it, that he, this pre-
supposed, feels himself overcome, rejected and excluded from
the communion of God, and only staring into a starless night.
In secret, we say, this despair is present ; but if the moment
occurs when the consciousness of guilt emerges in full clear-
ness, it becomes manifested. In despair the sinner may yet,
with the abyss of hopelessness and darkness before his eyes,
abide in his defiance, in order to perish with heroism. But
the history of sin shows us that even to the most defiant and

1 In Soren Kierkegaard's paradoxical utterance (in his book, The Sickness
unto Death), that all men are in a state of despair, even though they do not
know it themselves, we can only acknowledge the general truth, that in every
human heart, in consequence of the state of sin, there exists a germ of despair,
But it may also with as good reason be said that in every human heart a germ
of hope is present, and that man's hope, his hope, however indefinite, of salva-
tion, is only fully extinguished in the extreme stages of sin and guilt. The
conception of despair can, as we apprehend, only be set forth with the definite-
ness belonging to it, when it is fully denned in its relation to the conceptions ol
hope and futurity.

PUNITIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 137

arrogant sinners, there yet come moments when they sink
down, feel a deep horror of themselves, despond and despair.
And it may perhaps be said that in hell there occurs a con-
stant alternation, an incessant change of despair, now into
defiance, now into despondency (compare Jer. xvii. 9), in single
instances both together. The desponding hopelessness in
which the sinner loses courage, becomes cowardly, and breaks
down, must not, as one is often inclined to do, be confounded
with repentance or godly sorrow (2 Cor. vii 10). Not with
a feeling of repentance, which ever includes a hope, however
anxious, and a longing, but in boundless despair, in horror of
himself, Judas declares, " I have betrayed innocent blood,"
and casts from him the thirty pieces of silver. That it is no
godly' sorrow is clearly proved by his suicide that follows.
And, to take an example from another sphere, not in repent-
ance, but in despair, King Eichard in. speaks, while his fate
is overtaking him, and after he had dreamed his darker dreams
of conscience, which have made his heart despondent :

" My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury in the high'st degree ;
Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree ;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty ! Guilty t
/ shall despair. There is no creature loves me ;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me ;
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?"

— SHAKESPEARE'S Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.

Such sinners cannot believe in the article of the forgiveness
of sins. We see, too, how, soon after this outburst of his
despondency and despair, he calls himself again to defiance :

" Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls.
Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe."

And in the last words that we hear from him on the battle-
field, ere he vanishes from our eyes :

" A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! "

we hear both the terrific anguish of despair, the terror of death,
in more than a merely bodily sense, and also the demoniacally
raving defiance, that will not give up its cause.

138 THE NEW WAT.

CONVERSION AND THE NEW LIFE BEGUH.
THE NEW WAY.

§57.

From the power of sin and the terror of the guilty con-
Bcience, man can only be redeemed by conversion and faith.
" God willeth that all men should be saved, and should come
to the knowledge of the truth " (1 Tim. ii. 4) ; and in His
gospel " He commands all men everywhere to repent, and
hath given assurance to all men" (Acts xvii. 30, 31). In
the appointed times of His economy, He gives to all the
possibility of conversion, and it is the man's own fault if this
possibility, if the time of grace be lost.

Conversion is at once a turning from and a return, is a
thoroughly changed direction of the will through its sub-
mission to grace, whereby a man breaks with his past, leaves
the way he has hitherto gone, and enters on a new way to
righteousness. Thus conversion is shown not merely by a man
leaving the way of sin, but also in that he leaves that way of
virtue in which he had hitherto gone, while he was pursuing
a righteousness of the law which he was to gain for himself,
whether he saw his life's ideal in a civil righteousness, or in
a philosophical righteousness, or in the righteousness of the
Pharisees. From all this, which belongs only to the
elements, the rudiments of the world (a-roi^ela rov KOCT^IOV,
Gal. iv. 3, Col. ii. 8, 20), the gospel calls us away, that we
may attain a better righteousness, which has not entered into
any man's heart, namely, the righteousness of faith, in which
we obtain the beginning of a new righteousness of life, where
all the truthful elements of the former righteousness, freed
from the errors and perversities cleaving to them, first occupy
their right, that is, their subordinate place. God will of
grace give us the righteousness that avails before Him (Sapea
rrjs SiKaioavvrjs, Bom. v. 17), by which we for Christ's sake
are accepted by God, but are hereby also put in the position,
under the guidance of His grace, to carry on our own sancti-
fication, that is, our progressive personal normalization.

When we said that the requirement to turn is addressed to

THE NEW WAY. 139

all, we by no means except from this those who have been
received into the bosom of the Church by infant baptism.
For not to speak of this, that many of them have fallen from
their baptismal covenant, and must be called back to it again,
there will occur in the life of all of them a period in which
the life of this world gains such an influence, such a power
over them, that there is need of an awakening and conver-
sion. A merely ecclesiastical Christianity becomes a Chris-
tianity of habit, a Pharisaic righteousness, if it does not
develop to a personal living Christianity.

A weak and shadowy image of conversion and of the new
way is found in ancient and modern philosophers, who have
compared the life of man to a voyage, and have distinguished
between a first and second voyage (o Seure/>o<? TrXov?), by the
latter of which one enters on another and new way, and
repairs what was wrong in the first voyage. " The first
voyage" is life, so long as it is lived after the lusts, the
sensual illusions and the current opinions of the multitude
(the majority). " The second voyage " takes place when one
begins to philosophize, to live according to reason, and thereby
to part with much that those living in illusions cannot part
with. The decision for this second voyage is, as a rule,
evoked by contrary winds, namely, sufferings and adversities,
which make the man conscious that he is sailing on in mist
and in error, and is running the risk of stranding on dangerous
sandbanks and rocks. Thus Schopenhauer calls the period
when " the will to live " is predominant, with its ideals of
happiness, the first voyage ; the period, again, when one gives
up the will to live, and becomes dead to those ideals, the
second voyage. Yet this is only a very poor phantom. The
way that is in truth the new way, the heathen wise men did
not discover, as also the most dangerous sandbanks and rocks
remained unknown to them. The land of glory to whose
coasts Christianity bids us voyage, lay outside their circle of
vision. In the Lord's parable of the Prodigal Son, in which
the history of heathenism is depicted, we see the twofold
voyage in its true meaning. The first is that in which the
son leaves his father's house, and wastes his substance in the
far country. The second is the return to the father's house.
The life of the Apostle Paul also shows us the same twofold

140 THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

voyage. The first is that in which he, a zealot for the law,
pursues the righteousness of the Pharisees ; but the other is
that of his second period of life, when he casts the Pharisaic
righteousness into the sea, and counting all else as loss,
pursues only the righteousness of Christ.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL,
§ 58.

If a man is to be converted, he must, by the leadings of
God's grace (outward and inner leadings), be awakened to a
living knowledge of the law of God, must above all come to
the knowledge of the first and great commandment, that he
may thereby be brought to know his sin and guilt, to know
that his root-evil lies in the position he occupies to God, which
his previous knowledge of the law did not let him see. But
it is equally needful that he be awakened to get a clear view
of the gospel, if he is not to despair about his sin. Both are
wrought by the word of God, ordinarily through Christian
preaching, which is the means ordained by God to this end,
and whose chief mark is this, that it does not consist in
enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the
Spirit and of power (1 Cor. ii. 4). But God's word may
come to man in other ways besides Christian preaching. The
chief thing is that Christ Himself come, by means of the word,
to reveal Himself to the soul, and to take shape for it.
Through Christ we gain the complete knowledge of the law.
Who can hear in a receptive hour Christ's Sermon on the
Mount, without feeling deep pain within him at his infinite
distance from these requirements, without feeling that these
tones, these blessings, come from regions that are our true
home, but from which we are far removed, as outcasts in the
far country; that, to fulfil these requirements, a thorough
change must take place in us ; that the only thing possible
to us is the feeling of an unutterable internal poverty, the
feeling that our own righteousness, our Stoical ideals, our
aesthetic education, our moderate morality, are a wretched
nullity, in which we must feel a hunger and thirst after a

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAW AND THIS GOSPEL. 141

better righteousness ? But not only is the knowledge of the
law laid open to us through the word of Christ, but through
Christ's whole manifestation. " He that hath seen me hath
seen the Father." In Him, God's holiness has revealed itself
to us in human form. In Him, law is in indissoluble union
with liberty ; in Him, the good has become nature. In His
holiness, Christ is for judgment to the race and the individual ;
for in His pure human nature we see, as in a glass, how
deeply we have sunk. But He whose mere appearance
reproves our conscience, is also come for our salvation. As
He is the personal revelation of the holiness of God, so also
of God's grace. This union of law and gospel manifests
itself in quite a special way in the cross of Christ. In the
cross of Christ, on which He bore our punishment for us, as
the great offering of atonement for the sin of the world, we
see God's holy wrath against sin, see what a frightful thing
sin is, for which such a sacrifice was necessary ; but from the
same cross the whole world's and also our comfort springs,
because the soul of this sacrifice is free, sin-forgiving love.
In Christ, the crucified and risen One, we perceive the
intensest earnestness of life, the knowledge of the inviolable
requirement of the law, of sin, of guilt, and of death as the
wages of sin, but likewise also the intensest joy of life, namely,
redemption from all this evil to the glorious liberty of the
children of God.

When these two things in the manifestation of Christ make
the right impression on a human soul, a twofold effect will
also be produced, namely, repentance and faith. However
different the psychological forms may be in different indi-
viduals, whether repentance express itself, as Methodism
one-sidedly requires, as a violent penitential struggle with
the anguish and terrors of hell, or as a quieter pain ; whether
the whole movement occur at one stroke and suddenly, or
proceed more slowly during a longer period in a man's life ;
we are still brought back to this twofold effect, if a conversion
is to take place. This order is ever confirmed, that God
leads a man into death, in order to bad hin? through it to
life.

142 REPENTANCE AND FAITH.

REPENTANCE AND FAITH. RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH.

§ 59.

Repentance is a deep internal concern, a soul-pain and
contrition concerning sin, in which the man himself judges
his sin, and honours the truth against himself. It must not
be confounded with ill-humour at having acted imprudently,
which many men call repentance ; and as little with fear of
the consequences of our actions, in which there need be no
trace of sin-pain. But religious repentance, of which we here
speak, is not only a pain for this or that single sin, though it
may also be this, like the repentance of the apostle for having
persecuted the Church of God : it is grief for the whole sinful
and guilty state, for separation from God. Nay, this grief at
separation from God, at being in the far country without God,
may come upon us without any single sin more than another
burdening the conscience ; as Luther in his day, without
having to confess any single sin, uttered the lament, "My
sin ! my sin ! " and did so in the feeling that on the whole
it was ill with him, and that he was under the wrath of God.
In repentance a man willingly submits to judgment, while
judging himself likewise ; and willingly submits to the rebuke
of God's Spirit, while likewise accusing himself. Yet true
repentance is not a continuance in this contrition. Fruitful
repentance passes over to the determination, " I will arise
and go to my Father," passes over into faith in God's pitying
grace, and lays hold of the comfort of the gospel. Faith
without repentance is indeed only a dead faith, a mere accept-
ance of the truth not proceeding from the heart. But repent-
ance without faith must finally pass into despair, because the
man has nothing in himself wherewith he could liquidate his
debt. In true repentance the honest will to be redeemed
asserts itself, and the man submits to be redeemed, to be
justified before God, and that of pure grace. (Compare the
author's Dogmatics, § 227 ff.)

Spinoza and Fichte rejected repentance. Instead of linger-
ing in useless penitential complaints, constantly looking back
upon the past, on sins which yet are a mere nullity and

REPENTANCE AND FAITH. 143

empty appearance, one must exclusively cast one's glance
forwards ; without delay enter on a new way, by acting, by
doing good, and thus reforming oneself. One only squanders
time by the retrospect of repentance ; time must be employed
in right actions. This whole reasoning presupposes an entire
ignorance, a non-comprehension of sin, and guilt, and grace.
The truth that may lie in it is only this, that repentance must
not become a state beyond which one makes no advance, not
a fruitless brooding over ourselves and our past, so that we
come to no volition for the future. But what is entirely over-
looked is this truth, that what is important for a man is not
only what he does, but what he becomes; and, moreover, not
only what we ourselves do, but just as much what God does and
works in us. It is overlooked that repentance is a necessary
transition in the religious life-development of man, a necessary
element in the moral creation of man,1 in order that he may
come to die to sin and become what God has determined.
By the internal contrition of the old sinful ego, that internal
death, the new man is to be born. But for dying time is also
needed; and the painful moments of repentance, in which
nothing is done externally, may bring a man farther, may
procure for him an infinitely greater blessing, than many
years' labour spent in good works of self-righteousness. Nay,
in such moments or hours, when repentance and faith are born
in the soul, a man may, to speak with old Master Eckart,
gain back all the time he has squandered in the world. For
hereby he is brought to a standpoint above time and the
world, on which he gains new possibilities (potencies); nay,
in one day far more happens than otherwise in a long course
of years. The faith which is developed from repentance, is
faith in the gospel ; that God for Christ's sake forgives us
our sins ; that we are justified before God, not by the works
of the law, but of God's grace, through faith in the redemption
that is in Christ. From the penitent sinner, who in faith
appropriates the gospel, guilt is taken away, for Christ has
nailed our bond to the cross (CoL ii. 14); and, justified by
faith, and received by God as His children, we have joy and
an access to the Father, and may as children pray in the
Spirit that assures us of our election as God's children : Abba,
' Sibbern's Patkologie.

144 REGENERATION AND BAPTISM.

Father ! From the righteousness of faith all self-righteous-
ness is excluded. But we are not so justified before God as
if our repentance and faith were a merit that could satisfy
for our sins. Our repentance as well as our faith is incom-
plete ; and it is certainly no merit that he who is nearly
drowned seizes the rescuing hand held out to him, although
he would be frightfully guilty of his own destruction if he
proudly rejected the rescuing hand. In this sense we say
that our righteousness is outside of us, because no advantage
present in us, no virtue or amiability peculiar to us, can be
urged as a ground why we should be recognised as righteous
before God ; for impurity cleaves to the very best that is in
us. It is exclusively Christ's righteousness which of grace is
imputed to us. Yet this has to be appropriated in an upright
heart. But the confidence and the comfort of faith is this,
that the righteousness of Christ belongs to us, shelters and
overshadows us; that God sees us in Christ, in Him the
Beloved and Lovely, in whom He is well pleased, and that
there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
And though our faith, by which we have accepted and are
united to Him, be but a little seed, a grain of mustard-seed,
yet we belong, despite all our unworthiness, to Him in whom
God has reconciled the world to Himself.

REGENERATION AND BAPTISM.

§ 60.

Every one who by repentance and faith has found salvation
in Christ, is conscious that the revolution that has taken place
within him, the change by which he who previously had the
centre of his life in himself or in the world, has now found
Christ as the sun around which henceforth his life moves —
that this change, though it has taken place with the deepest
and most earnest movement of the will, is not derived from
his own power. He is conscious of being overcome by a
stronger, to whom he even, often and long, offered a resistance
though vainly; and that this his new state has been pro-
duced by absolutely nothing proceeding from the spirit of this
world, not even in the best sense of the word, not wrought

REGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 145

by culture, nor by human science and art, which are here
entirely powerless. He can only refer it to a work of tlie
Lord, which is so far supernatural as it is not to be explained
from this nature and its powers. But with this it is of the
greatest moment that one should not too soon think that
he has made salvation his. For only then has he really
appropriated it, when, in the Church of Christ, where he has
consciously found salvation, he has also appropriated what is
needful firmly to establish it, that the righteousness of faith be
not dependent upon changing moods and feelings, and has
also appropriated what is necessary that a new personality may
be formed in him, having in Christ the permanent centre of
its life, along with the possibility of progressive growth in the
fellowship of Christ, whereby alone his salvation can be com-
pleted. Salvation is really and fully appropriated only when
a man has appropriated not merely awakening, but also new-
creating, regenerating grace. Therefore the Church brings him
not only the word of reconciliation with God, but likewise
directs him to baptism as God's covenant of grace, and the
laver of regeneration in the Holy Spirit.

Eegeneration, by which a new personality is formed, with
the possibility and conditions for its progressive growth, is
different from awakening, the state in which the Spirit works
only in preparatory, though often mighty motions, but by
which the new personality is not yet founded, a state in whicli
repentance and faith stand but on moveable, insecure ground.
Eegeneration is not wrought by the word alone, but by word
and sacrament in indissoluble union. The apostle says, " Ye
are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,
by the word of the living God. And this is the word that is
preached unto you" (1 Pet. i. 23, 25). And the word that
is preached points to baptism (Acts ii. 38: " Eepent, and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for
the remission of sins "), where God performs His foundational
work, embracing the whole life, the whole subsequent develop-
ment. For by baptism the man is not merely externally
incorporated into the Church of Christ, but becomes a member
of the body of Christ, is incorporated into the permanent
communion of Christ, as well as into His means and effects
of grace, whereby he receives the conditions for a progressive

146 REGENERATION AND BAPTISM.

development of personality. In baptism God sets up Hig
covenant of grace with man, raises the rainbow of grace above
his life, while the man is baptized into and in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that is, into
the communion of the three-one God. We are baptized into
the righteousness of Christ, to the forgiveness of sins, and to
adoption, that we may die with the crucified Christ, and may
walk in a new life in the power of the Eisen One (Rom. vi.
3 ff.). And as baptism is God's covenant of grace, so it is
likewise a laver of regeneration and renewal in the Holy
Spirit (Tit. iii. 5). For in baptism the Lord puts Himself
into a permanent relation of communion to the Adamitic
individual (the child of Adam) by means of the Holy Spirit,
and there proceeds from Him a renewing influence on the
natural ground of this individual life, which is the presup-
position for the self-conscious, personal life, that thus the
man may be prepared to be a temple of the Spirit of God.
The gift of grace of baptism, which is one with the communion
of the Lord, includes in it potentially, or as a fruitful, life-
potent possibility, the whole fulness of the blessings of this
communion. The development of it may indeed be hindered
by unbelief and worldliness ; and then this gift remains
without blessing for the man, nay, it may become a judgment
to him. But where, by means of the preached word, the
hindrances mentioned are removed out of the way, this fruitful
possibility will also come to take form in the self-conscious,
personal life, although it will never be exhausted in it. A
Christian ever bears in his unconscious life a greater riches
than in his self-conscious life, in that relation of grace, namely,
in which God has placed Himself to him, beyond all his
experience and far ahead of it, has placed Himself to him in
the background of his life, where a fountain from eternity
has been opened to permeate his whole life.

When, with an apostle, we said above that regeneration
takes place by means of the preached word, but also said that
it is baptism by which the foundation to regeneration is laid,
this implies that regeneration must be accomplished in a two-
fold form, if the new man that is coming to the birth is to be
fully brought forth. Even in the natural human life we
distinguish between self-coiiscious and unconscious or pre-

REGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 147

conscious life. The unconscious life is the presupposition of
the self-conscious ; and every natural human life possesses in
the unconscious its greatest riches. All that we call genius
rests simply on the unconscious life, from whose depths the
spiritual contents, with their twilight, their sparkling, their
flashes, rise up into consciousness. But we must likewise
also distinguish in the life of the new man between the
conscious and the unconscious ; and between the unconscious
life and the sacraments there is a deep connection. The
sacraments have indeed a side from which they enter into
consciousness ; but had they none other than this, they would
be no mysteries. Regeneration in baptism embraces the
unconscious life, and the relation, lying beyond personal
experience, of grace to the individual. But in order that
the effects arising from within, from the ground of nature,
may become powerful and active, there must also take place
from without, namely, by the preaching of the word, an influ-
ence on the self-conscious life, whereby the hindrances that here
occur may be overcome and set aside, and the man be brought
to make grace his own. There is a sum of gracious effects
that cannot otherwise reach man than only in the way of the
self-consciousness, but which are derived from the same
objective relation of grace, in which God has placed Himself
to man in baptism, that baptism whose normal form is
simply infant baptism. Taking the words in the higher and
spiritual sense, we may say that regeneration in baptism is
the physical side of the thing, whereby we become partakers
of the divine " nature ;" regeneration, again, in the personal,
self-conscious life, which is inconceivable without the preaching
of the divine word, the ethical side. Both forms are necessary,
if the regeneration is to be complete (as it were full-born and
ripe). Regeneration in baptism alone, without a personal new
birth, is only embryonic ; and what is called personal regenera-
tion without baptism, lacks the right presupposition for the
personal life, the rich background filled by grace, the support-
ing foundation ; wherefore adults who have not received infant
baptism, after they have been awakened by the preaching of
the word, must be directed to baptism, in order to be really
and fully born again.1

1 Compare the author's Dogmatics, § 253 fT.

148 HINDRANCES TO CONVERSION.

HINDRANCES TO CONVERSION.
§61.

The gospel is "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the
Greeks foolishness," and " the heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked." These words give us the answer to
the question, Wherefore so many men will not be converted,
will not be born again ?

Above all, it is the opposition, the pride of the human
heart, that takes offence at the gospel. We are not at all at
liberty to say that the inconceivable in itself causes offence
and dislike. For even in natural things man is surrounded
by the incomprehensible, and must constantly believe the in-
comprehensible. No, it is this definite incomprehensible, this
Christ manifest in the flesh, this supernatural revelation
concerning sin and grace, that gives the offence. The under-
standing, which is subservient to the will, will not accept
this revelation as it is given, desires another revelation,
another Saviour than He who actually has come into this
world ; and, in fact, this requirement comes to mean a Jewish
Messiah, with whom the understanding or "the reason"
would be well able to come to terms. The understanding
arms itself with a thousand sophisms, a thousand seeming
reasons against the gospel, although the man himself does not
always perceive the nullity of these fallacies. At one time
it is found entirely improbable that the righteousness of
another (of Christ) should be imputed to us, as righteousness,
personal normality, must simply be a work of our own freedom.
In this is entirely overlooked the central and organic con-
nection of Christ with the human race, entirely overlooked
that, in order that we may be enabled to pursue with true
freedom of will the righteousness of life, or the normalization
of our life, a righteousness of grace must first be bestowed on
us, the righteousness of faith; that God's grace must first give
us a new foundation, must first set us on a new basis, ere we
can endeavour after the righteousness of life ; for he who has
fallen into the water or into a bog cannot seize and draw
himself out by the hair, that he may then do his day's work.
Now an appeal is made to the unchangeableness of nature's

HINDRANCES TO CONVERSION. 149

laws and the impossibility of miracle, by which indeed more
i'aith is manifested than knowledge. For that miracle is
impossible is not really known; it is only believed to be
impossible while the ordinary course of nature and the world
is blindly believed in. Again it is declared, with Lessing,
that "accidental historical truths are not able to establish
eternal truths of reason." As if the great fact of the appear-
ance of Christ, which forms the centre of the history of the
world, were an accidental (!) historical truth ; or as if what
we need for the salvation of our soul were nothing but eternal
truths of reason (!). Heathenism had eternal truths of reason
and ideas to the full, and yet could not find redemption by
them. What, on the contrary, humanity needs are facts, and
above all a new creation, a new life, by means of Christ person-
ally present in His Church, which means far more than a
historical individual that had been present in former times.
Again, strict scientific proofs are required for the truths of the
gospel before men will believe ; and with this requirement
there is often combined a complaint that one cannot believe,
however willingly one might, because one's scientific conscience
forbids it. And meanwhile it is entirely overlooked that
stringent, exact proofs for the gospel cannot and should not
be given, as little as they can be given for any truth that
appeals to our freedom of will and our conscience. If they
had to be given for the gospel, the philosophers, the thinkers,
would be nearest to salvation, as they would be best able to
comprehend these proofs ; and the simple and babes would be
farthest from salvation, contrary to Christ's word, that the
Father has revealed to babes what He has hidden from the
wise and prudent (Matt. xi. 25).

But even allowing all hindrances of the understanding to
be set aside, it by no means therefore follows that conversion
will now take place. Even then any one can still say, " I
do not deny these facts ; but I do not need them, and also
feel no desire for them." The proper hindrance lies not in
the understanding, but in the will, in self-righteousness.
Men will not give God the glory, will not accept the con-
fession of sin in the sense in which it is required by the
gospel, will not allow that it is so bad with oneself and
with the world, which one loves to view in an optimistic

150

HINDRANCES TO CONVERSION.

light, as God's word reveals it to us. Men will not b&
redeemed exclusively, and without any personal merit, through
a miracle of grace. For all this perverts not merely all the
conceptions of the natural man, but also requires the deepest
humiliation of heart, and that even he who in a spiritual
sense is highly exalted among men place himself on the
standpoint of the publican.

§62.

Yet not merely is the opposition and pride of the human
heart a hindrance to conversion, but also the despondency of
that heart. The gospel is so great, so overwhelmingly great,
and the human heart so narrow, when it has to believe in the
truly great. Even when the gospel is viewed as a mere
invention, it appears so great ; but that this should be reality,
transcends our power of comprehension. And now to believe
besides that this unutterable magnitude belongs to me also, a
single one among the multitude of sinners, that Christ died and
rose again for me also — I dare not believe it. And indeed it
needs the grace of God that we may take courage to believe
this ; but this is given to him who himself stretches forth his
hands after faith and prays for it, not to him who believes his
own despondent heart more than God's clear promises.

And as the despondent heart does not venture to appropriate-
the vastly great gift offered to it, it is also frightened back by
the great requirements that Christ makes of His followers.
" These requirements are too high for me ; that requires too
much of me ; I cannot become a Christian." And while men
thus speak, they forget that He who makes such demands on
us, promises us also His help : His educative guidance, the
power of His grace, that we may endeavour to fulfil them.
The rich youth who went away from the Lord grieved, because
he could not sacrifice his earthly fortune (Matt. xix. 22), is
an example of this despondency.

A special form of this despondent heart is heart-sloth, that
is, where the man in natural indolence and cowardice shuns
the effort of will needful for the work of conversion, shrinks
back from the death in which he has to die to his old self,
the death in which he is to leave the world, with the worldly
views in which he has been living, and has to break with his

HINDRANCES TO CONVERSION. 151

old habits, a state in which he therefore cannot come to the
decisive determination, and constantly defers his conversion
(Augustine prayed, before the time of his conversion, that God
would take from him the worldly, impure heart, but "not
yet ! "). This sloth and procrastination of heart causes the
many half conversions, where a man stops on the way, without
reaching the goal ; and also leads to conversion being deferred
to the death-bed, where at times it may indeed take place,
but where it is by no means always given to have at com-
mand the outward and inner conditions for it.

§ 63.

But the deepest hindrance to conversion is the lack of
uprightness towards himself, which lack is innate in the human
heart. For God has, it is true, made man upright, but they
have sought out many inventions (Eccles. vii. 30). And this
inclination to seek out inventions that conflict with upright-
ness, is found more or less in every human heart, and must
be overcome if it is to come to a thorough conversion. It is
found in the defiant and proud heart, that will not see itself
as it is, constantly conjures up an image of its own goodness
and greatness, which is not based on truth, and never will
descend to a thorough humility. It is found in the despon-
dent and slothful heart, that constantly declares it would
willingly be saved, but cannot believe, because faith is too
high for it. If this heart would only see itself, and that
thoroughly, as it is, faith would not be too high for it. It
would come to know that, like the rich youth in the gospel,
it is still, in one respect or other, depending more on this
world than on the Lord, is still afraid to make just the
sacrifice that the Lord requires, and that its will to be saved
is not yet the right, earnest will. For to the right, earnest
will there belongs entire surrender to the Lord and His word.
Try, then, to do the Lord's will, to surrender to Him, and take
Him at His word ; and see then whether He ever will abandon
thee.

§64.

But where this lack of uprightness, where this inclination
to seek out many inventions (pretexts), gains the upper hand,

152

HINDRANCES TO CONVEESION.

it leads not only to the rejection of the gospel, but may also
lead to a certain seeming conversion. The beginning of such
a seeming conversion, that never goes beyond the beginning, is
seen in men who have indeed a feeling of the necessity of
conversion, but whose heart's ground is corrupted, and who
get into a hypocritical asking and seeking for the truth,
without ever finding it, because they have not the earnest
will to find it. A type of these souls we find described in
2 Tim. iii. 6, 7, where the apostle speaks of " women laden
with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never
able to come to the knowledge of the truth." They live in
an incessant inquiry, an unwearied conversation about the
sacred truths, but at the same time live on in their lusts ; and
although they are ever learning and ever asking, they never
find the answer, and that because they do not ask sincerely.
To a seeming conversion, that utterance of the Lord applies,
Luke xi. 24-26 : "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a
man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest ; and finding
none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.
And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then
goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked
than himself ; and they enter in, and dwell there : and the
last state of that man is worse than the first." This word is
abundantly applicable. An unclean spirit, for instance, lust,
is gone out of a man, especially because he is no more able
to commit the said sin. He turns, assumes a robe of piety,
observes all the rites of the Church, imagines that he has
entered on the way of the new life, while in reality he is still
on the old way. The unclean spirit returns in another form,
for instance, as spiritual pride and censoriousness, while he
now, in his imaginary sanctity, most unmercifully and severely
rebukes the evil lusts of youth, and is zealous against the
vanity of the world. Instead of lust, avarice and usury now
perhaps possess his heart, and the last state of such a man
has become worse than the first (2 Pet. ii. 20 ff.). Such
seeming conversions recur under various forms, and are hidden
under the righteousness of the Pharisees. The passing over
of so many people of the world to Catholicism is, amid many
modifications, essentially of the nature described.

If we consider the weakness of our heart, and how great

HINDRANCES TO CONVERSION. 153

the dangers and hindrances that must be overcome in order
that real conversion may take place, the despondent heart
may well ask, "Who then can be saved?" (Matt. xix. 25).
And to this we have no other answer than the following:
" He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous " (Prov. ii. 7) ;
and, " My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in
heart" (Ps. vii. 11\

LIFE IN FOLLOWING CHEIST.

THE STATE OF GRACE.
§65.

IN opposition to the life under the law and sin, the life
of the regenerate is a life under grace, a life in the slate
of grace, which, however, does not mean that it is no longer in
the state of imperfection and sinfulness, and is already in the
kingdom of glory, but that the power of sin is broken, the
guilt taken away, that the true relation to God, the true com-
munion with God, which was thrust back and bound in the
state of sin's dominion, is now by the grace in Christ become
dominant and essentially determinative. The regenerate man
has the centre of his life no more in himself, nor in the world,
but in the crucified and risen Christ. On the ground of his
baptism, and justified by faith, he now lives his life in
following Christ, a life after the example and word of Christ,
and likewise in the power of Christ, while he stands under
the continued influence of the workings of grace proceeding
from Christ. Henceforth the requirement applies, — and Christ's
Spirit fulfils it in us, — " Let this mind be in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus " (Phil. ii. 5). Henceforth the exhor-
tation applies : " Having therefore these promises, let us
cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God " (2 Cor. vii. 1).

It has been asked, What are the marks by which it may be
known that a man is in the state of grace ? As there may
be different stages of perfection within the state of grace, it is
important not to set forth these marks in such a way as
would only apply to the more perfect stages, but not to the
more imperfect. If it were, for instance, to be said that only
such men are in the state of grace as love God above all
things, and have attained to the glorious liberty of the children

154

THE STATE OF GRACE. 155

of God, this were an indefinite and equivocal description, and
fitted to disquiet many who are still earnestly striving, and to
make them doubt whether they really are in the state of
grace. As the chief condition for a man being in the state
of grace, we mention, first, that the life must be firmly grounded
on the foundation of baptism. But although, in a certain
sense, it may be said that all the baptized are placed under
grace, it must yet on the other hand be allowed that, in order
to stand in grace, it is not only requisite to be baptized, but
also that we stand in personal relation to the grace that has
been bestowed on us in baptism. And here, presupposing
baptism, we know of nothing else to be mentioned but repent-
ance and faith. Eepentance, as repenting of sin and regret
for sin, is not exclusively in place only in the history of the
once occurring conversion. For although conversion may be
regarded as a single event in a definite portion of man's life,
the matter is by no means so that we are done with conver-
sion once for all. We need a continued conversion, " daily
sorrow and repentance," with ever new renunciation of the
kingdom of darkness, and the spirit of darkness, till the day
of our death. But inseparable from this is the faith that has
not only once appropriated the comfort of the gospel, but daily
appropriates it anew.1 This constant renewal in faith is,
however, only possible in that we earnestly strive and oppose
all that would disturb the life of faith in us, that is, only by
a sincere will and resolve after righteousness of life and
holiness. Thus if a Christian also sins, — and " in many things
we offend all," — as long as he ever repents again of his sin,
and may be renewed in sincere sorrow for it ; so long as he is
raised up again by faith in the gospel, offered to him in the
means of grace ; and so long as he is renewed to obedience,
and ever afresh engages in the struggle : so long he stands
under grace, despite his sinfulness and incompleteness. And,
on the other hand, it is evident that he who feels no regret
for sin, in whom faith is only " a dead fly," an outward
acceptance of certain statements, without heart-communion
with the Lord ; that he who knows of no struggle or resistance
against sin, cannot possibly be in the state of grace.

In this view of the matter, we can here appropriate a de-

1 Compare Harless, Ethik, p. 248 ff. (7th ed.). Translated in Clark's series.

156 SANCTIFICATION AND THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES.

Bcription of the state of grace, as it is contained in those words
of our old Church prayer, that serves for opening our Sunday
services. We there pray, namely, that from the preaching of
the divine word we may learn " to sorrow for our sins, in life
and death to believe in Jesus, and daily to be improved
(renewed) in a holy life." True, we by no means build on
this reformation of our life, or on our sanctification, our hope
and confidence of the forgiveness of our sins, which, on the
contrary, we build solely and alone on the righteousness of
Christ made ours by faith, as our only comfort in life and
death. But where there is sincere faith, this cannot but
impel us to new obedience, nay, it already includes this
obedience within itself.

§ 66.

Life in following Christ we can only imagine as a life in
progressive sanctification. As a continued purification from
sins, and as the continued development and forming of the
new life that is given to us, and by which all natural gifts
and powers are gradually brought under the dominion of Christ,
our sanctification is at once a work of grace that gives the
man a divine progress and growth, and a work of the
labouring and striving personal freedom of the will. It is de-
veloped through a connected series of Christian virtues, through
a variety of stages, finally through a change of spiritual states
and moods.

SANCTIFICATION AND THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES.
§67.

So long as progress in sanctification lasts, the virtue of the
new man, or perfection in the fellowship of Christ, is only an
approximation to the truly perfect. But Christian virtue
stands, as regards its deepest ground, on the perfect principle,
grace, that has placed the human will in fundamental agree
ment with the law, and that after the example of Christ,
which the Apostle John expresses in these words : " He that
is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in
him : and he cannot sin. because he is born of God " (1 John

SANCTIFICATION AND THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES. 157

iii. 9). The essence of Christian virtue is thus the new
fundamental direction of the human will in the power of
regeneration, its new movement (as to its deepest charac-
teristic) to the ideal in Christ. Viewed in this its essence,
virtue is but one. But the one virtue is to be realized in a
multiplicity of virtues. And here it is that the imperfect and
relative (the merely comparative) enters.

Among the Christian virtues we mention love as the chief.
But we cannot name love without also naming freedom, which
also emerges of itself, as soon as we meditate on the example
of Christ. Love and freedom are inseparable, nay, in the
depth of the Christian mental life one, although in the
development of life they appear as two. A love without
freedom, a surrender which is not a free self-determining
unforced surrender, has no moral worth. And, again, only in
surrender is the true self-dependence or freedom developed
and gained. We may therefore say that there are two chief
virtues, love and freedom, of which love, rooted in belief in
grace, is the fundamental virtue ; for love is the fulfilling of
the law (Eom. xiii. 1 0), and liberty is the handmaid of love.
Stoicism in the heathen world, that does not know love, and
its followers down to the most recent times, put liberty as
the fundamental virtue, namely, liberty as unconditional
self-determination, self-dependence, independence of all that
is external and strange, agreement with oneself and his
formal law. Christianity, again, has revealed to us that the
true self-dependence can only be gained in love, in surrender,
that human freedom is not intended to satisfy itself, to live
to itself, but in free surrender to be the organ, the useful
instrument of God. For Stoicism, the most perfect moral
character is he who shows the greatest self-dependence, inde-
pendence and consistency. In the Christian view, again, a
character most nearly approaches the goal of perfection when
it shows the greatest union of surrender and self-dependence,
of love and liberty. The pattern is given us in Christ, as
the radiance of God's glory and the expressed image of His
being (Heb. i. 3). God is love, and precisely in this the
absolutely self-dependent being.

Among philosophers, the elder Fichte is, a? regards his
position to the points of view here made prominent, a remark-

158

SANCTIFICATION AND THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES.

able phenomenon. In his first period, freedom was to him
the highest. " Self-dependence, that ever presents a point to
the world, while dependence turns to it only an empty plane."
Yet he could not in the end be satisfied with empty self-
dependence, and a merely formal point directed against the
world. He attained to the knowledge that he has expressed
in his Directions for a Blessed Life, that freedom could only be
an organ, that love to God, resting on God's love to us, is the
highest. True, indeed, he understood this so that he now
went over to the opposite extreme. He conceived God:
mystic-pantheistically, as the eternal formless Being, in which
the human ego, the ego in its earlier period absolutely self-
dependent, standing in its own virtue and righteousness, now
became an absolutely dependent and impersonal vessel for the
life and working of the deity. While he had formerly said,
" I " unconditionally determine myself, " I " work and act ;
he now in his famous sonnet said :

" The Eternal One
Lives in my life, and in my sight He sees. s>1

He sought the Christian life of love, which yet is not to be
attained in the way of Pantheism. For the real unity of love
and liberty, love and self-dependence, is only possible for men
in communion with the personal God, who will make His
creatures not vessels without a self and will, dependent reflec-
tions of His being, but imparts to them a relative self-depend-
ence, without which they could neither sin nor be redeemed
to the liberty of the children of God. When Paul says, " I
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20), he
describes himself as a free organ for God's grace in Christ ;
and everywhere we see in him the self-dependent character,
even because we see him bound in his Lord as a messenger
of Christ, a servant of Christ and a child of God.

We therefore consider the Christian virtues under the
twofold aspect, love and liberty.

1 J. G. Fichte's Leben und UterariscJier Brief uoecliseL By his son, J. II.
Fichte, I. 839.

CHRISTIAN LOVE. 159

1. CHRISTIAN LOVE.
§68.

Christian love is love to God in Christ. But love to God
in Christ embraces as well surrender to God's kingdom out-
side of us, as surrender to His kingdom in us, embraces love
of our neighbours as well as true self-love. There are many
moralists who would entirely exclude self-love from Christian
ethics, because one can only love another, not himself, while
self-love would be one with vile egoism. That the expression
is liable to misconception we do not at all deny. But were
we to do away the expression, we must in any case recur to
the thing. We remain on the ground of Holy Scripture when
we retain the expression. For the Scripture says, " Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" which presupposes that
there is also a healthy, normal self-love. The sympathetic is
never without the autopathetic ; and Christ's example shows
us not only surrender and self-sacrifice, but also self-preserva-
tion and self-assertion. Besides, the true conception of self-
love is by no means love to my sinful, merely natural ego,
but surrender to the God-given ideal of my individuality, to
my eternal destiny in God, to the realization of which my
lower ego, with its worldly lusts and desires, must be sacri-
ficed. Christian self-love is thus interest for my salvation,
my personal perfection in God, to which it also belongs that
I become complete in humility, and so my education to a
willing instrument of the will of God. Whether we think
of the love of God in the stricter sense, that is, of the proper
religious relation to God, or of love to men, the interest of
self-preservation and self-maintenance will still assert itself.
A love without any self-assertion were an indefinite melting
into the great All, a self-dissolution, with which no indi-
viduality and personality can stand. Granted, vile egoism
must not be mingled here. A criterion that any one has
true self-love is, that he can feel a thorough and deep dis-
satisfaction with himself, with his sinfulness, which shows
him the reverse and contradiction of what he should be. To
be able "to hate himself" (John xii. 25), or, as it may also
be expressed, to judge himself after God's word (1 Cor. xi. 31),

160 APPROPKIATING LOVE.

and that with righteousness, is the condition of being capable
of self-love in the right sense.

After the example of the love of Christ, which on the one
hand, in the internal relation to the Father, is the appropriat-
ing, invisibly sacrificing, on the other hand, in relation to
the world, the active and suffering love, we describe the love
of disciples partly as the appropriating, contemplative, mystical
love, partly as the practical love that enters into relation to
the world, where it reveals itself as well in action as in
suffering.

APPKOPRIATING LOVE.

§69.

The Christianity of appropriation is better and higher than
that of works, as certainly as God's grace and truth in Christ
stands infinitely higher than all the works that we can per-
form to the glory of God. And Mary, who sat at Jesus' feet
to hear His word, chose the good part more than Martha
(Luke x. 42). In an organized form, the appropriation of
the grace of God in Christ, as by means of the word and
sacraments, is exhibited in the celebration of public worship.
The renewed appropriation of the saving grace of God is the
chief element as regards edification, the establishment of the
personality on the foundation that is laid (1 Cor. iii. 19)
there, where the individual feels himself a member of the
Church, a member of the body of Christ. As it has been
justly said that he who does not go forwards goes backwards,
it can also be said with truth, that he that is not edified
falls down and crumbles in pieces, that he that is not raised
above the world necessarily sinks (non elevari est labi}. And
experience teaches that those who neglect edification and
elevation, through the means of grace appointed by the Lord,
degenerate spiritually (religiously and morally) ; they sink
deeper and deeper into worldliness, so that at last they
become covered with worldliness like a crust, that makes them
insusceptible for what is above the world. A Christian will
therefore, to promote his inner life, regularly take part in the
piiblic worship in the assembled congregation. But beyond and

PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD. 161

beside this, a Christian must also have his special worship
in the closet, must get quiet hours for meditation and prayer.
The separate or private worship becomes indeed one-sided
and morbid when it is sundered from the worship of the
congregation. On the other hand, however, public worship
has not had its right effect, if there do not follow it, even in
the life of the individual, in the midst of e very-day work,
partly an echo, partly especially an independent application
of the gifts of grace, which the Lord has not merely bestowed
on His Church as a whole, but also on every individual in the
Church, that every man may become perfect in Christ Jesus
(Col. i. 28). Word and prayer are means of grace that are
to be used even outside the assembly of the Church.

CONTEMPLATIVE LOVE.

Pious Meditation and God's Word.
§ 70.

We are to love God above all things. In this the require-
ment is also contained : we are to know God above all things ;
and in the life of a Christian there must therefore be a con-
tinued effort after a deeper and more internal understanding
of the revelation of God in Christ. Pious consideration of
the things belonging to the kingdom of God, we designate
contemplation, in which are included meditation, investigation,
and reflection, which weighs and considers what is single, and
its relation to the whole, while contemplation embraces- the
manifold in one joint-picture, one view. Contemplation arises
from a believing mental life. For in the depths of the mind
these two chief questions are stirred, " What is truth ? " and
" What shall I do to be saved ? " And if to a Christian these
questions have been already answered once for all, yet are
they to be ever answered anew for the confirmation and
growth of the inner man. The contemplative love, as it
occurs in the religious life, is therefore not an unpathological
(insusceptible) love, but inseparable from pious mental move-
ments (affections), from feelings of admiration, reverence and

L

162 PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD.

thankfulness, from joy, care and pain, sadness and longing,
trust and confidence. But all Christian contemplation, to
which not only theologians, philosophers, and theosophists,
but all Christians are called, must take place on the founda-
tion of the word of God, and must be tried by that touch-
stone. By this alone does contemplation become truly
edifying.

§71.

To read the Scripture for edification is quite the opposite
of the way it is read by those who bring to it only the
doubts, objections, and difficulties that have been diffused by
an unbelieving, naturalistic criticism — a criticism that judges
books, the contents of which it does not understand, because
it lacks the requisite organ. Only he that seeks honestly
and simply can find truth in the Bible ; and, in the strictest
sense of the word, only the regenerate can read it to his
edification, because he brings with him faith in Christ as his
Saviour, in whom he has found the righteousness of faith ;
because he brings with him his own experience of sin and
grace, and, seeking wisdom in the Scripture, seeks the wisdom
that is after godliness (Tit. i. 1), " a wisdom that lies in
concealment " (Job xi. 6 ; Fs. li. 8 ; 1 Cor. ii. 7). And
although an evangelical Christian rejects the Eomish doctrine
of an infallible Church, yet he follows in his connected read-
ing of the Scripture the leading and guidance of the Church,
in bringing with him faith in his baptismal confession, in
the Apostles' Creed as the expression of the great facts on
which the kingdom of God is built up, and in this is
especially guided by the profound doctrines of the evangelical
Church on law and gospel.

The contemplative sentiment and virtue proves itself as
obedience to God's word, even to its "hard sayings" (John
vi. 60), when it is the saying of Him to whom, in the confi-
dence of our hearts and consciences, we have said, " Lord, to
whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life "
(John vi. 68). But, under the humble relation of obedience
to the authority of the word of God, the relation of freedom
and inwardness is to be developed, that that word may
become spirit and life in us, that which thoroughly determines

PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD. 163

from within outwards in our reflection and judgment about
divine things. The development of contemplative virtue rests
on the same two elements on which all sanctification rests,
the combative and the educative. It becomes the problem
of a Christian to purify his thinking by means of the word
of God from the erroneous ideas of the natural man about
divine things. For by nature we desire another God and
another Eedeemer than Him who has actually appeared to us.
Moreover, we have all by nature Nicodemus' thoughts (John
iii.), take offence at the divine secrets, and would interpret
and explain them away after our own imderstanding. But
what is needed is to become familiar with the Eedeemer, as
He is actually revealed to us, to familiarize ourselves with the
thought that " after that in the wisdom of God the world by
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe, and that thus things
despised by the world God hath chosen" (1 Cor. i. 21, 28).
Here that word applies that Hamann said, speaking of the
" ignorance" of Socrates : " The seed-corn of our natural wisdom
must die, must pass away in ignorance, that from this death,
from this nothingness, the life and essence of a higher know-
ledge may spring forth and be made anew." And if we keep
silence for the word (." Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth,"
said Samuel), God's word will, through its power of truth
bearing witness to itself in our conscience, constantly gain
the victory over the wisdom of man ; and even the imperfect
form of the letter in the sacred writers, of which adversaries
have made so much, must serve to prove the divine truth of
the Spirit and the word presented in weak earthen vessels.
The confident assertions of the " spuriousness " of these
writings do not affect us in the least, assurances brought
forward by a criticism without experience in a religious-
psychological point of view, and standing outside the matter
and the inner connection. These contents and value " prove
themselves well." Nobody romances thus. Even independent
of the Scripture as Scripture, Christ has proved Himself to our
conscience as the truth, by means of the preached word, and
the testimony that the Spirit has given to it within us.

164 PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WOED.

§ 72.

The Holy Scripture is applicable not merely to the
individual, but also to the whole Church. It contains the
history of the founding of the kingdom of God, and
the prophetic glances into the future of that kingdom. It
begins with the book of Beginnings, the first book of Moses,
with the account of the first things in the kingdom of nature,
the first things in the kingdom of sin, the first things in the
kingdom of the world and culture, but also the first things in
the kingdom of grace and of redemption. And it closes with
the book of the Last Things, the revelation of John, with the
last struggles between God's kingdom and the hostile world-
powers, the last conclusion of peace on earth, the new heaven
and the new earth. Edifying contemplation must direct its
glance to the beginning and the end, in order rightly to
understand the middle. The revelation of God in Christ con-
stitutes the centre of Scripture and of Christian contemplation.
And as the Christian sermon in the congregation is not only
to proclaim Christ as Him who has been, but as Him who is,
invisibly present in the course of the ages, and in His Church ;
so also the believing reading of the Holy Scripture must view
the word and the facts of Holy Scripture not only in their
past meaning, but also in their permanent meaning and appli-
cation. This application of the word is to be, indeed, an
application to ourselves, and edifying contemplation must be
self- contemplation in the light of the word of God. Every
Christian who in faith surrenders to God's word, must use
that word, as well heard as read, so that the man of God
in him may become perfect, "fitted for every good work"
(2 Tim. iii. 17). But as the individual only stands in rela-
tion to Christ, so far as he likewise is also a member of Christ's
kingdom, the way of contemplation leads from self-contempla-
tion to world-contemplation in the light of the divine word,
or, what is the same thing, to the contemplation of the king-
dom of God in the course of the ages. However urgently
Christ summons to self-examination and self-knowledge, he
yet constantly leads the disciples into the contemplation of
God's kingdom, after its relation to the race. And however
earnestly we, after the example of the Lord, press self-exami-

PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WOKD. 165

nation, we must yet no less emphasize tliat if one makes
self-inspection the only task of contemplation, or will only
apply the word of God to himself, this is a most one-sided
use of God's word, whereby one in a great degree weakens also
its right and full application even to ourselves. From a one-
sided ascetic standpoint it has been indeed maintained, that
one has no time to engage in other contemplations about
divine things than those immediately concerning himself and
his own salvation, so that thus one will only seek in the
Scripture and consider what belongs to the order of salvation,
what relates to conversion, justification and sanctification. But
he who so speaks and thinks must overlook entire and large
leading passages in God's word, and in the Lord's own discourses.
He dare, for instance, have no time to tarry by the Lord's
parables, as by the parable of the grain of mustard seed that
grows up into a great tree, in whose branches the birds build
their nests, of the leaven, of the tares among the wheat, of the
servants sent out who come to receive the fruit of the vine-
yard,— parables that give a concentrated picture of world-
history and of the history of God's kingdom ; or at least he
will exclusively apply them to his own soul, to the individual,
mutilating them, and robbing them of their full value. As
little will he find time to hear the Lord's prophetic discourses
of the destruction of Jerusalem and the last day, His dis-
courses of the signs of the times and the signs of His second
coming or appearance on earth, of the different behaviour of
the peoples to God's kingdom, of the rejection of Israel and
his restoration in the last times, of the fulness (the full
number) of the heathen and their ingathering, not to speak
of having time to tarry by those great visions which are
spread out in the Eevelation of John, or the corresponding
portions of the apostolic epistles, before our view. He will
also have no time to go closely into the circumstances of the
Church in the apostolic age, as they are set forth in the
Acts and the epistles of the apostles. From all we have
mentioned he will at most snatch single sayings and sentences,
that he may apply them immediately to himself. This
exclusive and artificial self-contemplation, — artificial because
it is only brought about by an arbitrary, forced disregard of
the word of God in its entireness and connected fulness, —

166 PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD.

leads to a morbid state. Now it appears as a sullen brooding
about himself and his own sinfulness, while one microscopically
traces every movement of the soul, constantly feeling his own
pulse ; now as a vain self-contemplation, the individual finding
himself excellent, just because he understands how to observe
himself. But thus it ought not to be: self-contemplation,
regard to the single personality, one must be able to unite
with a healthy self-forgetfulness, a surrender to the object, in
which this respect, this care for ourselves, does not indeed
absolutely perish, but for the time is, as it were, set at rest,
to be afterwards the more thoroughly taken up again.

As the Reformation was called to insist on inwardness, and
especially to emphasize the order of salvation, or the way of
salvation for the individual, it often happened — although not
at all as a necessary consequence of the principle, rightly
understood — that regard to the individual was urged at the
cost of the kingdom of God. If we regard the tendency of
Protestant preaching still in many places predominant, such
an application of the gospel to the individual often meets us,
that the full contents of the gospel do not get justice. The
evangelical Christians of our days are in a high degree need-
ing to be led into a living contemplation of sacred history, of
the history of Christ and the apostles, and that in their con-
nection with the history of Israel, as a pre-representation of
the leadings of the Christian Church, its sufferings, trials, and
final glorification. But with the consideration of Biblical
history there must also be combined profound study of the
prophetic word, the word of prediction partly set forth in the
Old, partly in the New Testament, which is in progressive
fulfilment in the history of the peoples throughout all ages.
And a Christian can only then rightly understand his own
guidance when he views it in connection with the guidance
of God's kingdom ; for God has interwoven the guidance of
the individual with the guidance of His kingdom, the educa-
tion of the individual with the education of the race. The
individual is only a citizen, a member of the whole kingdom,
and can therefore also only become perfected with the whole
people of God on earth. And so also it certainly falls not only
to theologians to give heed to the destinies and the situation
of God's people on earth, but that is the concern of the whole

PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD. 167

Church. Precisely in our days the state of the world and
world-events in a high degree summon us to bestow the
greatest attention on the teachings of Scripture about God's
kingdom in its position to the world.

But from self-contemplation, as from the contemplation of
the world and the kingdom, we are ever again led back to
Him in whom lie hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge
(Col. ii. 3), and who of God is made to us wisdom, as well as
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. i. 30).
A Christian must endeavour to gain a spiritual image of his
Saviour, not a self-made image, but one in which, by means of
the word, the Lord Himself may be formed in him (Gal. iv. 19;
2 Cor. iii. 18). He who reads our four gospels with sense
and spirit will observe the most admirable harmony in them.
He will find no other Christ in John than in the first
evangelists. Doubtless, however, he will in the Gospel of
John see Christ not merely after His relation to the world of
men, in which He will plant His kingdom, but also after His
inner eternal relation to the Father, will here find the great
testimonies in which He has borne witness of Himself, and the
promises given to His people of the Comforter who should
glorify Him. What John has thus apprehended and re-
produced is the side of Christ's divine-human being turned to
eternity and the eternal depths. But when in Matthew also,
chap. xi. 25—27, the Lord expresses Himself in the frame of
prayer and contemplation, we hear quite the same tones as in
John. The Gospel of John may be viewed as a clearly
executed representation of that word of the Lord which
Matthew has preserved to us : " All things are delivered unto
me by my Father. And no man knoweth the Son, but the
Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son,
and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him."

§73.

The feelings which are combined with contemplative love,
and which we should nourish and develop in us amid our
consideration of the divine word, are indeed many and
manifold ; but we have here to mention especially two chief
feelings, namely, an unbounded thankfulness and an un-

168 PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD.

bounded admiration. Whatever way contemplation may take,
it is always brought back to what God has given us, to the
riches of His grace, His mercy. And whatever feelings of
sadness and sorrow, whatever grief of heart at sin's power
may be awakened by contemplation, yet the main evangelical
feeling remains an unbounded thankfulness for God's un-
fathomable grace and mercy to us : " Let us love Him, for He
has first loved us" (1 John iv. 19). But most closely con-
nected with this is the unbounded adoring admiration of the
perfections of His being, as these are revealed in His wonder-
ful works, not only in the miracle of creation, but especially
in the miracle of the new creation. " 0 the depth of the
riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how
unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding
out ! For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all
things" (Rom. xi. 33, 36). Both the feelings mentioned are
closely akin ; but in thankfulness the thought of one's own
soul, the thought of personal salvation asserts itself, while this
momentarily disappears in the feeling of admiration, in self-
forgetfulness at the radiance of God's glory. It is a one-
sidedness when this relation is so conceived, as if the one ot
these feelings excluded the other, although such a one-sidedness
has at times appeared in the Church.1 But were we to name
such examples of contemplation as present both elements in
the most perfect union and mutual penetration, we would
especially point to the form of contemplation appearing in the
Apostle John. His contemplation goes back to the " begin-
ning," when neither world nor time was, when only "the
Word " was with God and was God Himself. It leads us
into the mystery of the creation and of the incarnation, to the
Word that became flesh and dwelt among us. In the peace
of eternity, and as from the height of eternity, He looks
down on the earthly existence, with its opposition of light and
darkness, the opposition between the Father and the world,
between Christ and the prince of this world, between the
Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. His prophetic
eagle glance embraces future times, and reaches to the end,
when the last great victory is gained, when time shall be no
more, but only eternity. But just in this love of adoring
1 Compare General Part (2d German edition), p. 210 ff.

PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD. 169

admiration, in which the apostle with unconditional surrender
stands towards his object, while his soul is comparable to a
living mirror, the disciple who at the Supper rested on the
Redeemer's breast, utters this voice, "Let us love Him,
because He first loved us ;" " If we confess our sin, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness" (1 John i. 9). In Paul also we find
adoration and thankfulness in most intimate union, only that
contemplation appears with him in another form, namely,
united with reflection, the dialectic activity, whereby he
affords us a deey insight into sin and grace, as these are
revealed in the life of the individual, as well as also in the
joint life of the race. These are the two apostles to whom
are to be traced the beginnings and roots of all knowledge, of
all speculation in the Church.

§74.

The perfection of contemplation depends partly on its
inwardness and depth, an unweariedly renewed recurrence to
the same starting-point and centre, partly on its compass,
while not merely the kingdom of grace, but also the kingdom
of nature in its relation to grace, must become the object of
Christian contemplation, in harmony with the apostolic word,
'All things are yours" (1 Cor. iii. 21). In the first place,
namely, as regards the inwardness , of contemplation, great
examples meet us in the mystics. How unweariedly, with
what indestructible freshness, can a Tauler (born 1294, died
1361), and the whole chorus of his quiet spiritual kindred,
move in the same circle of some great thoughts that have
risen upon them ! How they can, like divers, descend into
the depth, ever anew to fetch up out of it the same pearls, in
which they every time rejoice again with the first joy of
discovery ! The repetition that here occurs is not reminis-
cence, but the repetition of life itself, and of the ever
renewed life - process. Yet it is, above all, the word of
Scripture itself that we must revolve within us. Of all words,
none require diligent repetition in such measure as the words
of eternal life, and there is also no other that can in like
measure bear it. For they never become antiquated, bypast

170 PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD.

words, but remain ever fresh and present, simply because
they are supra-temporal, and can therefore at every time and
in every temporal relation prove their power — a power that
frees from time, and raises above time, while merely human
wisdom very soon becomes bypast, antiquated, and ineffectual.
As regards the compass of contemplation, this grows in
completeness and fulness the more it understands and is able
to embrace of the truths of revelation, as also of the applica-
tion thereof to life, and to the manifold phenomena of the
world. Yet in this a danger threatens, of which warning
must be given. Precisely in our time, which beyond others
suffers from the desire of the phenomenal, there is a wide-
spread tendency, as well in a religious as in a worldly
direction, to enlarge the compass of contemplation at the
expense of inwardness, in the many and manifold to forget
the unit, in the multitude of objects to lose the centre of
consciousness. However weighty it may be to place the unit
in relation to the manifoldness of being, a problem which we
have also set ourselves, yet let it not be forgotten that when
we are speaking of edification it remains, above all, the unit
that it concerns ; and that for our edification, our spiritual
progress, we need at bottom only some few but great truths,
which we must live into again and again. Therefore the
problem does not consist in drawing the greatest possible
multiplicity into the sphere of our contemplation, greater
than one is able to control, and especially to put in relation
to the unit, as it is also needful in enriching our knowledge
not to dissipate and lose ourselves in unfruitful Martha-
labour. Even the old Oetinger (1702-82) complains that
there are many whose contemplation loses itself in a too great
multitude and multiplicity of objects, and who pursue a too
subtle insight into things, by which the eyes become ever
more lustful and immoderate to see novelties again and again,
while often, however, overlooking the most needful thing of
all. He thus lays down the rule, that he who loves wisdom
must first and foremost pray God for wisdom to know what
knowledge is the most necessary and fruitful, (1) for himself,
his special relations and his peculiar nature ; (2) for the
period of time in which we are born.1 This rule we can

1 Auberlen, Oetlnger'a T/icosophie, p. 391.

PIOUS MEDITATION AND GOD'S WORD. 171

appropriate in every respect. As regards especially the present
time and its importance, we will become always the more
aware that the word of God wonders at none of the things
that astonish the world, that to this word there is nothing
new under the sun. In the measure that we have become
familiar with the prophetic view of the world, in the same
measure we hover, as regards the great chief questions that
concern every Christian — especially the position that the
kingdom of God occupies to the world — above the time, are
before the time, and acquainted with the time, as the word of
eternity teaches us to understand the signs of the time.

* 75.

Contemplative intercourse with God points back to inter-
course of heart with God, and therewith to mystical com-
munion with Him, a communion not in mere thoughts, but
in life and in personal existence. Essentially this communion
is already present in living faith. But the further develop-
ment of this mystical communion is only accomplished when
contemplation and meditation develop into prayer ; and as it
is prayer by which in practical life the blessing is conditioned,
the same is also the condition of all blessing in the contem-
plative life. Where prayer grows dumb, there also will the
inner springs of adoring admiration and of pious thankfulness
grow dry ; and then contemplation will also wither, and as a
mere image of thought and fancy stand before us, given over
to doubt and to the lower worldly consciousness, which insists
on its realities, and that with the appearance of a far greater
validity and certainty than those of faith. Or else — namely,
in the case that in more deeply endowed natures, contempla-
tion, despite the lack of prayer, preserves its freshness — there
arises a dangerous security, a mere imagined Christianity,
men thinking that they have life in God while they live in
the imagination of it. In this respect it is natural to recall
to mind the history of the development of John Tauler, that
enlightened Dominican preacher at Cologne and Strassburg.
He who had already for many a year preached the gospel to
every one's admiration, and believed that he himself was a
true Christian, but to whom a Christian layman, who had

172 MYSTICAL LOVE. PRAYEK.

come from a great distance, spoke in a friendly awakening
and hortatory way about his preaching and his personal
spiritual state, — he was convinced by this simple address that
he had hitherto only possessed the figure, the form of
Christianity, but not the essence of it ; that he was still in
the letter and not in the spirit. We cannot here more fully
describe how in that man the spiritual life broke forth by
means of great internal conflicts, and he now first became fit
to preach with demonstration of the Spirit and of power, and
to produce truly sanctifying effects in the heart. But what
the foresaid remarkable narrative has chiefly to say to us is,
that in that earlier time Tauler stood only in the contem-
plative relation to God. He then took life in the highest
thoughts for life with God Himself. He thought God indeed,
but was not yet in the true and full import of the word a
child of God. The deeply internal, genuinely mystical
position to God, the true life of prayer and experience, he
had not yet discovered. Contemplation must pass through
the school of prayer and experience to gain the right life ;
while, on the other hand, it must be said that by true
contemplation prayer is anew awakened and nourished.
There occurs here a relation of uninterrupted reciprocity and
mutual action.

MYSTICAL LOVE.

Prayer. — The Lord's Supper. ,
§76.

Mystical love arises from the longing that the Psalmist
expresses in the words, " My soul thirsteth for God, for the
living God," from the consciousness, "Whom have I in heaven
but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside
Thee." Now this, that one not only has God in his thoughts,
but in his existence and as a fact, is no doubt already to be
found in the Christian faith. But as the Christian life
simply moves between the two poles, having and not having,
it ever anew seeks immediate union, immediate communion of
life with God, the direct relation, a holy meeting of the soul

MYSTICAL LOVE. PRAYER. 173

with the eternal love, in order by it to be strengthened and
confirmed in the inner man. When we designate the mystical
union as the immediate, we would by this in no way hold
every " means " excluded, as the false mysticism does ; for
the means of grace are not excluded. The constantly renewed
and repeated union with the living, present God, takes place
in prayer and in the sacrament. In prayer we speak with
God (" the converse of the soul "), pour out our heart before
Him, thank and praise Him as those who have Him, call on
and entreat Him as those who have Him not ; and the inmost
truth of our personality opens and unfolds itself before His
face. Prayer, therefore, is not at all, as it is often regarded,
a mere means for something else, that one would thereby gain
or would strengthen and enliven, as, for instance, any activity;
but it is love itself in its living expression. One form only
of union with God and the Saviour is still more intimate, still
higher and deeper than in prayer, namely, the sacramental
union in the Lord's Supper, as the holy of holies of our faith,
where the Lord Christ Himself communicates to us His body
and His blood. But this sacrament itself must be partaken
of in a prayerful frame. And prayer has also been given us
by our Lord as a means of grace, which we are to use along
with the other means of grace, and which we can always
have with us. He has given the greatest promises to prayer
(Luke xi. 9-13), has granted us the right to pray in Hi&
name (John xvi. 23) ; and, finally, has put into our lips the
fundamental and choice word of prayer in7 the Lord's Prayer
(Matt. vi. 9 ff.).

Christian prayer is prayer to God through Christ. It is-
prayer to our Father in heaven ; yet our prayer does not go-
to the Father in such sense as if the Son and the Holy Spirit
were excluded, as if it dared not apply to them. To the Son
also we may and ought to pray, as we ought also to call
upon the Holy Spirit; and the Church has ever, yea from its
beginning, done both. But though one or the other of the
persons is preponderantly present to the consciousness or the
imagination, it still remains the three-one God to whom
prayer is addressed. But our prayer is ever made ly means
of Christ the Mediator, so that we must say with Augustine ;
We pray to Him, through Him, in Him.

174 PRAYER.

§ 77.

In prayer the profoundest act of conscience and obedience
'<? inwardly accomplished, for prayer is only in so far a laying
hold and appropriation of God, as it is likewise a sacrifice;
and we can only receive God into us, when we likewise give
ourselves to Him. He who offers no sacrifice in his prayer,
who does not sacrifice his self-will, does not really pray. But
this sacrifice of surrender and obedience is only true and pure
when it is the sacrifice of free love, when under it the position
of the servant is transformed into that of the child. By such
a sacrifice, in which self-will dies, room is gained within for
God the Lord, whose place within us is otherwise occupied by
the selfish desires, the world and its images. But no one is
at the very first perfect in prayer. Prayer can only have in
us a really developed history, by continued resistance to all
that opposes prayer, and by continued education of the gift
of prayer bestowed on us. For in this also that word holds
good, "To him that hath shall be given" (Matt. xxv. 29).

§ 78.

If we now inquire whereby, then, our prayers are hindered,
we must mention doubt of the power of prayer as the first
hindrance ; wherefore also an apostle says, " But let him ask
in faith, nothing wavering; for he that wavereth is like a
wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed " (Jas. i. 6).
There is a mode of representation which, under the appearance
of philosophic wisdom, would choke prayer, namely, that our
words and wishes cannot possibly influence God's government
of the world, as everything happens as it has been determined
in God's purpose, whether we pray or not. This, however, is
a reasoning that overthrows the conception of the moral order
of the world; for, according to this, it must be said that
human actions altogether, our co-operation with the will of
God, or else our counterworking of His will, do not exercise
the slightest influence on the divine government of the world.
But wherever a moral government of the world is acknow-
ledged, it must be likewise acknowledged that the divine
purpose is no fate, no inflexible allotment, but a purpose

PRAYER. 175

which in its execution is conditioned by the free actions of
men, a presupposition without which the conceptions of
imputation and responsibility, of being lost and saved, of
judgment and mercy, of faith and conversion, would be
without all sense and meaning. But of the human actions,
the free acts of men, by which the divine purpose is self-
conditioned, and which it has ordained as conditions for the
development of God's kingdom in the human race, prayer also
is one. And no one who is acquainted with the course of
development of God's kingdom will have any difficulty in
calling prayer one of the greatest world-moving powers that
have co-operated towards the most far-reaching changes on earth.
And not only does he who prays himself become another man
through prayer, another than he was before, but by his
becoming another his surroundings and external relations
become more or less changed. Should it be said that this
holds good only of the moral and spiritual relations, that
prayer is no doubt a power in the moral order of the world,
but is of no avail also to produce changes in the natural
physical order of things, which simply follow their own
unchangeable laws, we would ask, Is there not, then, a secret
connection between the moral and physical order of things ?
Appeal is made to an unchangeable connection of nature
which cannot be invaded. We understand this objection
when it proceeds from pantheists and materialists, whose God
is nature itself, but do not understand it in the mouth of
those who confess a living God, the Creator, who helps and
delivers. If God be not an idle spectator beside the eternal
revolution of nature, but rather the living, willing, acting
God, whose world-plan is no other than His holy kingdom,
then nature is merely the organ of His will; then not only
must influences be able to proceed from this God-ordained
connection of finite causes, to each of created things, but also
direct influences from the centre, which is just the pre-
supposition of the miracle, as also of prayer ; then God must
be able not merely to stand in communication with the single
creature by means of this great connection of nature, but also
to put Himself into a direct relation to every single member
within this connection, since every single creature must have
an open, accessible side for the influence of the Creator

176 PRAYER.

Where faith in the living God exists, it is also believed that
He can even now send to him that prays not only spiritual,
but also bodily help, can rescue from the abyss of death, in
the government and ordering of human destiny can make
stormy winds His messengers, flames of fire His servants ; for
if He could not, had He exhausted all his possibilities in this
connection of nature, He were not the God of omnipotence
and of grace. But as we cannot survey the ways by which
the Lord would lead us, our prayers for temporal benefits and
aids must no doubt ever be regulated after the typical prayer
of the Lord: "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt." On the other
hand, we know that we ought always to pray — for God Him-
self, for the Holy Spirit, as we also know that the Holy
Spirit does not make His abode in us except we pray for it.
A Christian must therefore ever pray also for prayer itself,
that we may pray aright; must, with the disciples, entreat
the Lord, " Increase our faith " (Luke xvii. 5).

But even when we pray in faith, certain hindrances remain
to be combated ; and the more earnestly we pray, the more
must we also strive in prayer. An innate indolence and sloth
belongs to our corrupt nature, a law of gravity, that would
ever drag us down to the earth, and hinder the soul from
soaring. Mists are without intermission arising from our
sinful flesh, which hide the sun from our inner eye. The sun
stands with its usual brightness in the heaven ; but it i*
our earthly atmosphere that hides it from us. Prayer thus
must show itself as earnest will, as an act of freedom that
penetrates and tears asunder the mist. But, that we may
conquer in this, it will at the same time be indispensable for
us so to arrange our whole mode of life that the life of prayer
suffer no hindrance by it. The same Saviour who has made it
our duty to pray, says also, " Take heed lest your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness" (Luke xxi. 34).
Every preponderance of the flesh over the spirit, every sinking
of the spirit into the life of nature, every surrender to the
dominion of matter, hinders prayer, which just depends upon
this, that the spirit tears itself free from the pressure and
service of matter, that it raises itself aloft into the pure and
light air of eternity. When we consider this, we also under-
stand the connection that has been assumed from of old

PKAYER. 177

between prayer and fasting. By fasting, in the wider meaning
of the word, we understand free abstinence even from that
satisfaction of the senses that is in itself lawful ; for, that a
man may gain the requisite power to resist unlawful gratifica-
tion, he must often renounce what is lawful. However much
that is erroneous and perverted has been combined with this,
— for by an undue resistance to the senses, prayer and the
spiritual life may also be hindered, — yet it is sure that between
the power to pray and the ability to control one's sensual
impulses there exists a connection, and that if the control of
our senses is a condition for the religious life as a whole, this
holds true especially of prayer and the sacrament. The
dominion of the life of prayer and the dominion of the lower
senses always stand in inverse relation to each other. Experi-
ence teaches us that in those times of fasting which are
ordained to men by divine guidance, in times of need, of
trouble, of want, we men pray best; and the extraordinary
(the ecstatic) states of prayer ever imply a certain being " out
of the body " (2 Cor. xii. 2 ff.).

With that in our nature which yields to the law of gravity,
is closely connected another hindrance, namely, distraction.
Distraction is the opposite of internal collectedness. Where
the former prevails, the soul is ruled by its own accidental
ideas, that draw it in different directions, and involve it in
accidental reflections. At all times, pious praying ones have
lamented this temptation in prayer. The holy Bernard
(1091—1153) and Luther both complained that at times it
was impossible for them to pray a single paternoster without
distraction.

Severance from that tendency of our nature which fol-
lows the law of gravity, and collectedness of the spirit, is
thus the first thing to be striven for in prayer. But when
these hindrances are happily overcome, then begins the main
struggle, namely, the struggle in which we are to sacrifice our
own will to God, that God may for this give us His Holy
Spirit. He who will not war such a warfare, but in prayer
itself will hold fast his passions, his anger, his selfish desires ;
who in prayer does not pray against himself, has not the will
and the mind to give himself over fully and without reserve
to the will of God, will, despite all his calling and crying, not

M

178

PRAYER.

attain to union with God in prayer. For God's Spirit cannot
erect His temple beside the idols' temples present in such a
soul, but will only build His temple on the ruins of the idols'
temples. And here it appears in what connection prayer
stands to the whole of life besides, in that only he who strives
to make his whole life a sacrifice well pleasing to God is fit
also for the holy sacrifice of prayer. " That your prayers be
not hindered," says the Apostle Peter (1 Pet. iii. 7), where he
utters a moral exhortation. That we may be fitted for prayer,
we must lay aside our faults, combat our sins, and again we
must pray in order to become fitted to renounce our sins.
Thus a reciprocal action here occurs.

But not only with ourselves is it important to strive in
prayer. It may also be the case that we strive in prayer with
God, contend against the opposition that God Himself furnishes
by means of trials laid upon us. He lets His servants be
tried in the furnace of temptations, withdraws from them the
comfort of the Spirit, sometimes hides Himself from them,
shuts, as it were, His heaven from them, that the constancy of
their faith, the inwardness of their longing, may be put to the
proof (" How long, 0 Lord ? "). Thus under the Old Testa-
ment the patriarch Jacob was tried, when wrestling with God
the Lord he exclaimed, " I will not let Thee go except Thou
bless me" (Gen. xxxii. 26). So also the Canaanitish woman
was tried, when at first her prayer was refused by the Lord
with apparent harshness, till at last she received the comfort-
ing word, " Be it unto thee even as thou wilt " (Matt. xv.
21 ft.

§79.

Amid these struggles with the various hindrances, the gift
of prayer is developed and formed, or the power to surrender
entirely to God, and to draw His Spirit into us. But the
cultivation of the gift of prayer dare not, any more than the
gift of meditative contemplation, be left to accident, to become
a mere affair of moods (of inclination or disinclination) ; for
in that case prayer would far too often be omitted. It must
become a problem to every Christian to educate himself for
prayer, by subjecting prayer to a rule, a discipline. In the

PRAYER. 179

life of a Christian there must be an order of prayer, appointed
times of prayer ; and it is a natural requirement that no day
pass over without morning and evening sacrifice. True, it may
be said that the praying frame must be given us ; wherefore
we must continue watchful, even amid the occupations and
distractions of life, for the visitations of the Spirit and His
calling voices. For the Spirit visits us far oftener, speaks far
oftener within us, than we ourselves are aware of, because we
do not give heed to it. But it may be maintained just as well
that the praying frame must be sought ; and for this we can
give no better direction than that which Luther gives us in
his Simple Way to Pray, from which in particular we quote
the following words : — " When I feel that by strange business
or thoughts I am become cold and disinclined to pray (as
indeed the flesh and the devil always resist and hinder prayer),
I take my little psalter, run into the closet, or when it is the
day and the time, into the church to the congregation, and
begin orally by myself to say the ten commandments, the
creed, and as I have time, some sayings of Christ, of Paul, or
Psalms, just as the children do. Therefore it is good that one
let prayer be the first work in early morning and the last at
night, and carefully guard against those false, treacherous
thoughts that say, Wait a little, an hour hence I will pray ; I
must first see to this or that ; for with such thoughts one gets
from prayer into business, which then holds and surrounds one,
so that there will be no prayer that day." " When now the
heart is warmed by such oral converse, and has come to itself,
kneel down, or stand with folded hands, and eyes to heaven,
and say or think as shortly as tliou canst : —

" Ah, heavenly Father, Thou dear God, I am an unworthy
poor sinner, not worthy to lift up mine eyes or hands to
Thee, or pray. But because Thou hast commanded us all to
pray, and hast also promised to hear, and, moreover, hast
taught us both the words and the way through Thy dear Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, I come at this Thy command to obey
Thee, and rely upon Thy gracious promise ; and in the name
of my Lord Jesus Christ, I pray with all Thy holy Christians
on earth, as He has taught me : Our Father, who art in
heaven;" whereupon Luther gives a simple slight direction
how one is to pray each single petition in the Lord's Prayer.

180 PEAYER.

Next to this prayer, Luther often points to the Psalter (the
Psalms of David), which he himself constantly used ; and in
this he makes prominent a guide, a help to prayer, which the
Christians of all ages have employed, the Holy Spirit teaching
them to conceive and understand the prayers of the Old
Testament in an evangelical manner. None of the books of
the Old Testament has so passed into the mouth and heart of the
Christian Church as the Psalter. For here we find the whole
scale of the states and frames of prayer, from the darkest abysses
of temptation, when the soul cries to the Lord from the depths,
to the bliss of paradisaic joy. And as we so often cannot
find the right word, the words are here given us that express
what we would say ; we feel borne and raised by them as on
wings. Good Christian hymns also, composed by such men
and women as were themselves earnest in prayer, may in this
be of service to us, and give us guidance as well how to pray
as also how we should give thanks.

§ 80.

Prayer comes ever nearer to its perfection in proportion
as it becomes a prayer in the name of Jesus. As such our
prayer is made partly on the word of Jesus, partly in the
power of Jesus ; and on this rests the inwardness of prayer,
and likewise its humility, while the praying one relies not on
himself, his own power or worthiness, but yields himself
entirely to the Mediator, casts himself into His arms, only
ventures to appear before God confiding in Him. And as
the prayer which is offered at Jesus' word, it will also in
particular obey that word of Jesus, that we ought always
and without intermission to pray and not to faint (Luke
xviii. 1). But as regards the contents, it will be a prayer
in the cause of Jesus, the great cause of His kingdom, and
for this the Lord's Prayer (Our Father) is and remains the
typical prayer. In this prayer our Saviour has taught us
that we should not pray as atomistic individuals, not " singly,"
but as members of human society, of the believing Church,
of the kingdom ; by which, however, it is in no way excluded
that each of us has His special worth and importance ordained
by God Himself. And certainly even in this there lies a

PHAYEE. 181

great, a supporting and sustaining power, that we are praying
the same prayer that the whole Christian Church of all con-
fessions prays with and for us, in that we all pray for each
other, as each one for himself. And each of the petitions
embraces a depth of riches. When we pray through our
Lord's prayer, the imperfection of our prayer very often lies
in this, that we do not tarry enough at the single petitions,
do not go deeply enough into the riches of the single petitions.
It is, however, a prayer that affords room for the most various
stages of ability and ripeness in praying. It can be prayed
by the child as well as by the man of gray hairs, by the
simplest as by an apostle who utters in it all that he has
to pray for himself, and likewise for the Church of God on
earth. Beyond this prayer we cannot go. For the three
first petitions, " Hallowed be Thy name ; Thy kingdom come ;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," contain the
goal of the longing and yearning not only of the individual
heart, but also of the whole creation, a yearning which already
receives here below the commencement of its fulfilment.
The remaining petitions are about those means, bodily and
spiritual means, which we need 'besides in this temporal state.
The whole prayer embraces the history of the kingdom,
along with the history of the individual Christian.

But although we thus pray in words that the Lord has
placed upon our lips and within our heart, or which the Holy
Spirit has prayed in Christendom, that by no means excludes
but rather involves that we also pray with our own words ;
or that the prayer delivered to us by the Lord or the Church
be individualized in us, corresponding to our special states
and relations. The more inward prayer becomes, the more
it becomes a matter of conscience, the more will individual
self-knowledge, the personal consciousness and confession of
sin, be manifested in prayer, while we not only in general
confess our sinfulness before God's face, but also our own
special sin, our special temptations, our special hindrances ;
while we likewise in prayer desire to learn what the special
will of God is with us, as well regarding our inner life as
our external life-relations, and we for the one as for the
other desire His blessing. With an entirely peculiar im-
portance this individualizing prayer comes forth in the

182 PRAYER,

turning - points of life, in the crises of being, at great de-
cisions ; and if we would here again have great examples,
we may again mention Luther, in the ardent, decisive struggles
of whose life prayer so often poured forth from the inmost
of his unique personality, although always on the foundation
of the Lord's Prayer and His promises.

But while individualizing prayer is uttered in our own
words, there are also states in the Christian life such that
our feelings and frames can find no expression in words, as
we know not how to pray as we ought. Then the Spirit
helps our infirmity, and makes Himself known in groanings
that cannot be uttered (Rom. viii. 26).

§ 81.

The more our heart's prayer is joined with thanks, the
more it both begins and ends with thanksgiving, the more
complete it is. And there is always ground for thanks, even
in this, that we have a gracious God, whom we call Father,
are permitted to invoke as our Father, and who will hear us,
though He should not hear us«at once.

Being heard, essentially consists for the individual soul in
the mystical union with God, in which God gives us His
Holy Spirit, and in which the Lord's words, such as John
xiv. 23, are fulfilled: " I and the Father will come and make
our abode with him." But now, if it be asked by what
inner experiences it is to be known that this essential hear-
ing has become ours, we can only mention the one great
experience, namely, that we have been renewed and confirmed
in God's saving grace. From the first, all who prayed in
the name of Jesus have praised, as the chief experience of
prayer, the becoming conscious of the peace of God which
passeth all understanding, and combined with this the
becoming conscious of a higher communication of power, a
quickening power amid all our weakness. But as God's
saving grace is likewise educative and disciplinary grace, the
answer is not always granted us at once, or at every time.
This very thing is part of the inner guidance of grace with
us, that God also withdraws from us such inward experiences,
withholds the consciousness, the feeling of grace, that we

PKAYER. 183

may learn not only to strive in prayer, but also in prayer to
wait on God. Besides, it is to be observed that the answer
is now granted to us in a more immediate, and now again in
a more mediate way, now as a blessed, specially rich and
fruitful moment, now as a quiet blessing, unremarked and
not remarkable in its entrance, but which makes itself
known in the whole of our inner life, in that our entire
spiritual condition becomes better under continued prayer,
as by the respiration of a purer air, while it cannot be con-
nected with any single thing. In this respect there is seen
a difference of human individualities. Among the children
of God there are those who stand nearer the divine centre
than others, and in very many cases these are ungifted and
simple souls. With them the answer often occurs in light,
yea, clear-shining moments, and not only in respect of inner
states of life, but also when they have prayed or interceded
regarding these or those external things, and that often in
the most surprising, wonderful way, so that the whole narrow-
ness of the low naturalistic standpoint is needed in order to
dispute such answers. In others, the more mediate (living
in reflection) children of grace, who have to resist far greater
hindrances, the answer appears also, as a rule, more mediate.
Yet no sharp boundaries can here be drawn between the
mediate and the immediate. But no prayer, when it is
earnest, remains without an answer.

But so far as we make a difference between the answer
that is received in single bright moments, and that which,
amid continued prayer, is experienced as an unnoticed bless-
ing penetrating the whole of our life, the consideration is
here forced upon us, that there are spiritual gifts which from
their nature God cannot possibly grant in a single moment.
If we pray, for instance, as for the Holy Spirit's help gene-
rally, so especially for wisdom, or righteousness, or self-denial,
for strength to be able to overcome certain temptations, we
can no doubt receive a momentary answer, in so far as our
prayer refers to a single difficult case, a single situation. So
a glimpse of light, a sudden illumination, may be bestowed
on the soul, of which within the natural life those creative
moments of genius, as they sometimes come to the thinker,
the poet, give us a type — an illumination by which we

184 PRAYER.

recognise what is the best counsel for the present case, the
true life-wisdom (Jas. i. 5). If again we pray, as in any case
we ought, for wisdom, righteousness, self-denial, as those virtues
that should permanently belong to our personality, should
become proper elements of our character, these cannot be
given to us at once. Eeady-made virtues cannot fall down
from heaven into our bosom. They must not only be wrought
out, but above all spring forth from our personal communion
with God. And in many cases this growth is conditioned by
this, that this our communion with God must itself first become
riper and more complete, more elevated, more potent, raised
to a higher stage of development. Thou canst indeed obtain
these virtues which thou desirest, that is, a higher grade of
wisdom, of righteousness, and so on ; but thy relation to
God, thy life of faith, must first become more inward, more
deeply centralized, thy faith and love firmer, thy surrender
to the Lord more absolute and inward. Here also one may
point to a type in the realm of nature. In nature God
grants us the spring, not in such wise as suddenly to rain
down from heaven flowers, foliage, and birds upon us ; but
by the position of the earth to the sun becoming different,
that is, more advanced, or, as it may also be expressed, " the
sun advances into the star-figures of the spring." 1 Even so
is it in the realm of grace. We ourselves must get into a
changed, an advanced position to the Sun of the spiritual
world. Then the buds appear, the flowers burst forth, all grows
and advances ; nay, the flowers may, under continued blessing
from above, and continued labour on our part, become fruits.

The last end and object of our prayers is not, then, this or
that single gift, but the perfecting of our personal relation to
God, or of our life in God (" He in us, and we in Him," the
true Immanence). Precisely when the answer is denied us,
our God would lead us to a higher stage. Even granted that
thou must remind thyself again and again, " In this case one
must be silent, one must wait," that one has often to wait
long for the spring ; yet continue to pray without ceasing ;
for amid persevering prayer thou art insensibly advancing,
thou art imperceptibly approaching the sun, and at last the
wintry state is over. " It must still become spring."

1 Culmann, Die christliche Ethik, I. 177.

PRAYER. 185

§82.

As we are bound to strive in prayer, and to persevere in
it, we should also in prayer with thanksgiving le satisfied
•with tlie grace of God (2 Cor. xii. 9). But that is equivalent
to being satisfied with His educative grace (Titus ii. 1 1 f.),
that is, not to desire to escape from its school before the time.
We are all of us children and beginners, and therefore we
cannot require that God should treat us otherwise than as
children and beginners, who cannot bear an unbroken enjoy-
ment of His Spirit's gift, but must be educated even by the
occasional absence and deprivation thereof. To be satisfied
with the grace of God, further means to be satisfied with His
saving grace, with this, that one is a child of God, and
therefore not to desire in prayer the extraordinary gifts of
God's grace. For as Christian humility is tantamount to
the feeling of our unworthiness, and to the persevering desire
for the one thing needful, as humility shows itself in this, that
we would be nothing but that to which God has once appointed
us, and therefore only desire the gifts that are needful and
conducive thereto ; so also the humility of prayer must be
shown in this, that all vain longing for the extraordinary
gifts of grace, and the first places in the kingdom of God, is
excluded. Our Lord has not only warned us of the pride of
that Pharisee who in prayer thanked God that he was not
like other men, or even as this publican. He has, besides,
warned us against ambition, which often occurs in believing
disciples, who desire that God would give them a prominent
position before others. The sons of Zebedee (Mark x. 3 5 ff.),
who entreat the Lord, " Grant unto us that we may sit, one
on Thy right hand, and the other on Thy left hand, in Thy
glory," receive a correction (" Ye know not what ye ask," and
so on), to which the Lord adds the words, " To sit on my
right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but (only
to those shall it be given) for whom it is prepared by my
Father." And with this our Lord has, once for all, rejected
all vain fantastically ambitious prayers, although that am-
bition may give itself out as a holy ambition. But the
exhortation here contained, to be satisfied with God's grace,
is specially applicable also to a longing often appearing in

188 PRAYER.

the course of Church history, namely, for signs and wonders,
as a fruit of prayer (that is, for surprising, as it were tangible,
answers to prayer), or for raptures, visions, and revelations
in prayer. It is applicable to religious voluptuousness, to
religious eudemonism, which is always merely longing to have
blessed experiences in prayer, to receive lively impressions
and feelings of the sweetness of God's love, like a lover who
every moment desires new tokens of love, new proofs, new
assurances that he is really loved, without considering that
it belongs to the very essence of true love to believe in love
even when no special signs of it appear ; nay, when seeming
signs of the opposite occur.

Among the moderns we may, in this connection, especially
quote Lavater (1741—99). If we cannot avoid blaming in
this man a false pursuit of signs and wonders, and that as
effects of prayer, yet we by no means forget what is great,
not to be forgotten, and permanent in his testimony and his
activity. We would only point out a wrong way into which
he got. Lavater thought that the same extraordinary gifts of
grace of which the Christians of the apostolic time were par-
takers, appearances of the risen Christ, the gift of working
miracles, of speaking with tongues, must also be bestowed on
us, if we only rightly applied the means thereof, namely
prayer. " What men who lived before us have been able to
do," said he, " must also be in our power." His lack of right
Church-historical consciousness prevented him from recognising
that God's economy embraces different periods; and although
personally, in the noblest sense of the word, a man of faith,
of hope and love, he did not sufficiently consider that these
three are the chief of all the gifts of grace, and appointed to
remain in the Church at all times ; while God only bestows
the extraordinary gifts in extraordinary times. His tendency
to signs and wonders brought on him, not without reason, the
reproach of fantastic fanaticism. We will only refer to one
point which had the greatest significance to Lavater and his
friends, namely, their expectation that the Apostle John would
reveal himself to them. That word of Christ to Peter and
John (John xxi. 22), "If I will that he tarry till I come,
what is that to thee ?" was, that is to say, misunderstood by
Lavater, as if the Apostle John were destined to live on upon

PRA.YER. 187

the earth till the return of the Lord, and accordingly were also
still living in secret on the earth. Lavater hoped most
assuredly that the Lord would yet fulfil his ardent prayer for
a meeting with the " apostle of love ;" and it is hardly pos-
sible to withhold a sad smile, when we see how this pure,
truly noble man, in his walks, fixed his eyes now upon this
passer-by, now upon that, if he might not possibly recognise
the Apostle John in him, if perhaps the hour of fulfilment
might now strike, and the long-deserved meeting might be
granted to him. Under many forms, the same longing for
signs and wonders recurred in him for blessed enjoyments of
a heavenly sort. He suffered an unquenchable thirst for
"experience of Christ." To his friends he secretly confided
that he felt the need of a far greater certainty than he pos-
sessed, that he might glorify Christ before his brethren. He
prayed that Christ would appear to him as He formerly had
appeared to Saul on the way to Damascus, or else reveal
Himself as He had revealed Himself to the unbelieving
Thomas. He carried about this hope with him quite con-
fidently, and wrote to his friends, " My gray hairs shall not
go down to the grave before I have called to certain elect
souls : He is far more certain than I myself." Lavater, then,
was not content with the fellowship in which he stood with
the invisible Christ, by means of the word and sacraments,
nor with the testimony of God's Spirit in his heart. He
desired a far more real, tangible, sensible, perceptible, visible
experience of Christ. Many a time he believed he was already
experiencing something of the highest enjoyment of soul, and
then exulted in a paradisiacal feeling of delight; but these
moments gave place again to sad and empty hours, when we
hear him break out in heartrending complaints about the
unsatisfied longing of his soul.1

The fundamental error in Lavater's mysticism is the same
as in all mysticism, namely, that he would anticipate within
this life the perfect state of the future, would forestall it, that
he would have, even here below, where we walk by faith, not
by sight, that more real experience for which he thirsted.

1 Gelzer, Deutsche Natlonalliteratur, II. 97 ff. Protestantische Monatsblatter,
XIV. 169 ff. : Lavaters und seiner Freunde Vcrkehr mit der Geistenvelt I. Dit
Geisterseher in Kopenhagen.

188 PRAYER.

Not as though we would deny the possibility of such antici-
pations at all, as the Apostle Paul was caught up to the third
heaven, and heard unutterable words, without knowing
whether he was in the body or out of the body (2 Cor. xii. 2,
3). But the mistake consists in going after such states, in
making much of them, in seeking such things with impatient
haste, in not being satisfied with the ordinary and general gifts
of grace. We may say, then, that Lavater's mystical love to
God in this respect was an importunate love, that was not
content with the great chief assurance of His love which God
bestowed on him, as on all His people, in justifying faith ; was
not content with the many damonstrations that God gave him
in the testimony of His Spirit, as well for comfort as for
exhortation ; nor with the many signs which come to view
without a break in the course of the world's history, as in the
ordinary progress of human life, and which, to the healthy eye
of the spirit, serve as witnesses of the truth of the gospel.
This importunate love, that requires more than God will give,
and claims an intercourse with God that God will not grant,
because the man is not ripe for it, is founded on a secret, an
unconscious disobedience, that will not subordinate itself to
God's educative and disciplinary grace ; on the desire to be
before the time emancipated from the divine discipline and
school. In this school we are, as Luther repeatedly impresses
upon us, to learn to hold fast to prayer and to the answer of
prayer, independent of the changing states, as they make
themselves known in our feelings and sensations. Faith in the
bare word of God (the " As it is written "), without any feel-
ing and sensation, is to be the proof of the inwardness of our
fidelity and love,

§ 83.

This false anticipation of the perfection of the future life is
also found in Fenelon, while he incorporates with the life of
prayer that which he calls the " pure disinterested love." In
Fenelon, however, it appears in a tendency which is opposed
to that of Lavater. The latter desires in prayer an enjoyment
of soul, desires signs and wonders, desires, that is, too much of
God for this present temporal state ; Fenelon, again, desires
too little, will introduce a false resignation into prayer, yea,

PRAYER AND INTERCESSION. 189

even a renunciation of the motive of bliss, in order, by means
of this resignation, to attain even in the present life to the
highest, the perfect union with God, which certainly may like-
wise be called desiring too much. In its root, Fenelon's
doctrine of pure love is connected with quietism, which,
among other things, teaches that the perfect only pray the one
petition, Thy will be done ; while the wliole Lord's Prayer is
only prayed by those that occupy the lower stage. In the
renunciation of the whole Lord's Prayer there lies a hidden
pride. For so long as the name of God is still desecrated in
so many ways, so long as, even in our own hearts, idolatry is
by no means rooted out in every, even the subtlest form ; so
long as the kingdom of God has not yet come in its perfection,
and we are surrounded by earthly need, by temptation, and
sin, and guilt, so long we also need to pray the whole Lord's
Prayer. He who imagines he does not need this, must think
he is raised above sin, guilt, and all the needs of earth. The
self-deception is also shown in this, that the adherents of
quietism think they can come into a state of rest and peace
through a single energetic act of will, which needs no repetition,.
— a state that will be disturbed by no contest more, a
fanaticism, against which Bossuet justly urged that undis-
turbed love can only dwell in the future life, while in this
life love is very much troubled and disturbed by sin, and that
therefore for a Christian nothing is more important than to-
renew the acts of the inner life, and of the life of prayer.
He points to this, that Christ, the Sinless One, during this-
temporal existence, had to renew the act of prayer, and that
He prayed thrice in Gethsemane, "Not my will, but Thine be
done;" and that Paul, in his temptation, prayed three times
that the Lord would take from him the thorn in his flesh.

Both the oue-sidednesses described are false anticipations of
the perfection of the future life, and should serve to warn us
against the impatience that would already seize here below
what is only to be given us above ; and so would prematurely
escape from the school of this earthly life. We are not to-
pray to God for something that were too much for us in our
present state of sinfulness, whether we are thinking in this of
visions and revelations from the other world, or of perfect
rest in God, disturbed by no struggles ; or, in general, of extra*

190 THE LOKD'S SUPPER.

ordinary signs of God's grace, which, however, are only given
to those that do not pursue them. But, on the other hand,
we ought also not to cease to pray to God for that which is
most necessary to us all, and which we daily need in this
existence. It will always appear that, when in one respect
we pray for too much, we in another respect ask too little ;
and it will always be open to ask whether one who, for instance,
prays for visions, appearances, special revelations, does not
neglect to pray from the bottom of his heart, " Lead us not
into temptation." God's educative grace, which has bound us
to the means of grace appointed by the Lord, of which we
have need till the last hour of our life — that must be enough
for us. This grace will, by means of prayer, as well for
spiritual as for bodily things, give us all that we need in this
temporal state. And if we surrender ourselves to it in
humility and obedience, it will prove itself to us again and
again as that which is mighty to do and to give far above
what we can ask or think.

What we have here said of prayer applies also to our inter-
cessions, which we have to offer to God for our neighbours, for
the Church, and for all men. The best that we can pray for
each other is embraced in the second petition of the Lord's
Prayer, " Thy kingdom come." The meaning and power of
intercession lies in this, that we are all members of the same
spiritual body, all revolve round the same centre, and in
mystical love, in believing prayer, have with each other a true
fellowship of life, can evoke essential influences the one on the
other, and that not only by means of the finite connection of
nature, but by means of the divine centre itself.

§ 84.

As in individual or private worship, public worship must
find its echo, so again all private worship must lead back to
public, to common prayer, and to that which forms the summit
of the Christian life, namely the Lord's Supper, — the highest
that anywhere can be appropriated (assimilated) by us. For all
that Christ has done and suffered for us, all that He has been
and continually will be for us, all His promises to His Church,
are here imparted to us, and that concentrated into a single

THE LORD'S SUPPER, 191

moment. It is surely something unutterably great, that in
the Supper the Lord bestows on us His body and blood to
confirm the forgiveness of our sins. This is the first thing that
we seek in the Lord's Supper, and without this all the rest
would not prove a blessing to us. But now we constantly
confess in our apostolic confession of faith, not only belief in
the forgiveness of sins, but also belief in the resurrection of
the body and eternal life. Between this and the holy Supper
there exists a deep connection. "He that eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him
up at the last day" (John vi. 54). In the Lord's Supper,
however, there occurs a secret union between a holy mystery
of the Spirit and a holy mystery of nature. The mystical
communion with Christ, which in itself is only a psychic-
pneumatic, here passes into the sacramental, spirit-bodily
•communion. For the whole undivided Christ gives Himself
in the Lord's Supper as nourishment, not merely for the soul,
but for the whole new man ; and so, too, for the future man
of the resurrection. That the Holy Scripture also puts the
Supper in connection with the last things, is clear not only
from the words of the apostle, " Ye do (that is, by means of
this solemnity) show the Lord's death till He come" (1 Cor.
xi. 26), but also from the words of the Lord Himself, "I will
not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day
when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom "
(Matt. xxvi. 29); for however these words may in detail be
expounded, they at any rate make known that the Supper is
a fact-prophecy, a pre-representation and anticipation of that
union with the Lord which shall one day take place in the
kingdom of bliss ; and not only of union with the Lord, but
also of the deep communion of love and life, which in that
blessed kingdom will bind believers to each other. For by
means of the Supper believers are fused into one body, since
they all, as the apostle says, " become partakers of the same
bread " (1 Cor. x. 1 7).1 Among all nations, eating in common,
or the appropriation (assimilation) of the same meal, is held
as a sign of a closer relation, a more intimate communion ;
nay, among the nations of antiquity we meet even with a
presentiment that eating in common also brings us into a
1 The Author's Dogmatics, § 265.

192 THE LORD'S SUPPER.

mysterious relation to each other.1 But this is fulfilled in its
deepest sense in the mystery of the Lord's Supper. In that
Supper, which points back to baptism, we are not only renewed,
and that in the most real manner, in communion with the
Lord, in the covenant and state of grace, but also in com-
munion with the Christian Church ; and not merely with the
local Church, not merely with our neighbours, husband and
wife, parents and children, who are here more inwardly united
with each other, but with the whole Christian congregation
(Church) of the living and the dead ; while we, by means of
Christ, the true (essential) heavenly vine, are mysteriously
united with the true congregation of the saints, not only on
earth, but also in heaven. Therefore the Supper is most
properly a congregational transaction ; and although on thy
sick-bed thou art severed from the visible congregation and
must partake of the Supper alone, thou still partakest of it in
the midst of the congregation.

§85.

But what, then, is the worthy partaking of the Lord's
Supper ? " For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily,
eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the
Lord's body" (1 Cor. xi. 29). We answer, that partaking
is unworthy that occurs with an unbelieving, unholy mind,
to which what is holy is indifferent, which makes no distinc-
tion between the sacred and the profane. > Worthy, again,
is the partaking that is entered upon and performed with a
genuine heart's need, to be renewed, namely, in the com-
munion of the Lord and of the believing congregation, the
partaking that takes place in repentance and faith, with which
an honest purpose (vow) is always united. Above all, we
seek in the celebration of the Supper a sealing of the forgive-
ness of our sins, wherefore our fathers designated the resolve
to go to the altar as the resolve that they would make their
peace with their God, which meant, rightly understood, that
they now anew obeyed the requirement, " Be ye reconciled
unto God." Therefore a previous self-examination is neces-
sary, that the consciousness of sin and guilt, with the godly
1 Fr. Baader, "Sur 1'Eucharistie, " Philos. Schriften, I. 218.

THE LORD'S SUPPER. 193

sorrow of repentance, may be awakened within us, that we
may rightly feel how urgently necessary it is to believe in
the grace of God in Christ, and that genuine assurance of
faith may awake in the heart. And then, it also belongs to
the true partaking of the Supper that we do so not only
prayerfully but also thankfully, thanking the Lord for all the
blessings He has bestowed on us in the kingdom of nature
and of grace, giving thanks for His wondrous love, which we
do not merely think of as a love that formerly appeared, and
so as past, but rather as still present ; giving thanks for this,
that even to this hour it will be present with us in its gifts.
And if we require repentance (penitence) and faith, we would
not thereby reject weak faith, or a faith such that only an
imperfect insight or understanding dwells with it, so that
the man cannot yet appropriate the mystery of this love in
its entire depth — for who could do so ? — or as yet possesses
only a feebler conception of it. There are, as regards appro-
priation, very many steps. And were we to reject weak
and imperfect faith, we would be in danger of rejecting also
that word of the Lord, " Him that cometh unto me, I will
in no wise cast out " (John vi. 3 7), and that, " He will not
break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax" (Matt
xii. 20). Nay, we even teach, according to our evangelical
confession (Augsb. Conf. Art. Y), that the sacraments have
been appointed in order to awaken and confirm faith in those
that use them. "Weak faith may simply by the partaking of
the sacrament be made stronger, as by the repetition of it a
progress may take place from the lower stage of appropriation
to a higher. Thus, when we require repentance and faith,
we do not require this or that stage of perfection of the inner
life ; for in regard to the inwardness of the need and of the
longing of faith, in regard to what is praised in the com-
munion hymn, " Jesus, to taste Thy sweet communion.,"
there is indeed a great difference of degree. But we do
require absolute uprightness, inward truthfulness of sentiment.
And when we prepare ourselves for the sacrament of recon-
ciliation, " in order to make our peace with God," we should
then likewise stir up our heart to make our peace with men,
that is, awaken the placable spirit. To the right preparation
there belongs not only the petition, " Forgive us our debts,"

x

194 THE LORD'S SUFFER.

but also that we from the heart add this other, " as we
forgive our debtors." There are Christian families in which
husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters,
mutually beg forgiveness and forgive each other, ere they
partake together of the Lord's Supper. And if this do not
always take place expressly and visibly, yet it must always
take place in the mind and in secret.

§86.

If further inquiry is made of the experiences undergone as
well during the believing partaking of the holy Supper as
after it, we must most emphatically insist that the effect
of the sacraments is not limited to the conscious life, but
stretches into the unconscious domain of our being, that thus
there is something in it that cannot become the object of
pyschological experience. Yet .an immediate impression may
no doubt be granted to us in the Supper of the peace of God
in the communion of the Lord, a sensible renovation in love
to the Lord and His Church, the immediate feeling of a puri-
fication that has taken place in us, a new strengthening for
the toil and struggle of life. But we dare not measure the
blessing of the Supper by our changing moods. Above all,
we dare not require Lavatey-like raptures. There may also
continuously be states of inward drought, in which nothing
is felt. Yet we must not therefore become wavering and
uncertain. In all the Lord gives us to experience of His
grace, or the experience of which He withdraws from us, He
regards alone what may profit iis for our final perfection.
What is granted or refused us by Him in a single moment,
the Lord places in relation to our guidance in life as a whole,
to His all-embracing plan with us. One needs only to hold
fast confidence in the word and work of the Lord. By
partaking of the sacrament, there is always a seed planted in
us, which will imperceptibly germinate and bear fruit, so far
as that growth is not counterworked by sin and unbelief. If
instead of the quiet joy on the day of the communion
solemnity, there rather appears in many a certain unattuned-
ness, an ill-humour, this phenomenon may in many cases be
explained by this, that such people mainly live their life in

THE LORD?S SUPPEII; 195

the element of worldliness, and therefore, although uncon-
sciously, feel themselves oppressed by the contrast between
that holy of holies and their accustomed thought and action,
by which for the rest we do not at all mean an immoral life
in the worldly sense. But if the Supper is indeed to prove
a blessing and a quiet joy to us, it must be put in relation
and connection with the other means of grace, and especially
must be combined with a truly Christian life and effort, as
the acme of which it then holds good, and so must never
exist in our life as something isolated. If the celebration of
the communion is to form the acme, for that very reason the
other points and elements must not be left out of view.

And Jwio often, should we observe this solemnity ? The
answer can only be given individually, that is, from the
standpoint of the individual personality. We must just
assimilate no more than we are able afterwards spiritually to
consume. Only the holy action must not be given over to
accident. Rather must there, in respect of this spiritual
enjoyment, occur a certain order and regularity, although
there may always be extraordinary occasions to engage in the
celebration. A too frequent partaking of the holy communion
may no doubt lead to the weakening of the holy impression,
and to our falling into an external state. In unusual and
perilous times in the Church, for instance, in times of persecu-
tion, the more frequent use will naturally take place of itself.
In the Apostolic Church the Supper was partaken of daily, and
that in combination with the love-feasts (the agapae). But
that time of the Church was indeed the most extraordinary of
all, the time of signs and wonders, of extraordinary gifts of
the Spirit, of ecstatic states. The susceptibility for heavenly
things was unusual ; and with the abrupt opposition to the
world and the antichristian powers, to heathenism and un-
believing Judaism, which indeed appeared to the little flock
like mountains that faith had to remove, the believers needed
the continuous and most elevated possible " communion "
(fellowship) with the Eedeemer exalted to heaven. But the
thing is different in ordinary times of the Church, when the
course of development of God's kingdom comes under the
general and usual laws of historical events, when all the
elements of the earthly existence of men are to be unfolded,

196 THE LORD'S SUPPEP.

and when that immediate intercourse with heavea, that
immediate relation to the centre, can no longer take place in
the same measure as in the time of miracles. In the ordinary
ages of the Church, frequent communion may prove injurious,
because the receptivity, the ability to assimilate, does not
stand in a corresponding relation to it. This subject was
handled in a specially instructive wa}' in the controversy of
the 17th century between the Jesuits and the Jansenists.
The Jesuits recommended frequently repeated confession and
communion, by which they furnished many worldlings with a
convenient means of getting rid very often and ever anew of
a guilty conscience, which they were ever afresh contracting.
A Jesuit published a treatise on the question, whether it is
better to communicate seldom or often, and declared for the
last, at the same time viewing the matter quite externally
and in a business way, while giving the advice to communi-
cate every eighth day. In the world of rank there then
prevailed a great levity, especially too in the partaking of
the sacrament, as, for instance, with a Princess Guemene, who
wanted, when on her way to a ball, and in her ball dress, to
make her confession en passant, but was senl away by the
priest concerned. Against this indecency, Pascal's friend,
Arnauld, wrote his celebrated work, De la frfyuente communion.
Though we cannot enter upon his Catholic views, we must
entirely agree with him, when he urges the point of view
that the holy Supper requires the most earnest preparation,
and that one dare not take it easy with this matter ; that a
certain reserve may here be of use, in order that our hunger
may grow; nay, that in many there is found even an un-
healthy kind of hunger.1

The present congregational conditions in our evangelical
Church show not only a vast apostasy from the faith, but
also the phenomenon that a great number of the baptized
regularly partake indeed in the public services in order to
hear the preaching of the word and the prayers of the Church,
but partake of the Supper, it may be said, not at all. A
Christianity of that sort we must designate as very incom-
plete, and missing the highest. "We can only ask such.
Christians to examine themselves, whether — taking for

1 Herzog, TJtcol. Kealencyclopadie, I. Art. "Arnauld."

THE LOKD'S SUPPER. 197

granted that tLey really believe on Christ, love Him, and
wish to remain in Him as branches in the vine (" Abide in
me, and I in you," John xv. 4) — whether they can answer
for excommunicating themselves, excluding themselves from
His testament of love. Christ says, "Do this in remem-
brance of me ; " but does not say, " Only forget it, let it
stand aside." We here set up no commandment, but limit
ourselves in general to this declaration, that no Christian
who yet, although in great imperfection, seeks to appropriate
not merely a fragment of Christianity, but the whole of it,
will let a church year elapse without following the loving
desire, the hearty requirement of the Lord, without seeking
communion with the Lord and His Church in His testament
of love for his own soul also. The church year1 that is
given us within the course of the world's year, the world's
time, as a year of grace, calls to us from beginning to end,
" Keep Jesus Christ in memory," and offers us the means of
grace, " Come, for all things are ready " — certainly not that
these means should remain unused, but that they may be
employed. As each section of the church year has its
corresponding tone in the Christian life of faith, so the time
of Easter is especially adapted for the celebration of the
communion, which was even founded in the passion-week,
" in the night when our Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed."
But as the risen Saviour is with us every day, with the peace
of the forgiveness of sins and of eternal life, every point of
time in the ecclesiastical year will harmonize with the tempei
of the communion, nay, will call it forth, provided the personal
conditions are present.

1 [This refers to the fact that in the Lutheran, as in some other churches, all
the Lord's days of the year are connected with some great Christian fact or
person, appropriate passages of Scripture being assigned for each day. — TKANS.]

PRACTICAL LOVE.

PRACTICAL LOVE.

Devotion to the Ideal of God's Kingdom. — Philanthropy.
§87.

As the love of Christ Himself was not only contemplative
and adoring, but also active and suffering love, the same
must also be shown as a copy by His followers. Practical
love in following Christ is more closely defined as a minister-
ing devotion to the ideal of God's kingdom, which is to be
realized within the kingdom of humanity. While a Christian
works for that, he likewise works for this object, himself to
become a man "perfect in Christ Jesus " (Col. i. 28). Work
for God's kingdom and that of humanity (of human life) can
gain no definite form in the individual Christian otherwise
than through personal devotion to a calling appointed by God.
To the first disciples it was appointed primarily as the apos-
tolical, the missionary activity. But within Christendom,
which we here have in view, work may and should be done
for the kingdom of God in every truly human calling. Every
Christian must know how to unite his heavenly with his
earthly (temporal) calling, which embraces the lively partici-
pation in the spread of God's kingdom, in its progress in all
circles of human society.

All true disciples of Christ work for His kingdom in the
prophetic glance of the hope, which in Christ Himself has
risen upon them, and which overcomes secular optimism and
pessimism (compare the General Part, § 51 ff.). We give
ourselves up to no fantastic imaginations about what can be
accomplished in the course of the present world, to no dreams,
as if even in the present world's time evil would more and
more fully disappear before progressive civilisation and cul-
ture. We know that the tares are among the wheat, and that
both will grow together till the harvest. We know the com-
plaint of the sower about the seed that falls on the way, and
is devoured and perishes ; but we know likewise the sower's
comfort, that yet at least some seed will bear good and blessed
fruit. And that parable of the seed and the various field
applies not only to the preaching of the word, but finds its

PHILANTHROPY.

application to all the circles of life in which work is done for
God's kingdom.

§ 88.

•' > - '. . - -i

Enthusiasm and labour for God's kingdom includes philan-
thropy, both universal and individual, love to the race, to the
community of men, and to single individuals. To love the race
or society, without love to individuals, is a love lacking true
and healthy reality. And to love individuals, without love to
the whole of human society, is again a love lacking the higher
sense and spirit. The individual ought not to he loved as the
isolated individual, but as one who is likewise a member of
the great social whole, as one who has either already become
or else is destined to become a citizen of God's kingdom.

Even in relation to human individuals, Christ teaches us to
become lord over false optimism and false pessimism. Optimism
here appears as that one-sided philanthropic view that finds
men excellent, and holds that if only the external arrangements
were once made better, we would have before our eyes a race
willing only what is good and just. It appears in that deifica-
tion which men often mutually practise, parents with children,
friends with friends ; it appears in man-worship, which those
in lower positions often give to those who have a higher place,
in the worship of genius, in the deification of the mighty on
earth, that man- worship which in its essence is one with the
fear of man, because it finds the highest standard for human
actions in the judgment of men. Against this over-estimate
of men Christianity declares itself most decidedly. " None is
good, but God only " (Mark x.). " We are men like you," said
Paul to the heathen, rending his clothes because they would
worship him as a god, would practise the worship of genius
with him ; " we preach unto you that ye should turn from
these vanities unto the living God " (Acts xiv. 15). " Beware
of men," said Christ to the disciples when He sent them out
"as sheep among wolves" (Matt. x. 17), by which He
annihilates all philanthropic naivete and credulity. And in
regard to His own person we read, that when many believed
in Him only because of the signs that He did, He did not
entrust Himself to them (John ii. 23 f.).

But as in its judgment of men Christianity forms an

200 PHILANTHROPY.

opposition to heathen optimism, so it also places itself against
heathen pessimism. Contempt of men is a ground-feature of
heathenism, which goes side by side with the deification of
men, and we can trace this twofold extreme down to the
heathenism of our own days. This contempt of men appeared
not only in the procedure towards slaves and the female sex,
but came to light, besides, in many more general phenomena.
Even one of the seven wise men of Greece, Bias, said of men
in general, " The mass is bad." Seneca and Tacitus repeatedly
express a dark, misanthropic view ; and Lucian confesses that
he hated the preponderant majority of men, as it consists of
deceivers and deceived. In our time, the contempt of men
has found its completed expression in Schopenhauer's now
generally known pessimism. In his view, one must keep the
conviction every moment before him, that one is come into
a world peopled by morally and intellectually wretched
beings, whose fellowship one must in every way avoid. But
as long as one is among them, one must consider oneself, and
behave like a Brahmin in the midst of Sudras and Farias.
The surest means against the bipeds (bipedes) — for so he is
wont to designate the human species — is contempt, but that
most thorough, as the result of. a perfectly clear and evident
insight into the incredible littleness of their way of thought,
into the enormous contractedness of their understanding, into
the boundless egoism of their mind, from which proceed flagrant
injustice, pale envy and wickedness, going the length of
cruelty, all phenomena that can be amply established from
every-day life, from history and literature. Schopenhauer
confesses of himself that in his thirtieth year he had already
become heartily disgusted with having to regard beings as his
equals who yet in truth were not so. Still he continued to
look around him for real men. But with the exception of
Goethe, Fernow, and partly also Friedr. Aug. Wolf, he only
found extremely few. Thus he at last arrived at the view
that nature is infinitely sparing in the production of genuine
men, and that he, even as Byron, must bear with dignity and
patience what the latter calls " the loneliness of kings."

This aristocratically exalted pessimism — and every pessim-
ism even to that of Christianity is at the bottom aristocratic
— utters a series of statements, to which Christianity also

PHILANTHROPY. 2J1

adheres in the one utterance, " The whole world lieth in the
evil one" (1 John v. 19). But with this its doctrine of
universal sinfulness, Christianity combines the doctrine of
the creation of man in God's image, and his destiny to be
redeemed through Christ. While it teaches us to be distrust-
ful toward men on account of universal sinfulness, it likewise
teaches us to trust that in every man that is of God. Instead
of contempt of men, it teaches us regard for men, that is, in-
sight into the value of the human personality, even towards
the most deeply sunken. Would we, then, place ourselves, and
behave in the Christian sense and spirit towards men, we
should not only combat in ourselves that natural credulity
which is forgetful of the predominant sinfulness of the race,
those illusory conceptions of human advantages and perfec-
tions, that is, as well all deification as all fear of men, but
equally also the contempt and hatred of men. Hatred assigns,
indeed, an importance to the object to which it is directed, but
likewise aims at the annihilation of it, whereas contempt
regards it as a mere nullity. But the one is in relation to
men as unjustifiable as the other. " Formerly," as a pious
man has said, " I contemned men, but now I contemn
my contempt ; or, to speak as a Christian, I repent of it."
Actions and states one may indeed despise, but not the per-
sonality made in God's image. When Christ says, Matt.
vii. 6, " Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither
cast ye your pearls before swine? He does not thereby utter
His contempt, but a divine sentence of judgment and an
admonition.

§ 89.

Who is my neighbour ? The answering of this question, as
it seems, can now no longer present any difficulty ; but when
this question was put for the first time, it was of world-
historical importance, because men in general were then bound
by national limits, and "my neighbour" was only he who
belonged to the same people as myself. But my neighbour
is every man, because God made the human race to spring
from one blood, and we are thus all members of the body of
humanity. But in a special sense he is my neighbour who is
placed nearer me, or who approaches me with a claim of

202 PHILANTHROPY.

love, or else with a gift, a service of love. This is what is
placed before our eyes in the parable of the Good Samaritan
(Luke x. .30). " A man" went down from Jerusalem to
Jericho, and fell among thieves — so it is said of that unfortu-
nate, who lay in the way of the priest, the Levite, and the
Samaritan. Nothing is told us of the nationality of this
unfortunate, nothing of his moral worth or worthlessness ; we
are to know nothing more of him than that he was a man ;
and the Samaritan, who recognised his neighbour in him, had
regard to him likewise in this respect alone. On the other
hand, it is asked, Who among those people (the Levite, the
priest, and the Samaritan) was the neighbour to the unfortu-
nate ? And the answer is, " He that showed him mercy."
We thus receive two explanations of the term neighbour.
My neighbour is he who needs my help, and precisely my
help, bodily or spiritual ; but my neighbour is also he who
benefits me, whether in a bodily or spiritual respect. In
the deepest sense Christ is thus the man whom I have to
regard as my neighbour, the. heavenly Samaritan, who,
although in the form of God, humbled Himself to become my
neighbour, and has done more for us than any one. Thus we
have here the two most pregnant definitions of the term " my
neighbour," namely, the unfortunate that needs the Samaritan,
and the Samaritan that benefits the unfortunate. Between
these two points there moves an infinite succession of men, on
the one hand with the claim for our own love, on the other
with the service of love, who all stand under, the category of
our neighbour.

Philanthropy is founded on love to God. If we love God,
we must also love what He loves, His image on earth, which
God Himself expressly commands us to love. But in order
that the love of our neighbour, founded in the love to God,
may become living and operative, it must first pass through
the medium of true self-love ; wherefore it is said in the divine
commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"
(namely, in God). It is a daily experience that, according as
we love ourselves, we also love our neighbour. He that has
no respect for himself, has also no respect for others. He
that in bad egoism, lives only to himself, will also regard
others as egoists, at least as not concerning him (what does

/PHILANTHROPY.

203

/he, or that, matter to me ?). He will, granting that the better
•part should be .stirred in him, yet find a thousand excuses
./why he should pass by the unfortunate, like the priest and
the Levite. But he that respects the image of God in him-
self, will respect it in others also. He who feels what a
.height, what a richness, but likewise also what poverty and
helplessness is combined with being a man ; but especially he
who feels the need within him to be redeemed from sin and
misery, from the curse of vanity under which the whole
creation groans, the need of love, of patience, of forgiveness,
will certainly also have sympathy with men, will strive in
the right sense to fulfil the word of the Lord, "All things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even
so to them" (Matt. vii. 12).

A relation of a special kind is formed to the men with
whom we are joined in the same faith in the Lord. Here,
namely, brotherly love awakens, in that we not only feel our-
selves branches on the great tree of the human race, but also
as branches and tendrils of Christ, as members of Christ's
spiritual body, of His Church. Here, then, the order holds
good, that Christian brotherly love will especially embrace
those who are the very nearest to us, the Christians of our
Church fellowship ; but it is also to extend to the Christians
of other confessions, who build with us on the same One
Foundation. Here that love-testament of the Apostle John
to Christians applies, " Little children, love one another." He
says it to all Christians, and so to Catholics and Protestants,
Lutherans and Eeformed. The differences may not destroy
the consciousness of the deep fundamental unity in the com-
munion of the Lord. And if a heathen has said, " I am a
man, and nothing human shall be foreign to me," a word that
first gains its right and full meaning through Christianity ; a
Christian must also say, " I am a Christian, and nothing
Christian shall be foreign to me."

§ 90.

All love of men that follows the example of Christ is
ministering love, intent in self-denial and self-sacrifice to pro-
mote the welfare of men. But all service that is shown to

204

PHILANTHROPY.

men has its measure and its limit in the service of the Lord,
and must admit of being determined thereby. The pattern of
this is shown us in the person of Christ, who in His minister-
ing procedure towards men will only perform the Father's
will. His love to men, in which there is no breath of error
and of sin, stands in perfect iinion with the law, as well in
the intellectual, internal side of it, as in its more strictly
practical side, as well with the law of truth as with that of
righteousness. He is indeed, in His ministering revelation of
love, Himself the personal truth and righteousness ; and for
this very reason He encounters so much resistance, because
men neither love truth nor righteousness, because on the side
of love they desire to be served quite otherwise than the Lord
•will serve and bless them. Therefore all ministering philan-
thropy that walks in the footsteps of Christ, must show itself
in truth and righteousness. A love that leaves out of account
the truth, that is, what in the world of thought and speech
is of universal validity (normative) ; or a love that injures
righteousness, that is, what in the world of volition and action
is universally valid and necessary, is ever but an impure love,
a lawless, antinomian freedom. " Truth," says Master Eckart,
" is so noble, that if God were to turn away from the truth,
I would hold to the truth, and let God go," — in which he no
doubt supposes an impossible case. But, on the other hand,
it must be said that a truth and righteousness ivithout love is
only a cold necessity of law, in which the truth is impersonal
(an abstract conception), and righteousness only represents an
external norm and rule ; that such a truth and righteousness
ever remains a thing powerless, because it lacks the true
might and power, namely, the quickening, inspiring, and
animating power that begets freedom and fulness. We would
not be able to love Christ as the personal truth and righteous-
ness if we did not also love Him as love itself. Holy love
is in itself the highest reality, the highest truth, and likewise
that which possesses the highest power of right for our
volition.

And as Christ's love, in its living unity with truth and
righteousness, is in its inmost essence God's pitying grace, that
came down to us to seek and save the lost, and as we our-
selves have experienced so great mercy, Christian philanthropy

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 205

must also show itself as mercy, in deep and inward sympathy
with all human misery and woe, all human distress (which in
its root is nothing else than the distress and destruction of
sin), and must reveal itself in works of mercy. Accordingly
it now remains to us to consider philanthropy in its oneness-
with love of truth and love of righteousness, while at the same
time it will have to be viewed in the special manifestation of
mercy.

Philanthropy and Love of Truth.
§91.

That the love of man is essentially and indissolubly united
to the love of truth, we declare, first in the general sense, that
men can have communion with each other, and repose confi-
dence in each other, only and solely in the element of truth,
— that only on the basis of truth an enduring union can be-
formed. All men have a feeling that we need this pure
although not clearly known element, one universally recognised,
within which alone can we have communication (exchange-
and intercourse) with each other, a common light and a
common air or spiritual atmosphere within which we become-
visible, audible, and intelligible the one to the other, and by
the clouding of which communion will soon be darkened and
poisoned. We here speak of truth, however, not in this-
indefinite and merely formal sense; truth has also a substance,
and there is a truth of a higher as of a lower order. The-
Christian love of truth is love to Christ, as the in deed re-
vealed, holy truth, that shines through the darkness of this-
world, and through which all other truth first receives its right
appreciation, its right meaning. Only in Christ, and the light
which, proceeding from Him, is poured over human nature-
and all human life, can we love men in the central sense, and
only then does philanthropy receive its deepest religious and
moral character, when it is rooted in the truth of Christ.
Zeal for the truth of Christ, for the gospel of Christ, is thus-
the first requirement which must be made, if philanthropy is
to be exercised in the highest, spiritual relations of human life.
Nothing must lie more on the heart of a Christian than to
insist upon the absolute value of this gospel as the highest

200'

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

aaid holiest benefit, as well for the community as for the indi-
vidual soul ; to do his part to obtain entrance for it among
men, and that by all the means in his power, which no
doubt are given to one in one measure and compass, and to
another in another. In this relation, much must be individu-
ally (in relation to the personality) more closely determined.
But there is no Christian life of which it is not required
somehow to bear witness to the heavenly truth. Not only
prophets and apostles, not only preachers, pastors, teachers,
but without exception all Christians, ought, in the midst of
the darkness of this world, to . be the light of the world, and
ought — each one in the calling wherein he is called — to live
their life in the consciousness of this their appointment.

To testify of the truth of Christ means to confirm the
absolute validity of that truth, in that it has become the
inmost truth of the personality ; to so confirm and accredit
the same to other personalities that one commends it to their
conscience, their moral feeling. " To this end was I born, and
for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear wit-
ness unto the truth" — this word of Christ to Pilate (John
xviii. 37), which in a unique sense holds good of the Lord
Himself (He is the faithful and true witness, who only declares
what He has seen with His Father), this word in a wider sense
holds good of all, of every man made after God's image. For
God made man for this, that we men should give witness one
to the other of the glory, grace, and truth of that God whose
servants we ought to be. This testimony, however, springs
at the same time, and as well from obedience to God, to the
truth, — for the truth has the absolute right to be testified and
confessed by us, — as from love to men, in that we let our
fellow-men participate in that which to ourselves is the highest
good.

§92.

Although every Christian is called to testify to the truth,
this calling is yet imposed upon different men under different
modifications, which are partly determined by the differences
of individualities and of the gifts of grace, partly by the
differences of times, of states of the world, and of situations.
In a special sense, it is the appointment of the Christian

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 207

teaching body, as the light of the world and the salt of the
earth, to be witnesses to the truth, as ministers of the word
to propagate the testimony of Christ by public preaching from
generation to generation. In a larger sense, however, every
Christian ought, in respect of the universal priesthood belong-
ing to him, to show forth the virtues of Him who has called
iis from darkness into His marvellous light (1 Pet. ii. 9). In
extraordinary, especially critical times, or where a special
endowment exists, the laity will also be able to perform the
public proclamation of the word ; and Church history shows
us a succession of examples of this from Stephen, the deacon
for the poor, to our own days. < But although public preaching
is not every manrs affair, and although laymen have much need
in many cases to lay to heart that admonition of the apostle,
*' My brethren, be not many teachers, knowing that we shall
receive the greater condemnation " (incur a greater responsi-
bility) (Jas. iii. 1) ; yet every Christian ought to confess the
gospel of Christ and His Church. And every Christian will
iind in his immediate circle, and in his special life-rehtdons,
-and not least even in the present day, many calls to repeat,
in opposition to the world and the time-spirit, the testimony
of the apostle, " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ "
(Eom. i. 16).

§ 93.

Love to the truth of Christ and to men is the opposite of
indifferentism, unconcern for the religious states of others, an
indifference that is very often combined with a certain egoistic
interest in salvation, the individual having only aimed to
bring himself to salvation, while giving up others. The
sharpest, most decided opposition to this kind of indifferentism
meets us in the Apostle Paul, who exclaims (Rom. ix. 3), " I
liad wished to be banished (personally excluded) from Christ
for my brethren who are of Israel," that is, would have
sacrificed his own salvation if he could thereby redeem his
" kinsmen according to the flesh" from destruction ; a hyper-
bolical expression, which, however, in its vast excess expresses
the apostle's burning love, and tells us that he would not be
saved alone. But this love is also equally opposed to fanati-
•cism, that false zeal that denies prudence, that zeal for God

208

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TEUTH.

which is without wisdom and knowledge, and is indifferent in
respect of the choice of means. Fanaticism would force its
convictions on others, not merely by external constraint and
power, but also by importunities of every kind, without con-
sidering that the gospel seeks not to be appropriated in the
way of passion and noisy declamation, but in that of conscience
and freedom. A Christian must therefore combat both in
himself the indifference as well as the fanatical zeal of the
egoistic heart, which latter always involves a lack of love and
respectful benevolence towards men, but to which especially
the state of awakening, of the first overflowing movement of
feeling for Christianity, brings with it a temptation. A
Christian has, on the contrary, to develop in his mind the
genuine love to the truth that is purified and transformed by
wisdom and prudence. It is not enough to love the truth, if
one do not also love the men who are to receive the truth,
and therefore need the truth to be presented to them in such
a way and form that they can accept and appropriate it.
Christian tolerance, or the virtue of toleration towards the
deviating convictions of others, is not at all identical with the
enduring of error, which a Christian must rather combat, not
identical with tJmt toleration that lets each one "live on in
his own faith, and be saved in his own way," because it regard*
all religious convictions as equivalent, or alike irrelevant.
Christian tolerance is, on the contrary, one side of Christian zeal
for truth itself, namely, the feature belonging to it of prudence,
mildness, and gentleness. It presupposes decided love to the
gospel of Christ, the conviction of the absolute necessity of
that gospel for the salvation of every human soul. But it
also implies that all self-righteous egoism, proud in faith,,
that all passionateness is excluded from this conviction, and
remains remote from the procedure to be shown towards those
that think otherwise. Therefore it is also said of Christ, the-
righteous servant of the Lord, as it had been prophesied of
Him, " He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall any man hear
His voice in the streets" (Matt. xii. 19), for crying and
striving in the streets testifies to a passionate state. Christian
toleration and mildness is therefore also opposed to all desire-
of condemnation, as it rather, with a friendly feeling to those
in error, seeks for the points of connection, that always are to-

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

209

be found for the truth, and bears with indulgence the many
frailties, and that for the sake of the healthy sides, to which it
hopes to be able to link its attempt at healing. Therefore it
is said in the same place of Christ, the righteous servant of
the Lord, " A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking
flax shall He not quench." Christian toleration further re-
quires that the truth be only communicated and imparted to
others by way of the conscience. Therefore it bears even
deviating convictions, requires in name of the gospel religious
liberty, and declares against all fanatical proselytizing. In
this sense the Lord says to the Pharisees, " Woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye compass sea and
land to make one proselyte ; and when he is made, ye make him
twofold more the child of hell than yourselves " (Matt, xxiii.
15); for the Pharisees had made the man a Jew indeed, had
put their religion on him like a coat, but had not changed the
man's heart and disposition, who by such an untrue and
hypocritical procedure towards the truth was now come into
a worse state than he was in before.

§ 94.

Christian love, which is manifested in testimony and con-
fession, must not merely bear the deviating convictions of
others, but also those sufferings that spring from the enmity
of the world and its opposition to the gospel. We have a
Redeemer who was nailed to the cross for the truth ; and he
who will bear witness to the truth as His follower must also
himself, in one sense or other, assume the cross. The most
exalted form of suffering for the truth's sake is martyrdom,
namely, when a Christian, for love of the truth, does not
value his life, and sheds his blood, provided that this
martyrdom is not self - produced, but proceeds from the
relation of a disciple and servant to the Lord, as likewise
from hearty love to men, as we see in Stephen the frst
Christian martyr, who in dying prays for his murderers,
" Lord, lay not this sin to their charge " (Acts vii. 5 9).
However, suffering for the truth need not be appointed to us
actually by fire and sword, but may also come upon us
through more spiritual persecutions of the gospel, by the
contradiction of sinners, by mockery and scorn, may be an

o

210 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TEUTH.

inward suffering, a pain for the falsifying of the truth, when
heresy and unbelief overflow Christendom. It may also, in
fine, be an affliction for the insusceptibility of men for the
truth, for their unconcern, their stupidity and worldliness, for
the indifference that so frequently occurs precisely in times of
emancipation — times that form indeed a direct contrast to
those when Christianity was persecuted with fire and sword,
but which yet have many a quieter Christian martyrdom to
show ; for in such times it is held not worth the trouble
to combat Christianity, it is magnanimously allowed to be
authorized as a " view," an " opinion," alongside other
equally authorized views and opinions, as nothing is to be
maintained as absolutely true. Every one must experience
something of these sufferings who makes a living confession
of his faith, particularly those whom we designate witnesses
of the truth in a special historical sense, inasmuch as they
publicly appealed to their contemporaries, to the greater
community to which they belonged, with the proclamation of
the pure gospel, which is at all times to the worldly mind
foolishness or an offence. But though this suffering in its
various forms is, as a rule, a result of the testimony of the
truth, yet the conception of a witness of the truth is by no
means constituted by mere suffering. The constituent is
rather the truth itself (the objective truth), and testimony
an expression of the inmost truth of the personality. Soren
Kierkegaard's position, that only he is a witness of the truth
who in the strictest sense of the word is a martyr, that is, a
witness to blood, is an entirely arbitrary limitation of that
conception. According to this definition, Paul might indeed
count for a witness of the truth, but not John ; and so too
Huss, but not Luther. And even if the conception were to
be enlarged so as to apply to " tortured " witnesses in
general, it would still remain an erroneous view. For this
would involve the idea that there is only a single world-
bestowed situation under which witnesses of the truth can
arise, namely, the times of bodily persecutions. But as the
gospel is to be proclaimed at all times, — and there is no true
proclamation without testimony, without personal conviction,
without one's own experience, without fresli and joyful
uttering (testifying) what one fas felt in his life, in opposition

PHILANTHKOPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 211

to unbelief, the time-spirit, the world, — as every time of the
gospel needs, as it is always important, to combat error and
darkness, there must also possibly be witnesses of the truth
at all times and under all situations. Therefore also the
whole Christian teaching body is appointed to exist from
generation to generation as witness of the truth. And it
certainly agrees with sound doctrine, when an old Danish
hymn invokes the blessing of God's Spirit —

" That every pastor here and there

May by his life Thee praise,
That the word of Thy witnesses
Be shown in all their ways." *

Here, then, testifying to the truth, the office of witness-
bearing is viewed as common to the whole pastorate.

External suffering, and, moreover, a single special form of
it, cannot possibly constitute the idea of that testimony, does
not form its essence. It is also evident that mere suffering
as such is an uncertain testimony for the truth ; for falsehood
has also its martyrs, who have attracted the enmity and
hatred of men, have endured suffering and death, although
not for the truth, yet at least for their convictions. And
supposing that we had only a suffering and crucified Saviour
lying in His grave, we would be uncertain in our faith, while
we now, in connection with the witness of the Spirit in our
heart, likewise find the proof of the truth of Christ in this, that
the Crucified is also the Risen One, and that that " stone which
the builders had rejected is become the corner-stone." 2 But
it is certainly an essential requirement that he that would be
called a witness of the truth must be ready for the truth's
sake even to suffer — not, indeed, all that fancy may imagine
and depict, but yet all that is laid upon us to endure for the
truth's sake. Perhaps there is one who would prefer to make
the sacrifice of martyrdom while the Lord simply requires of
him another sacrifice. And however high (wherein the Holy
Scripture precedes us) we may place martyrdom, properly so

1 After a hymn of Kingo's that begins: "0 Jesu, Pra'st i Evighed." With
this may be compared Bishop Mynster's farewell sermon (delivered in Trinity
Church, Copenhagen), "What witness hast thou borne before thy Lord?"
Occasional Church Discourses (Danish), I. 40 ff.

* Compare Letters to and from Sibbern, II. 225 (Danish).

212 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

called, we must yet remember that there may be individuals
who would be able to endure such a thing without, perhaps,
being able to endure a martyrdom of another kind, and who
would far prefer to this a suffering or dying compressed into
a few moments or hours, where the whole energy of the will
and character is concentrated in one great tragic moment, and
the exit from the world is rayed round with a light of the
ideal, the heroic ; rather than have to pass a course of years
unnoticed, amid endless little trials of patience, little sufferings
and hindrances, annoyances and troubles in the desert of prose
and triviality, amid an incessantly renewed grief at the thorough
contrast between reality and ideal. In this respect also it is
extremely difficult to decide who is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven. Besides, it is to be remembered that
the testimony of truth, just because it bears in itself the
stamp of the personality, must be borne in love (Eph. iv. 15:
" But speaking the truth in love ") ; but that with many who,
as witnesses of the truth, have attracted the world's hatred
and enmity, it is very uncertain how much of that hatred was
called forth by the truth, and how much by the want of love,
bitterness and fanaticism, with which they declared the truth.

§ 95.

What we have here said about the central relation of the
soul — the relation to the gospel, to the holy truth — applies
equally in all lower worldly relations ; and our duty to bear
witness to the holy truth is defined in the >ordinary human
relations as the universal duty of truth : " Thou shalt not bear
false witness; thou shalt not lie, neither in word nor deed; thou
shalt neither deny the truth, nor give out anything that is not
truth for truth" — and this commandment must dominate and
penetrate all our life's relations. In this, that the man stands
in that relation to the truth altogether, that he is to be subject
to it and serve it, his duty of truth, or the duty to be faithful
to the truth in speech and action, finds its complete foundation ;
and every other foundation which is not based upon the rela-
tion mentioned is only to be regarded as relative. Kant derives
the blameworthiness of falsehood from the respect which man
is bound to pay to the dignity of his moral nature. Lying,
he says, is sin against my ideal ego, against humanity in me.

PHILANTHEOPY AND LOVE OF TEUTH. 213

The liar must despise himself; for by lying I lower myself
to a mere phenomenon, to a mask, renounce being myself,
commit partial suicide of my true man, and let a feigned man
occupy its place. Fichte, again, starts from the idea of the
community, and so from the viewpoint of the justice which
every one owes to the freedom of others. By lying I lead
others astray, treat them as mere means for my egoistic
objects, place an undue limit to their freedom. But moral
beings dare not be treated as means, but as their own end. —
Each of these modes of view contains a warrantable element ;
and the Holy Scripture also urges regard to the community
when it says, " Putting away lying, speak every man truth
with his neighbour ; for we are members one of another "
(Eph. iv. 25). But these relative viewpoints must be taken
up into the one highest, all-embracing point of view, namely,
regard to God, the absolute Truth, whose servant and
instrument man is to be. Truth does not exist for man's
sake, but man for the sake of truth, because the truth would
reveal itself to man, would be owned and testified by him.
And this holds good by no means of the religious sphere
only, but of all circles of life. Everywhere would light
reveal itself and dispel darkness; and man, as the created
spirit, ought to be in the moral order of the world bearer and
servant of the light. There are cases in which the truth
ought not to be said, because it is of no use. But there are
also cases in which the truth ought to be said, although it is
of no use, because the light will shine in the darkness,
although the darkness comprehends it not (John i. 5).

When the duty of truthfulness is insisted on, it is customary
indeed to add the restriction : one should speak the truth,
according to his best conviction. But then of what sort is the
conviction of the majority of men, especially in reference to
the things of God ? Genuine conviction and certainty only
springs from this, that the truth itself has its being in me,
dwells in me, is fused with my personality. Therefore Christ
is the only True One ; for the truth is one with His person
(John xiv. 6). And therefore in our duty to speak the truth,
the requirement is contained that we should personally le
true, that the truth have purified us within, that the Spirit
that leads us into all truth have made abode in us. Only

214

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

when the Spirit of truth bears witness to our spirit, and
testifies with it (Eom. viii. 16), can we be said to be
convinced ; therefore we must incessantly purify the founda-
tion of our conviction, and develop in us love to the truth.
At the great day we shall not be judged by this, whether we
have spoken and acted according to conviction ; but our con-
victions themselves, as well as the ways by which, the mode
and manner in which we attained to them, are then to be
judged. But there is nothing that men take more easily
than just their ideas of conviction and love of truth. Who
does not boast of his love of truth ? And who has not his
convictions ? And yet, as a rule, the religious, political,
philosophical, aesthetic conviction of people means nothing
more than opinions or suppositions, to which they at some
time give their approval, but which have no root in their
personality ; or they are certain inclinations and disinclina-
tions, certain passionate party interests, to which they are
pleased to give the name of convictions. When Paul perse-
cuted the Christian Church he certainly acted from conviction,
yet it was only a fanatical conviction, which he afterwards
himself condemned as sin.

§ 96.

Although we are, without reserve and limitation, to be true
to ourselves, yet it does not follow from this that our duty to
communicate the truth to others is unlimited. That limits
are set even to the duty of truthfulness is implied even in
this, that it is becoming to speak the truth not otherwise
than with wisdom, and that it may be our duty, according
to time and circumstances, to be reserved with the truth.
" There is a time to be silent, and a time to speak " (Eccles.
iii. 7). No one is bound to say everything to everybody.
No teacher or preacher is bound to speak the whole entire
truth to his hearers at once ; but is required to consider in
this the receptivity of the hearers, and must lead them
gradually to the knowledge of the truth. " I have yet many
things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now," says
Christ to the disciples (John xvi. 12). And so He also warns
us not to give what is holy to the dogs, nor to cast pearls
before swine (Matt. vii. 6).

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 215

But now when the truth must be imparted, are we then in
all cases bound to speak the simple, literal, immediate truth ;
or is there also a mediate, an indirect imparting of the truth,
and can this be entirely justified according to place and time?
There are Christians — for instance, the Quakers — who have
denied the latter, and therefore lay down the rule that only
the pure, naked truth dare be imparted. They therefore reject
not only the conventional phrases of politeness, although the
value of them is known to every one, and no one can be led
astray by them, but they also reject in the imparting of truth
every deviation, every kind of disguise of the truth, for
instance, the application of irony, because this involves a mere
appearance, a false show, a certain dissimulation, which in
their view is in contradiction to the truth. Yet this one-
sided conception of truth rests on this, that the difference is
not perceived that exists between true and false appearance.
There is a true appearance, which occurs at a certain stage of
reflection, of spiritual culture, and by means of which the
essence or the truth is made manifest ; and there is a false,
lying appearance, which hides the essence and hinders the
knowledge of the truth For appearance is that which has
only an apparent reality. But true appearance likewise
eocpresses, as, for instance, irony does, that its reality is only
apparent, seeming, and points to the truth as the right reality ;
while the false, lying appearance says nothing of this, and
therefore only deceives, only leads astray and seduces the
observer or hearer to accept the merely seeming, the merely
imaginary, as truth and reality, and instead thereof. If we
want to reject appearance in every sense, we must also condemn
all poetic clothing of the truth, must, with Tertullian, condemn
the fine arts altogether, whose element is just appearance,
illusion, but such illusion as makes itself known as such, and
by means of illusion reveals the ideal truth. Now, that there
may even be relations in life where the indirect, figurative
communication of the truth is in place, especially to pave the
way and open the door for the open, unconcealed communica-
tion, even the Holy Scripture bears witness. We may here,
for instance, refer to the prophet Nathan, who had to show
king David his sin, but first began to relate the parable of the
rich man who stole the poor man's only sheep, and only when

216 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

the king was prepared by this roundabout way, made the
transition to the directly urgent : " Thou art the man "
(2 Sam. xii.).

§97.

If we teach, then, that in certain circumstances it may be
a justifiable, nay, an obligatory procedure to impart the truth
by the application of appearance, that is, of truthful appearance,
there still remains, however, the difficult question, whether in
certain circumstances it may be justifiable in intercourse with
other men also to apply the false appearance, nay, whether
the duty may emerge of saying an untruth, by which others
are intentionally led astray, or, in other words, whether the
so-called lie of exigency can ever be justifiable ? That a lie
of exigency, merely proceeding from egoism, from selfishness,
from regard to personal convenience, is to be rejected, needs
no demonstration. As little need we enlarge on this, that the
biblical examples of otherwise pious and venerable men, who
made use of a lie of exigency to deliver themselves from a
difficulty (for instance, Abraham and David), are not adapted
to justify it. The question we have to deal with is this, Is
there an untruth from exigency in the service of duty ?

The greatest authorities are here opposed to each other.
So even the most esteemed Church Fathers. Basil the Great
(330-379) rejects every lie of exigency, while Chrysostom
(347-407) defends it. Augustine (353-429) condemns it
most decidedly, and says that if even the whole human race
could be saved by one lie, one must rather let it perish ;
Jerome (377—420), again, finds the lie of exigency admissible.
Calvin will on no account hear of it; Luther calls it not
good indeed, but yet excuses it in certain cases as admissible.
Kant and Fichte reject it ; Jacobi defends it (" I will lie like
Desdemona, I will lie and deceive like Pylades, who took the
place of Orestes," and so on, as we find it in that famous
passage of his letter to Fichte).

Those who unconditionally reject the lie of exigency start
from this, that the truth is the unconditionally justified, to which
all else must be subordinated. The consequences of my words
and actions, say they, are not in my power ; but the truth is
the highest law, which I must obey. We dare not at all, says

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

217

Fichte, reason on the consequences of our actions ; we ought
only to act and speak as duty commands, and leave the con-
sequences in the hand of Providence. The utmost you can
risk when you speak the truth is the hazard of your life, or
that others hazard their lives for it. That signifies nothing if
only duty is fulfilled, and the truth runs its course. How
strictly, nay, how regardlessly, Fichte would have this prin-
ciple carried through, we may learn from a conversation that
Stefifens l has reported to us, and which may serve to lead us
into the investigation of the question itself. Steffens, that is,
presents to Fichte the following case : — " A mother who has
lately been delivered of a child is lying dangerously ill ; in
the adjoining room her child lies dead. The mother anxiously
asks her husband how her child is. If he announces the death
of the child, there is every probability that the mother will
die under the stunning effect of the news. What, then, is the
husband to answer to her question ? " Fichte replies to this,
" She must be put off with her question." But to this it is
rejoined that this off-putting would itself be an answer, and
that an extremely disquieting one ; at any rate indicating that
the child's life was in danger. To this objection Fichte can
only reply, " If the woman die of the truth, then let her
die."

The general principle here proceeded upon must be indeed
approved by all, and yet the majority, when they hear this
cold, regardless decision, will feel an inward revolt, will have
a feeling that the letter killeth, and that the question needs a
closer consideration. We think of Eousseau, who says the
strictest morality costs nothing upon paper. When Augustine
requires us to subordinate the love of man to the love of truth,
this love of truth must first be more exactly defined. It
cannot be overlooked that the lower truth is subordinated to
the higher, that the impersonal, abstract, and merely formal
truth is less than the loving personal truth. But truth of
sentiment especially belongs to personal truth, and that not
only in reference to God, but also to men, truth in the
relation of love and faithfulness, truth in the loving care for
those to whom we are bound in love. Truth is opposed to
the seeming. But now the question presents itself to us,
1 Henr. Steffens, Was ich trlelte, IT. 157

218 PHILANTHKOPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

whether it is congruous with the truth, with the reality of
love and amiable sentiment, to manifest such regardlessness
towards a beloved dear being as to tell a truth, the literal
communication of which just at the hour may be fatal, while
it may at another and later time be imparted without danger ;
whether by the strict formal fulfilment of the duty of truth
one does not degrade the whole relation of love to an im-
personal relation, that is, to a mere appearance ? The rigour
that would have the regardless communication of the truth
carried through, entirely overlooks the difference between the
single, formally right (correct), and the truth embracing the
whole relation, all sides of the thing ; and especially over-
looks, too, that all communication of truth in particular, in
every special case, must be regulated by wisdom, which also
takes into account the prospective consequences of human
actions, although it is true these consequences are not in every
respect in our power. Eigour further overlooks, or at least
does not duly recognise, how in a word it is part of the
exigency and misery of this life that collisions inevitably arise
between the lower and higher truth ; not as if these truths
collided in themselves, or were essentially irreconcilable, yet
they collide and are irreconcilable for this acting individual.
It overlooks that the possibility of solving such collisions is
not given us with abstract rules that could equally be followed
by all, but that the solution is only possible in a purely
individual way ; that it depends on that stage of moral and
religious development on which the acting individuality is
found, on the measure of moral power and wisdom, of pre-
sence of mind and tact that are at its service at the decisive
moment. But now, if the acting individual is not found at
the religious and moral temperature, does not possess the
geniality to be able to solve the collision and unite the truth
of the letter with that of the spirit, there only remains for
him the moral possibility to sacrifice the lower concern for the
higher, in order by such means to save his personal relation to
this higher concern. There then occurs, indeed, a certain
injury of that which dare not be injured, and every untruth
from exigency is a testimony that the acting individual was
not equal to this special case and its difficulty, is not " the
perfect man who offendeth not in word" (Jas. iii. 2), so, that

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 219

is, as to know how to unite spirit and letter. But as in other
departments there are actions which, although from the stand-
point of the ideal they are to be rejected, yet, from the hard-
ness of men's hearts, must be approved and admitted, and
under this restriction become relatively justifiable and dutiful
actions, simply because greater evils are thereby averted ; so
there is also an untruth from exigency that must still be
allowed for the sake of human weakness. So in the case
quoted, where the husband deceives his sick wife, because he
fears for her life, were he at this moment to inform her of the
child's death. Had he, with all love in his heart, taken on
his lips the overwhelming literal truth, without daring to take
credit for the power and wisdom to remove its deadly sting
from this truth, would he not then have injured the higher
truth, the truth of sentiment and of the mind, the holy duty
of love, and have acted in contradiction to himself? Or, to
take another example from an entirely different sphere: A
woman who, to rescue her chastity from the most imminent
danger, leads her persecutors astray, and employs an untruth
as defence in peril, does she act contrary to justice and duty
when she sacrifices the formal truth of words for the truth of
the personality, for fidelity to herself, for the preservation of
her own personal worth, while this presents itself to her as
the only possible outlet ?

We have wished, by the two examples given, to indicate
the two chief occasions on which we can speak at all of
untruth justified by exigency. That is, the many and mani-
fold cases may be in general reduced to this, that such
untruth is either uttered from love to men, or as defence against
men — a defence in which either a justifiable self-love or
sympathy with others is operative. Now, if moral rigour in
these cases will not have the slightest respect either to the
hardness or the weakness of the heart, but insists on the absolute
assertion of the truth of the letter, we have not only to pro-
test that such rigour in many cases involves an injury and
displacement of the higher truth, an offence against that
which must be recognised as of high value and validity, when
the whole relation, when all sides of the thing are taken into
account. But it comes into conflict with the truth in yet
another sense. One may be convinced of this by considering

220 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

the rules of conduct that the rigorists prescribe for particular
cases, the evasions they counsel, that the necessity of telling
an untruth may be avoided, which consist partly in preserv-
ing entire silence, partly in evasive answers, which are ever
turning into equivocal answers, approximating to Jesuitism,
where the words are ambiguous and full of reservation — a
process in which, in order not to offend the letter of the
truth, one is involved in a web of sophistry that disturbs and
confuses the simple natural feeling of truth, and is far worse
than a simple untruth. It comes to this, that the question of
casuistry cannot be solved by general and abstract directions,
but must be solved in an individual, personal way, especially
according to the stage of moral and religious development and
ripeness on which the person in question is found.

§ 98.

When we thus maintain that in certain difficult cases an
" untruth from necessity " may occur, which is to be allowed
for the sake of human weakness, and under the given relations
may be said to be justified and dutiful ; we cannot but allow,
on the other hand, that in every such untruth there is some-
thing of sin, nay, something that needs excuse and forgiveness.
And no doubt one may designate the definitions here used —
"justified" and again "needing excuse," on the one hand
"justified," but yet on the other tainted with "sin" — as con-
tradictory to each other; but then, do we not meet with such
contradictions in this world of sinfulness and of entanglements,
in more than one form ? Are they not repeated in very many
points in the tragedy of this life ? Certainly even the truth of
the letter, the external, actual truth, even the formally correct,
finds its right, the ground of its validity, in God's holy order
of the world. But by every lie of exigency the command is
broken, " Thou shalt not bear false witness." It does not
avail with several in the number of those who defend the lie
of exigency, for instance with Eothe, to say that the witness
in such a case does not proceed from bad egoistic motives, but
from motives of justice and of love ; and that, therefore, it ia
not at all to be called a lie, but can be absolutely defended
as morally normal, and so in no respect needs pardon. For

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 221

however sharply we may distinguish between lie and untruth
(mendacium and falsiloquium), the untruth in question can
never be resolved into the morally normal ; just as little
as divorce, e.g., or separation, can be said to be morally
normal, although separation in particular cases may become a
duty. If this untruth has not the egoistic motive in common
with the lie, it has at least something else in common, namely,
that it aims at leading others astray, sets forth the false for the
true, that a purpose of deception occurs in it, if not in the
heart of the speaker, yet in his mouth — that, in a word, it
belongs to the category of false appearance ; and if it be said
that the false appearance is only a means that is sanctified by
the good end, there is here something of that Jesuitical morality
we spoke of. For false appearance is in God's kingdom, in
the world-order of eternal truth and holiness, that which is
after its idea unwarranted, that which ought not to be. If
now it be said nevertheless that there are cases in which such
an untruth is not to be avoided, but which a Christian can
only feel as a suffering, this points to a state of universal sin-
fulness, a curse of mendacity lying on humanity. If we look
into our social relations, what an abyss of untruth, of deceptions
and falsifications of every kind, opens to our view ! That in
such a world, which is filled not only with lying words, but
also with lying works and customs, complications and difficult
cases of conscience may occur, is very explicable.

But while we thus find the ground of manifold collisions
especially in the corruption of human society, we must with
no less emphasis insist that their insolubility very often pro-
ceeds from the weakness and frailty of individuals. For the
question ever still remains, whether the said collisions between
the truth of the letter and that of the spirit could not be
solved if these individuals only stood on a higher stage of
moral and religious ripeness, possessed more faith and trust in
God, more courage to leave the consequences of their words
and actions in the hand of God, and likewise considered how
much in the consequences of our actions is hidden from our
view, and cannot be reckoned by us ; if these individuals
possessed more wisdom to tell the truth in the right way ; in
other words, whether the collision could not be solved if we
were only, in a far higher degree than is the case, morally

222

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

educated characters, Christian personalities ? Let us suppose,
for instance, the previous case, where the husband deceives
his sick spouse from fear that she could not survive the news
of the death of her child : who dare maintain that if the man
had been able in the right way, that is, in the power of the
gospel, with the wisdom and the comfort of faith, to announce
the death of the child, a religious crisis might not have arisen
in her soul, which might have a healing and quickening effect
upon her bodily state ? And supposing that it had even led
to her death, who dare maintain that that death, if it was a
Christian death, were an evil, whether for the mother herself
or for the survivors ? Or, let us take the woman who, to
save her chastity, applies the defence of an untruth : who
dare maintain that if she said the truth to her persecutors,
but uttered it in womanly heroism, with a believing look to
God, with the courage, the elevation of soul springing from
a pure conscience, exhibiting to her persecutors the badness
and unworthiness of their object, she might not have dis-
armed them by that might that lies in the good, the just
cause, the cause whose defence and shield God Himself will
be ? And even if she had to suffer what is unworthy, who
dare maintain that she could not in suffering preserve her
moral worth ? And the dying Desdemona, whom Jacobi
celebrates indeed, yet so that he still in the end finds an
excuse needful for her, who dare maintain that she could not
.with a higher and purer love " cover the multitude of sins,"
could not in a purer and more perfect way have spread the
veil of love and forgiveness over the crime which her spouse
had committed against her ? The same case thus receives a
different solution according to the different individualities, and
their different moral and religious stage of development.

An admirable procedure in a moral and religious aspect, in
circumstances where philanthropy and love of truth come into
conflict with each other, is drawn for us by Sir Walter Scott
in his incomparable Heart of Midlothian, Human love here
appears in the form of tender sisterly love. Jeanie Deans can
save the life of her sister, who has been accused of the murder
of her child, if she utters a lie of exigency, confirmed by an
oath indeed, before the court ; but if she gives her evidence
in harmony with the literal truth, her sister will in conse-

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

223

quence be executed innocent. For, according to the highly
unreasonable law of that time, she who concealed her pregnancy,
and failed to call for the help of any one at her confinement, in
case her child anyhow disappeared, was regarded as guilty of
its deliberate destruction. If now Jeanie declares on oath
that her sister had revealed her state to her, the sister is saved.
But though Jeanie is fully convinced that her sister had not
committed the crime of which she was accused, yet she will not
and dare not swear this oath, since her sister had told her
nothing. Thus, then, the latter is condemned to death. Most
people will find, indeed, that here was the place for an
antinomy in that key of Jacobi (" I will lie like the dying
Desdemona, break law and oath like Epaminondas, and
so on"), to give precedence to the love and the internal
conviction of the innocence of the sister before the literal
truth conformed to law, to save the life of the unfortunate
and in this case certainly innocent sister, rather than bow to
the killing letter of an unreasonable law. Most people would
at least be disposed to excuse Jeanie Deans, and to forgive
her, if she had here made a false oath, and thereby had
afforded her protection to the higher truth. But she will, can,
and dare, for her conscience' sake, not do this. Yet, after the
sentence of death is pronounced, she employs all the means of
love, of the most sacrificing fidelity, which to most people had
certainly been too inconvenient, undergoes dangers and hard-
ships, travels on foot the long and dangerous way to reach
the Duke of Argyle, is presented to the Queen, where she
pleads the cause of her sister and of her whole unhappy
family, and finally obtains grace for her sister. Trusting in
God, she has now not only done justice to the truth, but also
to sisterly love. It is especially her faith, her trust in God,
to which we have to direct our attention. For this is her
way of thinking : If God will save my poor sister, and if He
will save her through me, He can do this without the need of
my lie, and without me taking His name in vain, contrary to
His express commandment. And who dare contradict the
truth that lies at the bottom of this way of thinking ?

But the best thing in this tale is that it is no mere fiction.
The kernel of this celebrated romance is actual history.
Jeanie Deans really lived on earth, and in everything essential

224

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

acted just as has been related. Sir Walter Scott caused a
monument to be erected in his garden with the following
inscription : —

" This stone was placed by the Author of Waverley in
memory of Helen Walker, who fell asleep in the year of our
Lord 1791. This maiden practised in humility all the virtues
with which fancy has adorned the character that bears in
fiction the name of Jeanie Deans. She would not depart a
foot-breadth from the path of truth, not even to save her
sister's life ; and yet she obtained the liberation of her sister
from the severity of the law, by personal sacrifices whose
greatness was not less than the purity of her aims. Honour
to the grave where poverty rests in beautiful union with
truthfulness and sisterly love."1

Who will not readily obey this request, and hold such a
memory in honour? And who will not admit — even granting
we would have found it deserving excuse, nay, fitted to appear
in a very mild light, and pardonable, if she had, to save her
sister's life, sworn the false oath — that he must only now
respect, nay, in a far higher degree esteem her, than in the
other case would have been possible ? Who does not feel
himself penetrated with involuntary, most hearty admiration ?

§ 99.

We are thus anew brought back to this, that in order to
say the truth in difficult circumstances, a moral power of the
personality and a wisdom is required, in which the chief thing
is the "single eye" (Matt. vL 22), combined with the readi-
ness likewise to make sacrifices, and not to spare oneself —
requirements which transcend the abilities of most people ;
wherefore they choose the resource of helping themselves by
cunning, which is ever a testimony that the power, in the
present case, moral and religious power, does not prove
efficacious. If we therefore have said above, that in certain
cases the lie of exigency is inevitable owing to hardness of
heart, yet we cannot but likewise most strongly emphasize
that it must be our task to overcome this human weakness.
The lie of exigency itself, which we call inevitable, leaves in

1 Eberty, W. Scott, 2, 285.

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TEUTII.

225

us the feeling of something unworthy, and this unworthiness
should, simply in following Christ, more and more disappear
from our life. That is, the inevitableness of the lie of exigency
will disappear in the same measure that an individual develops
into a true personality, a true character ; the more he grows in
faith, in courage, in willingness to suffer and make sacrifices
for the truth's sake, in right wisdom ; in the measure that a
man increases in moral power and energy, he will be able to
dispense with the application of craft. For the more energetic
and wise, in a religious and moral sense, a personality is, the
more independent is it of its surroundings ; then exercises
upon them a determining influence, or at least preserves its
independence of them, suffering what must be suffered, while
craft is ever the sign of a false dependence on surroundings.
Schleiermacher, who absolutely rejects the lie of exigency,
lays down the rule, that we ought so to order our relations
that the necessity to use a lie of exigency cannot occur with
us, so that no one ventures to propose a question to us that
should not be put, or in case it is still proposed to us, it can
be set aside without a lie of exigency. But as the occasion
to say an untruth may also possibly occur for us, without our
being directly asked, we would rather express it thus, that we
have to follow after the spirit of power that gives us faith and
courage, that works in us the energy of truth and love in our
conduct towards others, and that we are to seek after the
spirit of wisdom, that teaches us to act with full consideration,
so that we keep all relations in their totality ever before our
eyes. But this we may also express thus, that we are to
strive to be true ; for only when truth has become our nature
(as, in Jeanie Deans, truthfulness was her most proper nature)
can we also possess the entire personal tact and the full
security that is necessary to the decision of difficult relations.
What we have here set forth is indeed an ideal which can
only approximately become reality; but where it has been
realized in its full meaning, all untruth from exigency is
absolutely impossible. A lie of exigency cannot occur with
a personality that is found in possession of full courage, of
perfect love and holiness, as of the enlightened, all-penetrating
glance. Not even as against madmen and maniacs will a lie
of exigency be required, for to the word of the truly sanctified

P

226

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TKUTH.

personality there belongs an imposing, commanding power
that casts oat demons. It is this that we see in Christ, " in
whose mouth no guile was found" (1 Pet. ii. 22), in whom
we find nothing that even most remotely belongs to the
category of the exigent lie. One with His word is His holy
personality, which remains unconfounded with the sinfulness
of this world ; and " the prince of this world has nothing (no
part) in Him" (John xiv. 30). In this holy might of His
holy wisdom and personality He solves all collisions and over-
comes all doubtful and difficult situations. And although He
cannot hinder His enemies from addressing unsuitable and
tempting questions to Him, yet He answers them, as it is
written, "And no man could answer Him a word, neither
durst any man from that day forth ask Him any more
questions" (Matt. xxii. 46).

§100.

As there is an untruth from exigency, so also a truth from
exigency, that is to say, the oath. The oath presupposes the
fact that in human society the love of man and the love of
truth are but very imperfect ; presupposes that men lack
confidence in each other, and that their love of truth, their
respect and reverence for the truth, in many cases need to be
supported by the extraordinary means of the oath. But it
belongs to the love of man and of the truth as much as
possible to cherish and preserve the sanctity of the oath in
human society.

The oath is the solemn assurance of the truth of an utter-
ance, with invocation of God the omniscient and holy, who
punishes lying. Were God's kingdom present on earth in its
perfection, the oath would be superfluous ; for all would speak
the truth, and one would be manifest to the other. But in
the world there is actually falsehood and mutual suspicion,
and therefore from of old the oath sprang up as a guarantee
for truthfulness ; for the guarantee for the constant fulfilment
of the duty of truth lies in the personal relation of man to the
highest holy truth, that is to say, to God. While the intro-
duction of the oath into human society and its use arises from
a distrust of men, it presupposes as well a trust in men,

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 227

namely, that when placed before God's face they will feel
moved to speak the truth. For him who still lies there is
no court above. The sworn utterance is assumed under the
highest all-embracing truth, and the personal relation of the
swearer to it. As truly as God lives, or as truly as God may
help me and His holy word, so true is also this my single
utterance, whether it be an affirmation (juramentum asser-
toriuni), an oath of testimony or of purgation, or a promise
(juramentum promissoriuin). 'The oath has a certain kinship
to prayer, in so far as the swearer, like him who prays, is
withdrawn from all finite relations and placed before God's
face. But alongside this similarity there stands a great
difference. For prayer arises from love's need of communion
with God, and will never cease, neither in the present nor in
the future world ; the oath, again, arises from the necessity of
the law in a sinful world, that has fallen from love, and in
which, instead of love, the mere relation of justice has entered.
The oath will vanish when the dominion of sin and of the law
vanishes.

In general the oath, therefore, also finds its application in the
domain of the state, to whose task it belongs to afford guaran-
tees against crime. But in that the state cannot dispense
with the oath, it thereby acknowledges that its external
guarantees are not sufficient, but that, besides them, it needs
not only the moral, but also the religious guarantee. As a
guarantee for truthfulness, the oath has a shielding and
protecting, a defensive and preventive, a truth-compelling
meaning. From the standpoint of the ideal, from the stand-
point of God's kingdom, considered in its perfection, the oath
must be rejected as something superfluous, as something that
cannot occur in the communion of saints, and belongs to lower
circles of life. In this we find the ground for the utterance
of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 33—36 ; com-
pare Jas. v. 12): " Again, ye have heard that it was said to
them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt
perform unto the Lord thine oaths : but I say unto you, Swear
not at all ; neither by heaven, for it is God's throne ; nor by
earth, for it is His footstool ; neither by Jerusalem, for it is tho
city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy
head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

228 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

But let your speech be Yea, yea ; Nay, nay : and whatsoever
is more than these is of the evil one." The sense of these
words has been disputed, whether, that is, they contain an
unconditional rejection of the oath, or only a conditional ;
reject not swearing in itself, but only its light use in daily life ;
declare against certain hair-splitting doctrines of the rabbis,
which led to this, that men avoided indeed swearing by the
name of God, but with the more levity used other swearing
formulas, — by the heaven, the earth, Jerusalem, his own head,
and so on. But the connection does not permit us to under-
stand the Lord's words in such a limited sense. And how
feeble and empty, how destitute of all pregnancy and point
His words become, if they were to say nothing more than this,
" Thou shalt make no false oath, but shalt keep thy oath to
God ; lut I say to you, Ye shall not lightly swear in daily
life, and shall not swear by the creature." Has it been said
that the Lord mentions only swearing by the creature as oaths
to be rejected, but not those made to God, or the oath itself,
which might thus be viewed as approved ; it is answered that
the last did not need to be expressly named, as this was
throughout presupposed, as it was also said to them of old
time, " Thou shalt perform to God thine oath." But in that
Christ mentions the oath by the creature, by heaven, by earth,
and so on, He will hereby make us conscious that at bottom
every such oath is an oath by God the Lord, because the
thought thereby must necessarily revert to God (" heaven ia
His throne, earth is His footstool," and so on) ; and this it is,
namely, swearing itself, and in itself, that is disallowed, and
that because our speech should be Yea, yea ; Nay, nay. The
limitation which we allow is to be given to these words of the
Lord, must thus be sought in another way. In the Sermon on
the Mount, Christ expounds the law after its spiritual and
internal meaning ; reduces the law of Moses, which is affected
with the character of a civil law of right, to the law of the
gospel, that of love ; utters the infinite requirements of perfec-
tion, which can find their true and perfect fulfilment nowhere
but within a condition of the community very different from
the present. Not as if these requirements showed us only an
empty ideal. Bather they are already beginning to be fulfilled,
and the communion of saints exists already in the world.

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 229

But partly this communion of saints is still hidden, partly it
is in the dispersion, in a diaspora. Even after the gospel has
come into the world, the dominion of sin and of the law
remains in the world, until the day of the completion of all
things. Even after the kingdom of God has come with that
righteousness of heart that is revealed in the life of truly
Christian individuals, the kingdom of civil righteousness stands
in the same compass as the kingdom of external ordinances
and relations of right, to which in their temporal existence all
without a difference are subject. A Christian must thus live
his life in both kingdoms, and must strive to fulfil the require-
ments of the one as of the other, like as Christ Himself, in
order to fulfil all righteousness, even that required by the
existing earthly community, willingly submitted to the ordin-
ances and laws of His people, although in spirit He was
exalted above them. The Mennonites, the Quakers, and other
sects, who regard it as something unworthy of a Christian, nay,
contrary to duty, to make the oath required by authority,
hereby pay homage to a view which must be designated as
fmatical, partly because it would anticipate within human
society a stage of perfection which simply lies beyond the
earthly conditions of this present state, partly because it proudly
maintains that a Christian need not fulfil all righteousness,
need not perform what the civil community requires. So
also in this respect they withdraw from following Christ ; for
Christ has, at least mediately, recognised the oath, when,
during the spiritual trial He answered the high priest, who
addressed to Him the question, " I adjure Thee by the living
God, that Thou tell us whether Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the Blessed." By His answer, " Thou sayest it" (Matt. xxvi.
G 3 f.), He makes it clear that He placed himself under the
law. In opposition to such fanatical doctrines, we hold firmly
to what Luther says in his Larger Catechism on the Second
Commandment, that " the oath is a right good work, whereby
God is praised, the truth and right confirmed, lies repelled,
people brought to peace, obedience rendered and strife abated;
ior God Himself then intervenes (nam Deus ipse hie intervenit),
and divides right and wrong, bad and good from each other."
Also the Apostle Paul in his epistles often uses such expres-
sions as are akin to the oath : " I call God to witness upon

230 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

my soul" (2 Cor. i. 23), "God is my witness" (Bom. i. 9).
Yet these utterances do not occur in the proper form of the
oath, and rather admit of being placed beside the "Verily,
verily, I say unto you," that often recurs in the mouth of our
Lord.

§ 101.

Of great weight is the form in which the oath is made.
To be rejected is the Execration, or that form of oath in which
the swearer challenges God to punish him for ever if he swear
falsely, and so, as it were, hypothetically (conditionally) curses
himself, will be eternally damned, puts his eternal salvation in
pawn. Such a swearing is presumptuous and irreligious, for
thus man dare not as against God dispose of himself; and
here that word of Christ applies, " Thou canst not make a
hair of thy head black or white." Man dare not prescribe to
God in what way He is to punish him, and dare not cut off
from himself the last exit of grace and mercy. The right
form of the oath is this, that the man calls God to witness,
confirms his utterance before the face of the Omniscient God,
places himself under unconditional dependence on God, in the
consciousness that God will punish the lie and all unrighteous-
ness, and that he who swears falsely contracts God's displeasure
and judgment. But this is by no means the same as when
one himself appoints the punishment, and for a certain case
renounces all and every mercy of God. The usual form
employed in evangelical Christendom is this : " So help me God
and His holy word." True, this formula also does not exclude
the possibility of an interpretation by which it would contain
a hypothetical self-cursing, a hypothetical renunciation of
salvation. But its right meaning is this : " As truly as I set
my trust in God and His holy word, as truly as I know that
He is not mocked, and that I am liable to His righteous
judgment if I swear falsely." To be vitally conscious of his
dependence on God, to place oneself reverentially as well
under His grace as under His justice, fully to commit one's
own person and cause to Him, means something quite different
from prescribing to God how He is to punish, setting a limit
to His mercy, and therewith boasting of one's own righteous-
ness and faithfulness, which is quite presumptuous, especially

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 231

in an oath of obligation and protestation. For who dare build
in every relation upon his stedfastness, his faithfulness, and
challenge God to weigh it ? Germs of hypothetical self-
cursing are found, indeed, in the Old Testament, for example
in the exclamation, " The Lord do so to me," although in this
only temporal, not eternal punishment is usually meant. But
these germs were farther developed in later times by the Jews,
and in the Jewish oaths there are found the most frightful
self-cursings, the crassest challenges of the divine judgments.

§ 102.

As the oath only finds its justification in a necessity of
human society, namely, in the exigency of mutual distrust, it
ought also only to be employed where there is an actual
exigency, or in affairs of great weight. If now-a-days in the
sphere of civil relations the oath is required on the most un-
important occasions, that is a rude and irksome abuse. And
it contains a bitter complaint against the moral conditions of
society ; for society is declared to be demoralized if one cannot
in such cases be satisfied with the simple yes and no, but
must at once flee to the oath. And it is a surprising pheno-
menon, which bears a very serious character, that the state,
which for the rest has been occupying a more and more
indifferent position towards religion and the Church, and in
so many respects has yielded to an irreligious humanism, that
thinks the state can fitly in its institutions do without religion,
yet has not been able to set a limit to the too frequent and
unseemly swearing, the ever-recurring invoking of God and His
holy word, — a custom which in recent times has become still
more prevalent in consequence of all the political oaths which
the constitutional system, with its constant changes, has brought
with it. The fact is, that notwithstanding its indifferentism,
the state cannot stand without the religious guarantee. But
it is overlooked that the separate guarantee, namely the oath,
becomes void of meaning when we are indifferent to the great
guarantee, namely the religiousness of the people, which
must have its support and nourishment in the existing institu-
tions. The more the great and all-embracing guarantee is
present, the seldomer will one need to resort to the auxiliary

232 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

guarantee ; but the more effectual will one also be able to
make this. The too-frequently applied oath does away with
itself in its meaning, and the feeling of truth in the people
is blunted. It may be said that the much swearing which
is employed even in purely civil relations, and which for
conscientious officials, who must require the oath on very
unimportant occasions, becomes an oppressive burden, is itself
an exigency ; for the light requirement of the oath occasions
light offers to swear, and light swearings and perjuries; of which
there are many and ever more numerous examples of the
most frightful kind.

The frightfulness of perjury consists in this, that the swearer
not only plays with a single truth, but with the truth itself,
and mocks God. Perjury has much akin to the unworthy
partaking of the sacrament. He that swears falsely, swears
judgment to himself. The most earnest preparation is there-
fore certainly most needful before one proceeds to take an
oath. To break an oath which is sworn of free will and with
full consciousness, is a terrible faithlessness, not only towards
men, but towards God and one's own conscience. Yet there
are cases in which the swearer may be loosed from the obliga-
tion of an oath, when the absolution takes place on the part
of the authority entitled thereto, who is usually he or those in
whose interest the obligation was undertaken ; for example,
the king, as representative of the state.1 A forced oath, or
one obtained by craft, is a nullity ; and an oath by which one
is bound to do something in conflict with God's commandment,
is not to be kept, but to be repented of. When Herod
(Mark vi. 22—29) caused John the Baptist to be executed,
because he held himself bound by a light oath, he heaped sin
on sin. And when those Jews (Acts xxiii. 21) "bound them-
selves with a curse neither to eat nor to drink till they had
killed Paul," this was a fanatical oath, that only deserved to
be repented of.

1 How far there are in human society such exigencies, in which men may feel
themselves constrained in their conscience to free themselves afterwards from an
oath that they have taken, is a question that can only be fitly answered by a
special investigation of these exigencies themselves.

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 233

§ 103.

" Put away lying, and speak the truth " (Eph. iv. 2 5).
This command can be carried through in the various relations
of life only in the measure that the personality itself is a
true and pure one. But the interior truth of the Christian
personality is as a free utterance of life and fruit of the
Spirit, one with love, and this must also be mirrored in the
discourse of each Christian. When we say, then, that the
discourse of a Christian should bear the impress of truth,
we say likewise that it must bear the spiritual impress of
Christian humanity. Therefore the apostle requires that all
" corrupt communication " remain far from the Christian
(Eph. iv. 29), that the speech of Christians be "with grace
seasoned with salt, that they may know how to answer every
man " (Col. iv. 6), whereby he requires that a certain beauty
of soul be expressed in speech. In regard to the so-called
sins of the tongue, our Lord says that " men shall give account
in the day of judgment for every ' idle,' unbecoming word
that they have spoken " (Matt. xii. 3 6).

This warning against unbecoming, improper words, and the
reference to the day of judgment, must fill our soul with
holy fear. Quakers and pietistic parties have indeed thought
to secure themselves against the future judgment by limiting
their speech to what is indispensable, by speaking as little as
possible about worldly things, where the improper ever lies
so near, but chiefly speaking only of the holy, of things be-
longing to the kingdom of God ; and again they would only
speak of these things in Christ's own words, which of course
can never possibly be idle and improper. The Trappists
decided, in order to escape all such words and the reckoning
at the last day, to say nothing whatever, and imposed a
silence upon themselves which is only occasionally broken by
this one utterance, Memento mori ! That these conceptions of
the matter are erroneous and unsound is evident. Christ
did not need to send to His disciples " the Spirit of truth,"
if it was His will to bind them to a mere repetition of His
own words. And when the apostle says that " he is a perfect
man who offendeth not in word " (Jas. iii. 2), this is the
very opposite of the view of the Trappists, that he is the

234 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH.

perfect man who keeps silence, entirely abstains from the use
of speech. What is to be understood by idle or unbecoming
words will best be perceived when we ask, What words are
becoming, or when is our speech as it ought to be ? The
answer to this must be, that our speech is as it ought to be
when it is the expression of the truth ; that our speech,
whether it treat of the highest and holy, or of every-day
social and civil relations of life, is not only as to its con-
tents (or objectively) true, but also a personal truth in
ourselves. Further, our speech is what it ought to be when
it is not merely an expression of the truth, but the truth is
also spoken in love ; not as if love should always be in our
mouth, but spoken in such a way that the other feels that
love yet dwells in the inmost ground of our soul. And, in
fine, our speech is what it ought to be when it is a prudent
speech, which is governed throughout by the Spirit, when we
neither say too much nor too little, say all at the right time
and in the right place, and when the speech proceeds from
an inward peace, from a rest, an inner equipoise of our being,
which is communicated to those with whom we speak. From
this it follows that all untrue speech, all unloving, all im-
prudent and passionate speech, is also idle and unbecoming,
of which an account will have to be given at the day of
judgment. And by untrue speech we mean not only the
speech that spreads errors, nor words of blasphemy and
mockery that are cast forth by haters of Christ, as then the
Pharisees said of the Lord that He cast outv the devils by
Beelzebub, nor manifest lying and slander. We mean also
by this, wrords without inner conviction, empty modes of
speech and hollow sounds, which are without root in man's
spirit and mind, spiritless echoes of the views and words of
others, the mere phrase which is not least common in the present
phenomena-loving time, as well when it regards the highest
and the holiest, as things of social life. But the word or testi-
mony of truth may also become an idle, improper word, when
the truth is not spoken in love, when it is spoken without
love and in bitterness, more adapted to embitter than to
improve, to break the bruised reed, to quench the smoking
wick, which the Lord will have spared. From words of truth
as of love, idle words proceed, when we, without thought, in

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF TRUTH. 235

passion and anger, let ourselves be carried beyond bounds.
Perhaps we meant no great harm; and yet it may be the
imprudently uttered word has evoked a great stir and con-
fusion in the circle in which we were called to work ; or it
has wounded, offended, broken a human heart, which yet we
would not have broken. If we try ourselves and our sur-
roundings by this rule, we will no doubt, from our own
experience, affirm that word of the apostle, that he is a per-
fect man that offends not in word, and that Christ alone, our
redeemer and our example, is this perfect man.

And as regards the Saviour's utterance, that we shall give
account at that day for every idle word that we have spoken,
it must be conceived in the same point of view as when the
Saviour says that we shall be judged on that day according
to our works. Word and work are inseparable. A man's
words and a man's works are, as it were, an embodiment of
that which dwells within him, are like a mirror in which the
deepest mind of a man, his position of heart to God and the
truth, is reflected. On the day of judgment this mirror shall
be placed before us, that we may see ourselves, that all the
works that we have done in this world, all the words that
we have spoken, so far as they had a meaning for our con-
science, may appear to us at once in a great compressed
remembrance, in which we see our whole life as in a moment,
in an instant, before us, and as in a great picture, shall per-
ceive what was the kernel of our inner man. For words
and works shall not be judged for themselves and separated
from the sentiments : it is the man himself, the whole man,
who shall be judged by his word and work. None of us will
be able to stand in this judgment, except we then know good
words, which we must have already practised in this life,
except we know a word of faith in the forgiveness of sins,
of justification by faith, a word of prayer springing up from
the inmost heart : " God be merciful to me a sinner." But
in following Christ we must endeavour to expel idle, bad
words more and more from our life, in yielding ourselves to
the guidance of Him who came to redeem us also from idle
words, to reform also and renew our speech, so that it may
become a speech of truth, of love, and of Christian prudence.
It is by no means difficult to have truth without love, and

236 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

just as little difficult is it to have love without truth. But
the healthy union of both is the difficulty, which the history
of doctrinal controversies teaches only too clearly, where
men have striven about the truth in unloving, bitter, un-
seemly polemic, where so often, instead of "the truth in
love," rather truth (" pure doctrine ") meets us in hatred, in
pride, in envy, revenge, and so on.

We add yet further, that no one will be able to prove the
statement that jokes and wit are excluded from Christian
speech. Rather its aesthetic value is to be allowed to this
free play. But the aesthetic must have its presupposition
in the ethical, must be regulated by it ; for in the opposite
case, however brilliant, it falls under the category of the idle
and unbecoming.

Philanthropy and Love of RigJiteomness.
§104.

As the love of man is inseparably connected with love
of truth, it is so likewise with the love of righteousness.
This love of righteousness is not only love of the undefined
ideal of righteousness, but of Christ, the personal righteous-
ness of God, to Him who is already designated in the Old
Testament as " the Righteous Servant of the Lord " (Isa.
xl.), who carries out God's cause on earth, and for the sake
of this His work must undergo so great sufferings. "When we
designate Christ as the personal righteousness, we do not mean
by this only the distributive or judicial and awarding
righteousness, but especially His personal perfection or nor-
mality, in which all elements of His personal life stand in
the right relation to each other, so that no single thing asserts
itself at the cost of the whole, where all opposites are
brought to harmonious agreement (compare the General Part,
§ 88). In loving Him as righteousness, we love Him even
as love itself. For righteousness is love filled with truth,
ordered by wisdom. Righteousness requires that all and
each be loved according to its true worth. It opposes all
false and inordinate love, unveils all seeming worthiness,
judges all that does not occupy its proper place. As the

PHILANTHKOPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 237

personal righteousness, Christ has entered into a world of
unrighteousness, where, along with the disturbance of the
relation to God, with the unrighteous position towards God
into which man has fallen, — withholding from God His glory,
honouring the creature ever more than the Creator, regarding
that which is not God as his God, — into the human relations
also an infinitude of injustice and unrighteousness has pene-
trated. For everywhere and ever again we find that what
in itself is the superior has become something subordinate;
and conversely, that the right boundaries are perverted or
obliterated in the great confusion of sinfulness. He has
appeared to erect again the true kingdom of righteousness,
which is not different from the kingdom of truth and love,
a kingdom which must continually fight its way through
great humiliation and misconception, and will only be com-
pleted under " the new heaven and the new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness " (2 Pet. iii. 13), which means not only
that righteous men will dwell there, but that there all will
be in its right place and in its right order. The love of
man in following Christ must therefore not only testify of
the truth of Christ, but also work for His righteous cause
on earth, for which we are only fit when we yield ourselves
to the Spirit who " convicts the world of sin and of righteous-
ness and of judgment" (John xvi. 8), but never ceases to be-
the Spirit of grace and of love.

Not only with words, but especially also through work
and walk, as well in private as in public life, must a Chris-
tian, according to the measure of his calling and his gifts,
co-operate for this, that the righteous cause of Christ may
be upheld and advanced. The gospel and the kingdom of
Christ makes an ideal, a higher, a spiritual claim of right,
not merely on individuals, but on the community ; not merely
on the Church, as far, that is, as its guidance is committed
to human hands ; but also on the state, the family, the school,
But the cause of Christ is constantly "held down in un-
righteousness" (Eom. i. 18). The world now effects its-
active opposition to the cause of Christ through open attacks,
now its passive, in unutterable indifference, thick-skinned
insusceptibility, a security and thoughtlessness that disre-
gards all that is higher. As regards her position to the

238 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

world, the Church of Christ at all times stands, in one or
the other respect, like the widow in the gospel to the unjust
judge (Luke xviii.). In the struggle which never ceases in
human society between those who work for the cause of
God and those who are endeavouring to carry out their own
unrighteousness and that of the world, — including also the
falsifiers of the righteousness of God's kingdom, — in this
struggle every Christian must stand at his post, in the
position and in the calling wherein he is called. He must
face unrighteousness, must, standing on the foundation of
truth, — to speak with Fichte, — oppose the sword's point to
the world, but not the passive flatness of want of character.
Just in times like the present, in which enmity against the
cause of Christ has risen so high, true love to men, whether
to individuals or to the community, will not admit of being
shown otherwise than by waging an earnest struggle against
unrighteousness, without fearing persecution for righteous-
ness' sake. What we, then, likewise have to resist in our-
selves is, on the one hand, the temptation to mistake oui
personal affair, our own perhaps one-sided and untried view,
lor the cause of Christ; on the other hand, the temptation to
the fear of man and cowardice, ease and comfort, which above
all things will have rest and good days instead of campaigning
in the unrest of the Church militant.

But while the central relation to the holy, to the kingdom
of Christ, is that wherein especially Christian love of
righteousness must assert itself, yet it is to spread out from
this centre on all sides, to all points of the periphery. We
are to endeavour " to fulfil all righteousness," to perform all
that is right.

§ 105.

All must be convinced that righteousness, as that sentiment
and mode of action that gives each one his own (Suum
cuique), is the indispensable condition for every human
society, that without righteousness no human social relation
whatever is conceivable. It is also by no means limited to civil
life, to the mere external sphere of justice, although it has
here, no doubt, its chief sphere. Not only in civil life are we
to respect the personal rights of our neighbour, his life and his

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF FJGHTEOUSNESS. 239

health, his property, his honour ; are not merely to guard and
keep in all civil relations most conscientiously the limits
prescribed by the law, show probity, honesty, and honour in
dealing and walk ; in no business, in no relation, take advan-
tage of our neighbour ; abhor all fraud, not only the coarse but
also the fine, which in our days has developed itself to an
incredible extent, and which is even practised by people of
whom one would not expect it. But righteousness extends to
all departments of life ; for in each of them it is required,
even in a higher, the religious and moral sense, that we do
to men what is right, and give them what is theirs. How
one is to show to each the respect and regard that belongs to
him, especially how one is to take up the cause of those
injured in their rights, and that with a purely moral unselfish
procedure ; how one is to judge of the dealings of others, their
works, excellences, and faults ; how one is to be indignant at
this or that phenomenon, or to greet it with approbation ; how
one feels injured by this or that, and is offended at it, — all
such things belong to the wide domain of righteousness,
though they may fall outside the external sphere of justice.
Men commit against each other thousands of injustices that
can be brought in question before no juridical tribunal.

The more closely we consider these finer definitions, it
becomes the clearer that righteousness and love go together,
that righteousness can only gain the right character of
spirituality by means of love, or — inasmuch as in living
together with so many men, an intimate communion with all is
impossible — at least through kindness and benevolence. Where
righteousness is exercised without kindness and benevolence,
where respect is only had to that which can be demanded by
the so-called strict justice, where one in mere accord with
duty only grants as much to others as they can require of us,
there also it is only imperfectly exercised. For then all the
circumstances are never taken into consideration ; and, above
all, what is individual in the relation and the relative human
individuality remains out of account. But what is individual
cannot be known when it is measured only by the abstract
rule of the law, but only when it is viewed with the eye of
love, of kindness, of good-will. Therefore all righteousness
must be exercised in the spirit of love and kindness. Even in

240 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

the sphere of external justice, mildness must constantly modify
strict justice, that an injustice may not be committed through
a one-sided maintenance of the letter (summum jus, summa
injuria).

In opposition to the assertion of strict justice, by which
many believe themselves to have fulfilled all that others can
require of them, the exhortation of the apostle bears, " Owe
no man anything, but to love one another " (Eom. xiii. 8).
" Love worketh no ill to her neighbour " (ver. 1 0). That love
does no ill to its neighbour may indeed appear a trifle, but is
in truth much, because the observance of every divine " Thou
shalt not " is contained in it. But, on the other hand, the
apostle who calls love the fulfilling of the law, tells us that
our mutual behaviour should not be that of external con-
formity to the law, but that of love ; because we not only owe
this or that one to another, but ourselves, our heart. Love
itself is the deepest claim of right which we, as members of
one single great family, have on each other. Therefore we are
ever to remain indebted in love one to another ; for the relation
of person to person is an eternal relation ; and never will we be
able to say, Now we have paid our debt of love, now we have
loved each other enough, and can close our hearts one to
another. While love spreads itself over the various circles of
society, over those nearer and farther, and thus must also
express itself under a great variety of limitations or closer
definitions (as kindness, good-will, respect, moderation), yet
one thing remains throughout its chief impress, namely, that
sJie seeks not her own (Phil. ii. 4).

§106.

The unity we have here in view of righteousness and love,
righteousness and kindness, is the true humanity in the
relation between man and man. It may be evinced in all
social relations, but especially unfolds its fulness in relation
to the inequalities in human society. To abolish the necessary
differences within the same is by no means the object of
Christian humanity. Nay, that would even be opposed to-
righteousness, which requires differences, superiority and sub-
ordination. Thus it will not abolish that necessary inequality

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 241

that exists between masters and servants, teachers and
scholars, superiors and subordinates, rich and poor; and will
just as little set aside the differences of human individuali-
ties, human talents, the difference between the highly gifted
and the less gifted. Amid all these inequalities, Christian
humanity endeavours to bring forward the essential equality,
seeks everywhere the man, the free personality in the image of
God, will harmonize these inequalities, which so often sunder
men in enmity, to a free mutual relation, in which is to be
developed a behaviour of mutual service, affording help and
support, supplying mutual deficiencies, such as can never be
brought to pass by any compulsion of law. Just because
righteousness teaches us to regard Jove as a debt which we
constantly owe to each other, is Christian love essentially to
be conceived under the point of view of service to which we
are bound in mutual self-sacrifice and self-denial. Ministering
love, ministering humanity, is the very opposite of an inclina-
tion that is deeply rooted in the sinful nature of man, namely,
the inclination egoistically to lord it over others ; as it is also
opposed to another kindred inclination, in virtue of which a
man will neither rule nor serve, but in his egoism simply
stand, independent on all sides, unconcerned about others, not
mixed up with others, that he may live only to himself, and
enjoy the undisturbed repose of existence. They both stand
in contradiction to what is just, as the normal. As little as
we should rule over one another in the spirit of egoism, just
as little should we in the same spirit be independent of each
other. We are destined to serve one another. And not only
are the lower classes to serve the higher, but the higher, yea,
those in the highest places, are called to serve those beneath
them. This proposition is formally acknowledged by all, yet
in actual life it is too often denied. Thus there have been
despotic rulers who willingly called themselves by eminence
the foremost servants of the state ; and the Pope, who without
doubt would rule over all, especially would dominate all
consciences, yet calls himself, as is well known, the servant of
the servants of God (servus servorum Dei). Yet, however
evil the practical result, still the thought which is confessed
is thoroughly correct, and perfectly agrees with that word of
Christ, " He that is greatest among you, let him be as the

Q

242 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

younger ; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve "
(Luke xxii. 26). Only in the measure in which ministering
love and humanity attains to mastery in free reciprocity, not
only between individuals, but also between the different
classes of society with their various interests, will the social
problems admit of solution, will injustice more and more be
banished from human society.

§107.

As a shadow of ministering love and humanity, politeness
appears in social life, which is the merely formal side of
human conduct, of human reciprocity. In the forms of
politeness men testify to each other their respect, and make
known that they are each other's " servants," by visible signs of
"devotion," by behaving to each other respectfully and with
attention. Now, were not politeness too often an exterior
without a corresponding interior, a shadow without body, yea,
a mask, it could avail as a significant symbol of the love that
seeketh not her own. And it still remains a symbol in so
far as it points to a universal principle, whose power over
men asserts itself externally, even when they afford it no
entrance into their hearts. Were there a history of polite-
ness from the most ancient times to the present, such a history
would show us how men, in constant progression, have sought
to symbolize their consciousness of the conduct that should
mutually take place among them, so that there has been a
symbolizing as well of the principles of despotism as also of
caste, of slavery, and so on ; it would show us how that first,
through the principle of Christian humanity, a politeness is
founded which at the same time co-exists with honour, with
personal self-respect, and with due respect for others, and
which makes us conscious that politeness is not merely to be
shown to some, but to all. Where politeness corresponds to
its idea, it is an outward sign of humanity, which in every
one respects the man as such, and by which men feel them-
selves called upon freely to perform services to each other,
not merely because the one needs the other, but for the sake
of conscience, a voluntariness and reciprocity, without which
all civil determinations of right were impotent and insufficient

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 243

to hold human society together. But the right voluntariness
and reciprocity in this ministering conduct is yet only pro-
duced by the spirit of the love of Christ, only produced in
those who believe in the Redeemer, who came not to be
ministered unto, but Himself to minister (Matt. xx. 28),
and who on that last evening washed His disciples' feet for
an example to them, that they also should wash one another's
feet (John xiii.). Here is the holy centre from which the
effects emanate to the utmost circumference of human society.
True humanity in its lowest as in its highest forms is Chris-
tian humanity.

We cannot, therefore, regard as apt and adequate the
definition which Rothe in his Ethik (III. 590) gives of the
idea of politeness, that it is the most abstract and lowest form
of modesty. We understand it as the most abstract, lowest,
and most peripheric form of ministering humanity (including
modesty), which in its compass embraces also benevolence and
self-imparting kindness.

This deeper principle glances out in a peculiar way from
human greetings, not only from the way and manner in which
we greet, but especially from the words employed in doing so.
True, a greeting is reckoned one of the most unimportant and
merely formal things, and is given and received with the
greatest indifference. How thoughtlessly does one now say
" Good-day," and then again " Farewell !" Yet the formal
points back to a reality lying deeper. A historical considera-
tion teaches us that different views of life, different concep-
tions of that which gives to human life its worth and meaning,
different ideas of the highest good that men felt called upon
to wish each other, were expressed in the words with which
in the different ages, and among the different peoples, they
greeted each other.1 The Greek view attains expression in
the " Xaipe " (that is, Joy to thee). But the Greeks, in
wishing each other joy, understand thereby joy in all that
is fair and good, joy in life itself, in life's glory and splendour,
joy in a human life that stands in harmony with itself and
all its surroundings. This to the Greeks is the highest good.
The Roman more practical view of life clearly resounds both
in its " Salve " (May you be well) and in its " Vale " (Be
1 Compare Ernst Curtius, AUerthum und Gegenwart: Der Gruss, § 237 ff.

244 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

healthy). The Bomaus wish each other not the aesthetic joy
in the glory and grace of life, but health and strength, as the
conditions of an active human existence, as the things that
qualify for practical life. The Hebrew and Christian view is
reflected in the " Peace be with thee and thy house," known
to us all. Believers wish each other the peace of the Lord,
the peace which can only be bestowed upon us from above.
Christ attaches great importance to greetings, therefore He
says to His disciples, " When ye come into an house, first
say, Peace be to this house ; and if the son of peace be there,
your peace shall rest upon it ; if not, it shall turn to you
again " (Luke x. 5 f., comp. John xiv. 2 7).

When the religious greeting of peace means more than a
form, it is one with the blessing, and the blessing again one
with intercession. That one man blesses another, means that
he, praying to God for him, utters the good word over him,
liiat he in prayer wishes for him a share of the grace of
which he himself has become partaker.1 .When such a bless-
ing on the side of him who blesses proceeds from an earnest
energetic will, and is received by the other with his inmost
mind, it is no mere impotent wish, but has a real effect,
which is symbolized by the laying on of hands, which means
a communication, a transference of the gift for which God
is invoked, on the head of the other. But the curse also
may in certain circumstances and conditions have a corre-
sponding real effect, and is by no means always an empty
sound or mere word. In the history of human > greetings, the
kiss has also its meaning. We often read in the apostolic
epistles the exhortation to the first Christians, " Greet ye one
another with an holy kiss" (Eom. xvi. 16; 1 Cor. xvi. 20;
2 Cor. xiii. 12 ; 1 Thess. v. 26; 1 Pet. v. 14, in the last
named passage, " with the kiss of love "). In the historical
connection into which these exhortations transport us, the
kiss is the sign of fraternal fellowship, in certain circum-
stances the sign of reconciliation and forgiveness (the kiss of
peace). In the old church it had its place in the sacred
ceremonies, especially in the holy communion. But also,
apart from its connection with the holy and the highest, the
name usage occurs as a natural greeting of friendship on
1 "Wuttke, Chrlstliche Sittenlehre, II. 353.

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 245

meeting and parting, and in other relations of life as a seal
of friendship. But there is also a Judas kiss. And as there
is a look which glows with the blessing of kindness and love,
whose magically beneficent effect is felt deep within the soul,
so there is also an evil eye, which, with the falseness of the
serpent, shoots the arrows of ill-will, hatred, and temptation,
arrows against whose poison and impurity one must indeed be

on his guard.

§ 108.

Akin to politeness is helpfulness, which is a subordinate
element in ministering love. Helpfulness is an unselfish
readiness to help others, with the power at our disposal, to
the means which they need for their personal objects. He
who, for instance, in a momentary pecuniary difficulty helps
another with a loan, which the other can repay when con-
venient, or he who offers me a book for a scientific under-
taking, that I sought in vain in public libraries, or who at
the sacrifice of his time, and without reward, performs a work
for me, is helpful. But helpfulness as such has respect only to
the means, while ministering love has paid diligent regard
to the moral object. There is therefore also a helpfulness
to immoral objects. And again there is also a pressing and
burdensome helpfulness to moral objects.

§ 109.

In order to form ourselves to social humanity, it is especially,
and before all else, needful to develop and exercise in our-
selves the aclcnoidedgment of the personal worth of others, as
well as the acknowledgment of that which is proper to them
as a divine gift, — and something proceeding from God and
given by Him is in every man, — as also of that which the others
have inwardly gained (wrought out) and developed for them-
selves. The true recognition is not forced, so to say com-
pelled,— for then it were not different from respect, which is
something involuntary, — but is quite voluntary, rejoices in the
good present in others, and regards it with hearty satisfaction.
The recognition of the worth and of the excellences of others
develops modesty in us, or the consciousness of our own

246 PHILANTHEOPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

limitation, whereby, however, the consciousness of our own
worth (of our knowledge and ability) within this limitation is
by no means excluded. But in order to be able to recognise
the worth of others, it is necessary to develop a sense for the
most various individualities with which we come into rela-
tions, a sense for the manifold gifts and talents, a problem
which the Apostle Paul discusses in regard to the life of the
Church, in his doctrine of the many gifts and the one Spirit
(1 Cor. xii. 4-31; Eom. xii. 3-8; Eph. iv. 3-13). This
sense for human individualities is more or less bound in us
all, because we are, as it were, caught in our own individuality,
and therefore disposed with the standard thereof to measure
and value all other individualities. The condition of right
reciprocity (of right behaviour towards each other) is therefore
the mutual understanding of individualities. Without this
it will never — and all the less the more pronounced a per-
sonality is — come to a mutual receiving and giving. There
are many men from whom we could receive much, and from
whom we yet receive nothing, because we require something
else from them than they can give, and we are insusceptible
for this latter. And there are many to whom we could give
what would be of value to them, but who yet receive nothing
from us, because we give it in the wrong way. If, that is,
we would serve others, we must be able with self-denial to
transfer ourselves into their individuality, to serve them in
such a way as agrees with their peculiarity. But the natural
man in us has a propensity to seek satisfaction only for its
especial peculiarity ; it seeks its own, goes not beyond itself,
does not transport itself into that which is the other's.

In regard to unusual excellences, recognition becomes
admiration. But only for moral excellences can we in
admiration also feel love. True, indeed, we can wonder at
great talents, as we must maintain in general that no man
whom God Himself has distinguished can be indifferent to
us ; but we simply cannot feel love to mere talents and
mental gifts purely as such. In respect to the men from
whom we have received, whether immediately or mediately,
what served to rejoice and in any way to advance us, our
recognition rises to thankfulness, to personal acknowledgment
for what has been received, and to the necessity to prove our

PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE Of RIGHTEOUSNESS. 247

acknowledgment by deed. In very many cases this is impos-
sible to us, especially when great mental gifts, for instance,
higher knowledge and strengthening of the inner man, have
become ours through certain more eminent men; and then
our thankfulness must be limited to the feeling of love and
piety, perhaps also to the expression of it, as far as opportunity
is offered for the latter. But it is our duty, in respect to the
greater as to the less, to strive to develop in ourselves as well
susceptibility as thankfulness, thereby to fight against our
insusceptibility, our natural unthankfulness, so as to become
more attentive to ourselves and to all that occurs in us.
Would we in truth love men, and thereby attain to the true
joy of life, we must learn to recognise what is strange, to
admire and be thankful for it. Not to recognise and value
what is truly valuable, not to admire it, not to wish to thank
for it, is a sentiment that leads to inward desolation and
unfruitfulness. As in our relation to God the first thing is
to comport ourselves as receivers and acceptors, so this is the
first thing also in our relation to men. We begin with this,
that we receive from parents and teachers ; but this receptive
relation is to be continued through the whole life, in our
intercourse with the most various men, not only of the present
but also of the past. He that will not receive from men, will
not appropriate, will also never become adapted to give any-
thing to men, or to do anything in truth for men. And as
the beginning of all ungodliness and unrighteousness consists
in this, that men refuse to recognise God, will not accept and
appropriate His revelation, will not give thanks (Rom. i. 21),
so this their ungodliness and unrighteousness is continued by
this, that they refuse to that which is of divine origin in man
the due recognition, nay, deny it. One of the most serious
points of complaint, when once a reckoning is required of our
life, will be this : to have neglected the recognition of the
human, in pride or obstinate dislike, or else in mental torpor,
in illiberality and pusillanimity to have mistaken men. The
well-known Danish thinker and poet, Joh. Ludw. Heiberg, has
said with great truth : " The greatest misfortune is not to
have to dispense with recognition, but on the contrary to have
failed to accord it to others ; to have lived together and along
with noble characters, with excellent spirits, but whom, without

248 PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

respect, one overlooked as if they were everyday men, and
only when it is too late to become aware of one's own "blind-
ness." l And it may be added that, in respect to the every-
day men, so called, one is often apt to overlook or to ignore
what before God is valuable in them.

It is an old complaint that so little thankfulness is found
in the world, and that ingratitude is the world's reward. And
indeed we have ever occasion anew to think of the ten lepers
in the gospel, who had all implored the help of the Lord, who
also had all been healed, but of whom only one turned back
to give thanks, so that the Lord had to exclaim, " Were there
not ten cleansed ? but where are the nine ? " (Luke xvii. 1 1—
19). This " Where are the nine ? " recurs under many forms ;
and very frequently it is only a single Samaritan who offers
his thanks. But he who will work according to the example
of Christ, will not therefore grow weary to do good as far as
and where he can. As disciples of Christ, we know that we
are not to work for earthly reward, on which we can, from the
nature of this world, only very uncertainly reckon, but that
there is One who sees in secret the faithfulness with which
we labour. And that is for ourselves the chief thing.

§ HO.

What is said above of recognition admits of special applica-
tion to the Christian church-life, with its various gifts of grace
and services. We must here recall the word of the apostle
concerning the many gifts and the one Spirit, his exhortation
not to regard any single gift as alone valid and worthy, to
hold in honour the weaker members also, because they are
necessary for the whole. Much party spirit in the Church
proceeds exclusively from the lack of recognition, while one
recognises the revelation of the Spirit only in a single gift and
a single prominent personality, but is blind to the revelation
of the same Spirit in other gifts and other personalities. One
has an eye only for a single colour, but is blind to the many
various colours into which the one light breaks. One has
only an ear for one tongue, but not for the many tongues
through which the same Spirit bears witness to Himself.
1 Heiberg, Ueb&r Anerkennung, Prose "Works, IV. 497.

MERCY.

249

Mercy.

§ 111.

Christian philanthropy, in its unity with truth and righteous-
ness, finds its climax, its crown, in mercy, the deep and hearty
sympathy with human need, and likewise the will to help it.
Mercy is often taken as equivalent to grace, but is in truth a
more special determination of it. Grace is free love to those
who have no claim on it as something deserved, is especially
free love to sinners, to the unworthy. Mercy, again, is free
love to the wretched, and regards even sin mainly under the
point of view of human need and helplessness, regards it
therefore in a milder light : it pities the misery of sin. This
preponderant regard to helplessness, whether mental or bodily,
finds expression in an old symbol of mercy, namely, a naked
child, the most helpless of all creatures, which certainly, if no
one pays heed to it, is also the most wretched of all creatures.
In the heathen world true mercy was dead and unknown ; in
Israel only imperfectly known. But it was fully revealed in
its spiritual and bodily meaning, when the kindness of God our
Saviour, His philanthropy, appeared in Christ, and He redeemed
us, the most helpless of all, after His great mercy. He whom
we confess as our Saviour and example, is Himself the personal
mercy here below. In Him, as our reconciler, each one of us
is what he is of God's mercy ; and incessantly we all need
this mercy, in life and in death, and after death. But as
Christ is our reconciler and mediator, He has likewise left us
an example of mercy, in that His whole life on earth was
only a life of merciful love, during which He heartily regarded
all human misery, all our need, " went about doing good, and
healing all that were oppressed of the devil" (Acts x. 38).
And with this example of mercy, He has also left us the
prayer and exhortation of His mercy to succour the helpless :
" I was hungry, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, and ye
gave me drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took me in ; I was
naked, and ye clothed me ; I was sick, and ye visited me ; I
was in prison, and ye came unto me. For what ye have done
to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto
me" (Matt. xxv. 35 ff.). We would not imderstand these

250 MERCY.

words in their full meaning, their whole range, if we supposed
that they are to be understood exclusively of works of mercy
in reference to external, bodily need. There are very many
who do not need mere bodily help, but the more urgently
need a spiritual food and refreshment, or thirst for a cup of
water to refresh their languishing soul, or who need a spiritual
clothing. The spiritual and bodily import of mercy, embracing
the wlioU man, has also been at all times recognised in the
Church, and is expressed especially in the efforts for foreign
and home missions, in the loving zeal to help all the ignorant,
who are still sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, to
rescue the lost and abandoned. But there is no relation of
life in which the misery of this life does not appear in one
form or other, in which there is not at some time room for
manifestations of Christian mercy. As against those who set
too narrow limits to the idea of mercy, and think that it is
only to be mentioned when there is a high degree of bodily
need, say like the need of that man who went from Jerusalem
to Jericho, and fell among thieves — without appropriating the
deeper, spiritual sense of this story ; — in opposition to such a
conception, we say, in the words of the old mystic,1 "AH
poor, all sick, all heavy-laden, all the wretched, all sinners,
all the misery that is and was and shall yet be in the world,
gather all into thy heart's hospital, and have mercy on them."
We know indeed that in the strictest sense of the word only
One was fit for this, He, the heavenly Samaritan, who has had
mercy on us all.

Mercy does no injury to truth and righteousness, but rather
affirms and confirms them. It by no means closes its eyes to
sin and guilt. It pities all creatures, all the misfortune and
suffering with which they are surrounded. It would rescue
what can be rescued, heal what can be healed, help and com-
fort whatever can be helped and comforted, mollify and mitigate
wherever it is possible. A philanthropy without mercy, even
in the case where truth and righteousness do not fail it,
is not of the right kind, has — even if it show itself in more
than one respect as humanity — not yet advanced beyond the
cold region of the law and the letter, and is still far from that

1 David von Augsburg, in the 13th centurv. See Fr. Pfeiffer, Deutsche
Mijstiker, I. 340.

MERCY. 251

spiritual freedom, that self-determination from the inmost
heart, which constitute the highest, the essential likeness to
God. For God shows the freest self-determination proceeding
from His inmost depth of being, moves in the fullest sense
of the word after His heart, not so much in His creative, as
rather in His redeeming love, that lays hold of the lost.
And also human love, that is, truth and righteousness being
presupposed, shows itself in its highest freedom when it
appears as mercy.

" The quality of mercy is not strain'd ;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blest ;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."1

§ 112.

Collisions between mercy and righteousness are exclusively
founded in the entanglements of this life, and likewise in the
personal imperfection which is not able to fulfil various
requirements at the same time. We refer, for example, to
the cases of collision which we gave in the General Part
(§ 128), after Ferguson and Jacobi's statements: A boy lay
almost naked on the grave of his recently dead father: he
saw a man who was just going to his creditor to pay according
to promise a debt that had fallen due ; the man raised the
boy up, and applied to his benefit the sum which his creditor
was expecting. The latter was thus disappointed. In itself
we certainly do not disapprove this work of mercy ; but must
at the same time lament that that creditor was disappointed,
and had to suffer wrong. Such collisions, which remind us of
our personal imperfection, and the bad dependence in which
we find ourselves through our own fault, should not only
teach us this, that it is of little use to us to have fulfilled all
requirements of all external righteousness, as long as we with-
draw ourselves from those of mercy ; but likewise they should
call on us, as far as in us lies, so to arrange our relations that
we can satisfy the requirement of righteousness as well as
that of mercy. In God righteousness and mercy are found in
the most perfect harmony. God does not exercise mercy, as

1 Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act iv. Scene 1.

252 MERCY.

many falsely assume, by drawing a stroke through His right-
eousness, but so that by means of the atoning work of Christ
He has made it possible to Himself to show mercy without
injuring His righteousness.

Genuine mercy shows itself in an infinitude of modifications,
shows itself in many situations of life and relations, so that
its name is not mentioned at all, but it appears with veiled
face, as in incognito, in order the more easily to give to the
sufferer what it has to give ; it is akin to humility, which will
not be seen by men. It observes the finest and most indi-
vidual regards; and for this very reason ethics can express
no more than the most general points of view about its
procedure.

In relation to the sick and deeply troubled, our mercy
manifests itself by this, that we not only extend help and
support to them as we are able, but also, as far as we are fit
for it, and the others are susceptible of it, comfort them with
the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God
(2 Cor. i. 4). A humanity that is without Christianity can
indeed bring temporal help, can show compassion and sym-
pathy, but cannot truly comfort, can at most give a direction
to resignation, to submission under accident and fate, under
blind necessity. But the sufferer is only then comforted
when he learns to " humble himself not under fate, but under
the hand of God, that He may exalt him in due time, when
he learns to cast all his care upon God, because He careth
for him " (1 Pet. v. 6, V). In comforting, > the important
thing is not only the contents of the comfort, — however
weighty this may be, — but the manner. and way in which the
comfort is applied. The art of comforting is by no means an
easy one. With earnestness it must combine love and forbear-
ance ; for a bruised reed requires to be touched with a tender
hand. The comforter must not only work with the power of
the word, but with the pacifying power of the personality.
At times the still, silent sympathy we show to mourners may
operate more beneficially than words. This appears also to
be contained in the saying of the apostle, " Weep with those
that weep" (Eom. xii. 15). Even in this, that the mourner
is not alone with his mourning, but that others sincerely share
it, feel it also, sit beside him and weep with him, there lies a

MERCY. 253

mitigation, a lightening of the burden, which he is no more
bearing alone. The friends of Job comforted him far better
in the first seven days, while they sat silent beside him, than
afterwards, when they produced their ill-considered grounds of
comfort, which changed into accusations.

Towards the distressed and poor, mercy appears as benefi-
cence, which seeks to remove not merely the bodily need, but
that of the soul, the moral evil. True care of the poor
must have an educating character, and seek not only to help
the poor to food, clothing, and shelter, but to lead them to
work and pray. We therefore say with Vincent de Paul,
with Elizabeth Fry, and all who have regarded and exercised
the care of the poor from the standpoint of Christianity : the
soul of the care of the poor is the care of the souL It may
also be maintained that it was chiefly care for the souls, the
consciousness of the eternal destiny of man, whereby right
sympathy for the poor, and care for them as a universal duty,
was first introduced into the human race, and given effect to
in the world. Heathenism felt itself — as may be especially
seen in heathen Eome — under no obligations whatever in this
respect, but left the poor to their own fate ; and the highest
point that Eoman morality attained was this, that with Cicero
it gave the advice to impart to the stranger, provided one
could oneself dispense with the gift. But just because
Christianity teaches that God is love and mercy, that each
man has an infinite value in God's eyes, and is destined to
eternal bliss, that this life is a state of trial, a preparation for
the future, therefore it also obliges every man to mercy towards
his suffering brethren, in order that each one may do his part
by personal sacrifices, that they may become partakers of the
earthly conditions for a higher life. Just because the life of
each man upon earth is to be a life for the kingdom of God,
this object must be prayed and wrought for, that each man on
earth may have his daily bread. But if there is no kingdom
of God, if God is not worshipped as love and mercy, if man
has no eternal destiny, and human individualities are only
temporal and vanishing, then the chief reason has fallen away
why one should sacrifice himself and what he has in order to
help the poor. One cannot well see why it should be neces-
sary to make such sacrifices ; and the saying of the Eoman

254 MERCY.

poet Ovid may reckon upon applause in the widest circles :
" Wherefore should one give anything to the poor ? One
deprives oneself of what one gives, and only helps the other
to prolong a wretched life." It might perhaps be said to this,
that even if there is no future life, one must endeavour that
all shall enjoy the present life as much as possible. But in
practice this assumption does not hold good, because the rich,
if they possess their treasures only here, will certainly not
have the self-denial to divide their goods with the poor, and
therefore will hardly engage in ministering love. In practice
it will not be otherwise than in the old heathenism, where
the rich sought to establish themselves as securely and inde-
pendently as possible, and where it essentially belonged to
their repose and independence not to trouble themselves
about their suffering neighbours. Since the Christian Church,
which from its earliest beginnings, in all quietness, cared for
the poor, has become a power in the world, there arose as with
one stroke a multitude of various benevolent institutions for
the poor and suffering, as something hitherto unknown to the
world. The Emperor Julian, from his heathen-humanistic
standpoint, first made the attempt to establish the like in
opposition to the Christians, inasmuch as the benevolent
institutions of the Christians seemed to him like a standing
reproach against heathenism. It was the care for the salva-
tion of souls whereby the Christians were impelled to this
care for bodily welfare ; and this point of view, this principle,
must henceforth dominate the Christian care of the poor.

Now as regards the individual Christian, he must, after the
measure of his gifts, as of his external position in life, enter
into a personal relation to the poor as far as possible, that his
influence upon them may also become personal. And here
circumstances and relations may occur of so delicate a nature,
that it is an art as well to give in the right way as in the
right way to receive, which only the Spirit of Christ teaches.
But as those who possess the right gift for the help of the
poor cannot possibly enter into a personal relation with many
ut the same time, and as in our complicated social relations,
and with the great mass of poverty, it may easily happen that
our beneficence assumes an accidental character, and sinks to
mere almsgiving, it is of importance that the care of the poor be

MERCY. 255

organized, as is the case in the many voluntary societies that
have been formed for this object. As far as such societies work
with the right means and in the right spirit, it is the duty of
the individual to support them to the utmost of his power.

Of equivocal moral worth is all such beneficence as is care-
less in the choice of the means to reach its end. As examples
we mention the means so favoured and so frequently em-
ployed in our days, — the performing of plays and concerts, the
holding of a lottery or a bazaar for the good of the poor, or
for another charitable or even Christian object. By such
operations one declares at bottom to the public : " As you are
notoriously so egoistic and so sensuous that you cannot be
expected to do good even without the prospect of personal
advantage, we will hereby furnish you with an egoistic
motive which may induce you to the good to which you are
simply not to be brought by the pure and unalloyed motive
of philanthropy." To reach the good object, one uses a means
by which the moral motive is defiled. It will indeed be
replied that, as the world is as it is, in many cases one will
not obtain a more plentiful support otherwise than in this
way. The dollars come in at least, and the poor are
helped. Yet hereupon one cannot but remember that even if
the poor are helped, yet the charity itself by which help is
given has an extremely doubtful value. Christ says, " When
thou givest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right
hand doeth " (Matt. vi. 3). But here we have precisely the
opposite. With the one hand a gift is presented to the poor,
and the other is stretched out to receive the reward for it,
be it a ticket for a comedy, or a lottery ticket, and so on.
However many take part in this well-meaningly (bona fide),
yet it is to be wished that this impure form of charity were
displaced by another and pure one. At any rate, it may not
be superfluous to recall to mind that this form of charity is
very imperfect, that one is here on a very low step, and must
be conscious of it. The individual, however, must decide,
according to his personal moral standpoint, how far he can
and dare engage in such things without self-contradiction.1

1 Rothe, Ethik, III. 509 : "This method is indeed an insulting defilement of
charity. To seek to allure from a man a gift of love by means of a bait for his
egoism, is a wretched absurdity. — He who in good faith so exercises charity,

256 MERCY.

§ 113.

In relation to human sinfulness, which meets us even from
without in so many forms, and burdens us, mercy manifests
itself as forbearance. Forbearance is patience with the moral
imperfections of men. As God has forbearance with us in
His heart and shows it, temporizes with us, and grants us
time, so we also are to be forbearing towards men, and to
accustom ourselves to put up with, and bear with much from
them, without giving them up. In view of universal human
sinfulness, we should cultivate the concord and peacefulness
that prevents all needless conflict, and is the opposite of
quarrelsomeness, choler, positiveness, and obstinacy, and there-
fore is not possible without humility and gentleness. Gentle-
ness (soft mind) is the power of love to quench uprising
anger, to curb the passionate and hasty disposition. True,
we are not to purchase peace for every price, and must not
withdraw ourselves from the fight when this is necessary
I" If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably
with all men," Rom. xii. 18). There is also a justified anger,
a righteous indignation against the injustice of men, as we see
in Christ, who wielded the scourge to expel the dealers and
money-changers from the temple, and testified against the
Pharisees in words of thunder (Matt. xxi. 12 f.; John
ii. 14-17; Matt, xxiii. 13-39). But in the fight itself,
precisely where righteous anger breaks forth, should gentle-
ness and mildness approve themselves. Where insulted
righteousness sends forth its lightnings and thunders, gentle-
ness should show itself as the hidden watcher, placing bounds
and limits : Thus far shalt thou come and no farther ! as the
quietly ruling power that hinders anger from degenerating
into sinful wrath, an impure passion, an egoistic passionate-
ness, and labours to secure that zeal and righteousness remain
in the service of love. With the Saviour we find it always
thus ; but even in the greatest among His followers we find
it only in an imperfect degree, whereof the history of religious

may still do so ; but there are also those who in this way could only be maid
fide charitable ; and they are not to let themselves be deceived by a false dread
of the seeming lack of love, to become untrue to their conviction that the end
never can sanctify the means. "

MERCY. 257

and ecclesiastical controversies, and even Luther's history, bears
sufficient witness. Yet we ought all ever anew to strive after
it. Calm gentleness is different from that stoical self-control
and cold blood, which even in our days is so often praised in
public, and especially in political characters, and which mainly
springs from contempt of men — as, for instance, in a political
assembly a famous statesman cried out to the raging and
brutal opposition, " The utterance of your disapproval, gentle-
men, cannot rise to the height of my contempt ! " — but also
from the fear of sacrificing his own dignity in the eyes of
men. True gentleness, then, is self-control for the sake of
love. It proceeds from love to men, from the anxiety that
they, as only too easily happens, might be offended (that is,
provoked to sin), and from the fear of sacrificing not merely
personal dignity, but in undue anger at, and judging the
egoism of others, of falling from love itself, which were the
greatest injury and loss that we could suffer.

As against personal injuries, gentleness manifests itself in
this, that we renounce all requiting of evil with evil, yea, are
ready to endure injustice, in so far as we could only escape
from a definite suffering by likewise making it impossible for
us to overcome evil with good. Here is applicable the so
often misunderstood saying of the Sermon on the Mount :
" Ye have heard that it was said (to them of old), eye for eye,
tooth for tooth. But I say to you, that ye resist not evil ; but
if any one strike thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left
also ; and if any man will sue thee and take away thy coat,
let him have thy cloak also ; and if any one compel thee to go
with him a mile, go with him twain" (Matt. v. 38—41). By
these symbolical expressions the Lord will by no means say
that the right of retribution is invalid within the sphere of
civil righteousness, which would be as much as to say that
the sphere of civil righteousness itself, yea, the state, should
have an end. And this is the misunderstanding of the
Quakers, who would infer from the words quoted that a
Christian dare bring no action, perform no military service,
not even employ the slightest defence in peril, but must in
all frauds and insults continue purely passive. How incor-
rect this conception is, is shown by the personal example of
our Lord. For as the history of the Passion, in the trial

R

258 MEKCY.

before the high priest, brings Him before our eyes, one of the
servants of the same strikes Him on the cheek, but He does
not offer to him the other, but answers, " If I have spoken
evil, prove it ; but if I have spoken well, why smitest thou
me?" (John xviii. 22 f.; compare Acts xxii. 25). It is as
little the will of the Lord to impose needless sufferings on
His disciples, as to condemn them to a mere " passivity." A
Christian is never to suffer without at the same time in one
or other sense fighting, namely, " the good fight " (2 Tim. iv. 7) ;
is never to be passive without likewise being active. But
here also our Lord will conduct His disciples from the
bondage of the Mosaic law, under which the moral and the
juridical, the religious and the civil, are bound together into
immediate unity, over into His kingdom, in which not the
external law of right is to determine all, but the evangelical
command of love, where evil is to be overcome in another
way than in the way of strict right and of retribution, namely,
through the proper, inner might of good, that is, of love.
Therefore He expresses the requirement of gentleness with
more definiteness, that there be in a Christian an infinite
fountain of gentleness, that in him the possibilities of gentle,
peaceable love are never to be exhausted, that when we suffer
wrong we must be ready and willing to suffer still greater
wrong, provided that thus our suffering is the condition for
the good fight, in which we are to overcome the evil with
good (Eom. xii 21). If we consider the Lord under His
suffering, we can say that here, not indeed literally, but in a
higher spiritual sense, the word has been fulfilled : " If any
one smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left ; and if
any one compel you to go a mile, go with him twain." For
at no station of His Via Dolorosa did He grow weary of
suffering, was His gentleness and love of peace exhausted ;
at each of His stations of suffering He felt the impulse and
power to endure also the following still greater sufferings,
according to His Father's will, till all was fulfilled. And
therefore that word is fulfilled even in Christ Himself in the
highest degree, " The meek shall inherit the earth " (Matt,
v. 5). For in this very way, in the way of the cross, " He
received the strong for a prey " (Isa. liii. 1 3), He founded His
dominion over the world.

MERCY.

259

But gentleness and forbearance unite in mildness in judg-
ing and deciding. " Be merciful," says Christ ; " Judge not,
that ye be not judged" (Luke vi. 36 f.). This word He
speaks against the many unmerciful judgments which men
pass upon each other, against the people who see " the mote in
their brother's eye, but see not the beam in their own eye."
Yet love will by no means set aside righteousness, that is, the
critical eye for men's faults and shortcomings, but the "judge
not " in the mouth of the Lord will before all say that there
is something about which we cannot judge at all, wherefore
all judging about the inmost part of a personality is so
precarious ; and then, that where we can judge, we are not,
like the Pharisees, to place ourselves on a merely legal stand-
point, and assert righteousness without love, that rather we
are to seek out all, as well in the individuality of the other as
in the circumstances, that may any way serve to modify a
strict judgment. In a word, we are to view men in the light
that beams from the love of Christ, and consider that we
ourselves need a mild and merciful judgment

§ 114.

Even because we have experienced so great mercy from
God the Lord, and because we live in the kingdom of recon-
ciliation, we also are to be inclined and ready for the restora-
tion of brotherly fellowship where this was destroyed, willing
to agree with our adversary, to seek forgiveness where we
ourselves have sinned against him, willing ourselves to forgive.
The Lord has expressed the Christian duty of forgiveness in
the answer to the question that Peter addressed to Him,
" How often must I forgive my brother who sins against me ?
Till seven times?" (Matt, xviii. 21). The Pharisees taught
that one should forgive his neighbour thrice ; but if he then
still repeated his sin against us, one should forgive no more.
And Peter, then still entangled in Jewish externalism, thought
he already raised himself to a higher standpoint by pledging
himself that he would forgive till seven times. Then the
Lord answered, " I say unto thee, not seven times, but
seventy times seven." And by this He will lead him beyond
numbers and reckoning, will say to him that our forgiving

260 MERCY.

must have no limit definable by numbers, will lead him back
from all externalism to what is inward, the sentiment, will
make him conscious that in the heart of the Christian there
must flow an inexhaustible fountain of forgiveness, which must
never dry up, as in God's father-heart there flows a perennial
fountain of grace and of the forgiveness of sins. That narrow-
hearted counting and reckoning which the Lord opposes, is
still only too often found in men, in that they count how
often they have forgiven, as they are also wont to count their
good works, their works of mercy. The motive for the placable,
forgiving disposition, the Lord has laid down for us in the
parable of the servant deep in debt, to whom his lord of grace
remitted the enormous debt of ten thousand talents : " Thou
wicked servant, I forgave thee all this debt because thou
desiredst me : shouldest not thou also have had compassion
on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee ? " (Matt,
xviii. 33). And the guilt of our neighbour towards us is
ever related to our own guilt towards God, as a hundred
pence are related to ten thousand talents. Yet our forgiving
should by no means exclude correction, or that we first try
to convince the neighbour of the wrong that he has done us,
as we also should be ready to be convinced. But the way
and manner, the tone in which we correct the other, must
flow from the placable frame of mind. And if, in general, all
our dealings receive their worth, their right importance, only
through the way they are carried out, this especially applies
to our procedure when we show another his sin, in order
thereupon to be reconciled to him. Here it is important to
show that love that seeketh not her own, seeks not to humble
the opponent, but only to win him. And when we then
forgive, we are to forgive " from the heart," that it may not
result in a seeming forgiveness and seeming reconciliation.
We are to die to the hardness of our heart, which will not
forget injuries that have been done to us. And even if we
cannot forget in every sense of the word, yet the remembrance
of the injury suffered will lose its sting when we conjoin it
with another remembrance, namely, of the ten thousand pounds
which have been remitted to ourselves, with the remembrance
of the cross of Christ, and of this, that implacability is so
thoroughly offensive to our God, for this reason, that reconciling

MERCY. 261

love belongs to His inmost being. Therefore, to the petition,
" Forgive us our debts," in the prayer He taught His disciples,
the Saviour added, " as we forgive our debtors." This, how-
ever, He did not do in the sense that our forgiving is to be
the standard for that of God ; for then — so imperfect in fact
our forgiving ever is — we would never obtain the full
certainty of the forgiveness of our sins ; but in this sense, that
we internally bind ourselves in prayer to offer a sacrifice of
thanks because God forgives our many debts, in that we
forgive our debtors. And He has introduced these words into
the daily prayer, that we may be daily anew obligated to a
placable disposition. The Church Father Chrysostom speaks
in one of his sermons of people in the congregation who, when
they prayed the Lord's Prayer, after the petition, " Forgive us
our debts," omitted the following words, " as we forgive our
debtors." For, they said, we cannot, however, utter this
from the heart, and in prayer we do not say anything but
what is full truth in us. While admitting the last point,
namely, that a prayer in which our heart is not is unaccept-
able, he enforces upon them at the same time that we have
by no means prayed the Lord's Prayer, and dare not hope to
be heard if we mutilate His prayer, tear asunder what He has
joined together, and that we must diligently and daily exercise
ourselves to be able to speak these words also from the
bottom of our heart.

And even in cases where on the other side there exists no
susceptibility for forgiveness, no possibility of a mutual recon-
ciliation, where men have shut their hearts against us, this
sentiment should yet dominate in us, " Be not overcome by
evil, but overcome evil with good." But we let ourselves be
overcome by evil when our love grows cold, when we give
men up as unapproachable and irrecoverable, whom yet God
the Lord has not given up, and who all, like ourselves, stand
under God's forbearance. Therefore we are to love our
cnemiis, even those who hate, insult, and persecute us (Matt.
v. 44 f.), if we have such enemies at all. For we must not
confound with personal enemies those who are our opponents,
because, in this or that point of a different conviction from
us, they oppose or contest our efforts, or because they would
promote what is good in another way than we ; nor yet those

£62 MEECY.

whose individuality is so different from ours that we cannot
be sympathetically disposed to them. In relation to actual
and declared enemies, the chief rule is, that we for our part
shall remain in love, that the enmity must not be mutual,
and that we, as much as we can, make it known by deed that
we are not their enemies, and that we in our own heart
include them under the apostolic word, "Love hopetTi all
things " (1 Cor. xiii. 7). We are to hope in the possibilities
of good which are present even in our enemies, hope that he
who is now our enemy may yet get another disposition
towards us. And if we should err in this, yet we are not
deceived. For the chief thing is that our own soul remain in
love, that we be not induced to fall away from it.1 The sure
token that we love our enemies is this, that we can pray for
them from the heart.

But how does the case stand when the question is not so
much of our personal enemies, as rather of the enemies of the
truth, of Christ, of God's kingdom ? First, it must be well
considered whether they are in very deed enemies of Christ ;
for in this respect we are capable of going very far astray, and
that in more ways than one. With actual enemies of Christ
we can indeed have no sort of communion of spirit and heart.
Still we are, even in respect to such people, to continue in
love, as our Lord and Saviour Himself continues in love ; and
it is not His blame, but only their own, if His love becomes
a judgment to them. And we are to include even them in
that saying, " Love hopeth all things," namely, all that can
and should be hoped according to God's word. Only one
dare not indeed hope that enmity to Christ will gradually
disappear in this world. We have in what precedes expressed
it as our view, that the human race in the course of its
historical development is to be regarded under the image of
wheat and tares, that it will ever be divided into two camps,
for and against Christ. But so long as time still lasts, and
this aeon of history, we must in regard to single individuals,
concerning whose inmost heart we are not in a position to
judge, hold fast to the proposition that he who to-day is an
enemy, may to-morrow become a friend. A Saul can become

1 Compare S. Kierkegaard in his book, Works of Love, the discourse on the
words, " Love hopeth all things."

EDIFYING EXAMPLE. 263

a Paul. There is no external token of the elect, and we must
therefore, as a universal rule, maintain and adhere to this, to
deny to no man the possibility of salvation. Therefore, even
enemies of Christ may become an object of our intercession,
as He Himself prayed on the cross, " Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do."

Nevertheless, one must acknowledge that there may be
such an enmity, so bitter a hate against Christ, that it becomes
doubtful whether in these cases intercession can take place.
Here the utterance of the Apostle John is applicable (1 John
v. 16), "There is a sin unto death; I do not say that he
shall pray for it." This is a saying that is to be understood
from the connection in which it occurs, and into which
especially one must not put more than it actually contains.
The apostle, that is, does not forbid to pray for a man, even
when he has committed a sin unto death ; but he also does
not command such intercession as a Christian duty, does not
say one should pray in such a case. By the sin unto death
we are, that is, to understand falling away from Christ, the
utmost degree of which is that sin which cannot be forgiven.
The apostle will not lay it as a duty upon Christians to pray
in cases of sin unto death, because being heard is then un-
certain ; and he had immediately before declared the uncon-
ditional certainty of being heard if we pray for a " brother "
(that is, a believing Christian) who commits a sin " not unto
death." While he on this uncertainty will make it no one's
duty to intercede, he leaves it to our personal feeling whether
we can pray in such cases, that is, can pray from the heart
and with confidence.

Edifying Example.
§ 115.

If the best that a man can do for his fellow-man is this,
to lead him to communion with Christ, to confirm him in this
communion, to serve him as " a way to the Way " ; and if
direct influence through word and testimony is frequently
subjected to many limitations, there is an indirect influence

20 4 EDIFYING EXAMPLE.

in this connection, which is possible to every Christian, and
which can be required of each — the influence through ex-
ample and edifying walk. Teaching is ineffectual without
life, that is, without example ; but the latter is more effectual
and powerful than many words. Example works like a quiet
power, unconscious to itself and others, works like a power of
nature ; wherefore also the ancients said that in the neigh-
bourhood of a godly man one becomes godly oneself, as in
the neighbourhood of a brave warrior one becomes oneself
courageous. But, in the same way, example works also in
evil; in that from bad men a quiet, unconscious, and imper-
ceptibly destructive power goes forth on their surroundings,
like pestiferous vapours, which the bystanders cannot but
inhale. Therefore the Lord requires of His disciples, " Let
your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father in heaven " (Matt. v. 1 6).
The Apostle Peter requires of teachers that they be examples
to the flock (1 Pet. v. 3), and Paul exhorts the churches,
" Be ye followers of me " (Phil. iii. 1 7). Peter speaks of
wives who without the word have by their walk won their
heathen husbands for the gospel (1 Pet. iii. 1). And the
Church in her festal cycle has appointed a day in memory
of the saints. Although the evangelical Church rejects all
invocation of the saints, yet she teaches (Conf. August. 21),
" that we should think of the saints to confirm faith, and that
we take example of their good works, each according to his
calling." Now there is indeed only one perfect example,
namely Christ ; but it does not contradict this that there are
also relative examples (those of the second order), whose
validity as patterns of exemplary importance consists in this,
that they are copies of Christ. But as without the greatest
self-deception no single Christian can imagine that he is in
his person a perfect copy of Christ, but can only strive to
become so, so what is exemplary and edifying in the life of a
Christian can ever only be in this, that his life expresses the
Christian effort after the ideal The same apostle who says,
" Dear brethren, be ye followers of me," says also, " Not as
though I had already attained, either were already perfect ;
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which
also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus " (Phil. iii. 1 2). But

EDIFYING EXAMPLE. 265

where this effort is present and shows itself, it works also as
a hidden power to the edifying of others, as it likewise also
works critically or judicially in its surroundings. In the
same measure as in the walk of a Christian such genuine
effort after the Christian ideal is expressed, his life, through
its mere existence and self-unfolding, necessarily serves as an
offence to many, for whose God-alienated and worldly life his
mere existence is as a reproach (compare Eph. v. 11—13;
Wisdom, ii. 12-16).

One may fitly raise the sceptical question whether we can
properly speak of a special duty to give a good example, or
whether one must not on the contrary say that there is no
such duty at all, inasmuch as example occurs of itself as
the natural consequence of the fulfilment of duty pervading
the whole life, and therefore cannot be the object of a
particular duty. Surely every Christian, apart from the
example that he thereby gives to others, is bound to be that
to which God has called him in his place and in his particular
calling ; and then it will follow of itself, that a good example
is also given without any special effort for it. Nay, the good
example works the more powerfully the less he that gives it
is conscious of it, the more it resembles the fragrance that a
noble plant exhales, without any further tendency, and only
fulfilling the law of its being. And no doubt one must so
far sustain this objection, that one certainly is not to do
anything merely for the sake of example, that one would not
in any case do. Nay, so to give example would lead to a
reprovable, theatrical, and hypocritical representation, as with
the Pharisees, who prayed and gave alms in order to exhibit
to the people an example of holiness, or as now-a-days with
such as go to church or to the Lord's table only for a good
example. This must all be done because it is in itself good
and according to duty. But to do it only for example, while
one does not feel himself bound to do it, and yet by his
example would bind others, is vain hypocrisy. Besides, it
cannot be shown that Christ performed any action (for
instance, an observance of the law) merely for example's sake.
To this it cannot be objected that, on that last evening
(John xiii.), He washed the disciples' feet, and afterwards
said, " I have given you an example, that ye should do as I

266 EDIFYING EXAMPLE.

have done to you." For it must not be overlooked that this
transaction had the import of a symbolic action, which should
represent to the disciples the ministering love that had
appeared in Him, and His relation to them, to each one
specially, should bring home to them a truth, a doctrine, and
so far belonged to the prophetic office of Christ.

But while we thus support the position that nothing should
be done for mere example, we can nevertheless speak of , the
duty to give a good example, if we, what since Fichte has
found universal acceptance, make a difference between the
matter and the form of the action. If we, that is, look to the
matter of actions, or to what should be done, it can never be
duty to do anything for example's sake ; for we are only to
do what in itself is duty. But, so far as our actions emerge
into the community to which we belong, it becomes duty to
undertake them in the consciousness that they can exercise
an influence on our surroundings, as well in an edifying as in a
destructive direction ; as regards therefore the form, the way
and manner, in which we carry them out, we must pay careful
regard to the religious and moral state of the men among
whom we live, that our actions, as far as possible, may serve
for their edification, and not their destruction. And here the
negative duty lies on us, to guard ourselves well against
proceeding in so regardless a way, lest our actions, even when
they in themselves aim at good, arouse misunderstanding and
offence, become a stumblingblock to others, so that either the
ideas of men become confused, or even their conviction of the
true and good sustains a shock, and they thereby get occasion
to sin. True, we can never prevent such from taking offence,
as either wish to take it, or else must take it, because they, in
a word, are hostile in spirit to the truth. But it is a require-
ment of love to give no offence to those to whom none should
be given, namely, those unconfirmed or not sufficiently in-
structed and enlightened. If, accordingly, it was said above
that the good example must be given unconsciously, and the
more unconscious the more effectual it is, in that the agent
disappears exclusively in the thing itself in ministering
devotion and love to the kingdom of God, does good only for
the sake of good, because good has become his second nature ;
this view is still to be combined with another, namely, with

EDIFYING EXAMPLE. 267

the view that, so far as our actions emerge into the community,
the agent must be conscious of an incessant regard for the
moral state and spiritual stage of the surrounding community,
that thus our actions in this respect must bear the stamp
of the highest prudence. That unconsciousness and unde-
signedness of the example given will assert itself nevertheless,
where the agent is a genuine character; for in the genuine
character there is ever found a union of freedom and necessity,
of will and nature. And that requirement that the example
shall be given unconsciously, means, rightly understood, not,
say, that a Christian be ever found in a state of childlike,
naive lack of self-consciousness, but only that he must not be
conscious of his personal perfection in such a way as to look
back unduly on himself, and to view himself in the glass of
his self-love.

Of Christ it is said, " He pleased not Himself" (Eom. xv. 3).
Hereby it is said that it was natural to Christ uninterruptedly
to look away from Himself, and as uninterruptedly to look
to God's cause and the salvation of men ; wherefore also He
did not "spare Himself" (Matt. xvi. 22, Greek), nor avoided
the enmity and scorn of the world. Applying that utterance
to the present question, we say Christ could not be otherwise
than conscious of His perfection, yea, He had to bear witness
of His sinlessness and glory, had to leave behind the example
of the perfect life. But this His consciousness was ever
dominated by the feeling of being the servant of God the
Lord on earth, dominated by the deepest feeling of dependence,
by childlike humility before His heavenly Father, by the
disposition of obedience and of self-denial. As a copy, the
same is to be repeated in His followers. A Christian who
gives a good example must indeed be conscious of a relative
perfection ; for what is absolutely imperfect can serve for no
one's edification. But this consciousness must be dominated
by self-denial and obedience in his calling, within which he
has to contend enough against his sinfulness and imperfection,
so that he must be penetrated by the deepest humility. But
the more richly the individual is furnished by nature or by
grace, the wider the compass in which a personality is adapted
and called to serve as a pattern to the brethren, the stronger
is the temptation to let false self-consciousness arise. Great

268 LOVE TO THE DEAD.

ecclesiastical personalities, reforming men, cannot enough lay
to heart the saying, " Christ pleased not Himself," a word
that finds manifold application. Founders of sects and parties
in the Church have ever pleased themselves, and placed them-
selves in prominence.

Love to the Dead.
§116.

Human love embraces not only the living but also the dead,
and among the latter not only those with whom we ourselves
were personally connected, but also those whom our eye has
never seen, but whom we notwithstanding love ; but above
all, it embraces those with whom we are connected in the
communion of Christ. The Christian Church celebrates a day
in memory of the saints who have already entered the heavenly
community ; and the Catholic Church likewise celebrates an
All Souls' Day, on which children tarry by the graves of
their parents, as well as the husband by the grave of his
departed spouse, the bridegroom by that of his bride, the
friend by that of his friend. In the Protestant Church also,
in many places, a day is consecrated to the memory of the
dead. If we are united in hearty love with our departed
ones, love must follow them even beyond the grave. And
although all earthly and sensuous intercourse with them is
broken off, still we remain connected with them in the same
kingdom ; for Christ reigns over the living and the dead, and
the Holy Spirit is He that forms the community, as well here
as yonder, and in that Spirit we are continually united with
them.

In our relation to the dead, much is left to religious
presentiment, but which cannot fitly be raised out of this
twilight to the clearness of definite conceptions, so that we
are not in a position to derive ethical precepts therefrom.
But it may well be declared as an ethical requirement, that
we keep faith towards the dead with whom we were truly
connected in love, let them not sink into the night of forget-
fulness, but faithfully preserve their memory. "We should,
and can also in loving remembrance continue intercourse with

LOVE TO THE DEAD. 269

them, yea, also, many a time still receive from them counsel,
exhortation, warning, strengthening for the good fight appointed
to us. We should hold their memory in honour and protect
it, as also be ready to defend it should it be unjustly assailed.
If we were united in the same spirit with them, we should,
according to the ability given us, continue their work in
promoting God's kingdom, do our part, that what they have
sowed and planted may grow and develop even after their
departure, and all this in the hope of meeting again, and of
reunion in the eternal mansions, where those who really belong
to each other will also find one another. Scripture tells us
that, under certain conditions, we shall then be received and
entertained by the friends whom we have gained in the present
world (Luke xvi. 9).

§ 117.

We mourn at the grave, and know nothing of that stoical
coldness and insensibility on the departure of our nearest.
Christ wept at the grave of Lazarus ; He blamed not Mary
Magdalene, who on Easter morning walked and wept in the
garden ; and the first Christians held a great lamentation over
Stephen, the first Christian martyr (Acts viii. 2). But we
"sorrow not even as others who have no hope" (1 Thess. iv.
13). And in closing up our love with the hope of eternal
life, we are preparing ourselves for our departure. The older
we grow, the more frequently do we experience that the
earthly bonds by which we are bound with beloved men are
being unbound by death. But in the same measure the roots
are also unbound by which we ourselves have grown into the
present world. By every such experience we are drawn ever
nearer to that world into which we ourselves are to be " in a
little while" transplanted. We feel ourselves ever more
intimately connected with those who have preceded us, and
who now, freed from all earthly hindrances and accidents,
live in that land of glory and of immortality, to which we
look upward in hope.

With the memory of our dead the question connects itself,
" May the dead be prayed for ? " The abuses which are
connected in the Eomish Church with the doctrine of the
intermediate state between death and the day of judgment,

270 LOVE TO THE DEAD.

caused in the Lutheran Church the whole doctrine of the
intermediate state to be thrust back and placed in the shade,
and therewith also intercession for the dead, which certainly
in the Eomish soul-niasses comes into the foreground in so
unevangelical a way. If with the moment of death the fate
of the soul in the future life is irrevocably decided, no doubt
it is not only useless but unbecoming to pray in regard to that
in which no change is possible. In the Protestant theology
of the present time, the doctrine of the intermediate state has
again asserted itself, although it must be allowed that a
universal agreement by no means prevails regarding it. But
if one believes in an intermediate state in the realm of the
dead, in which there still remains a development for those
who during this life have belonged to Christ, and if not for
all, yet for many of those who have lived without Christ, a
conversion is still possible, namely, for those who have had no
opportunity here below to hear the gospel, or to whom it has
not been announced and brought nigh in the right and effectual
way, — whereby we are led to the descent of Christ into the
realm of the dead, — then love will not be held back from
commending the dead to the mercy of God, and making
intercession for them. Moreover, this intercession is not
expressly rejected and forbidden in the Lutheran Church, as
also the above-mentioned assertion of a final decision taking
place at the moment of death, on the salvation and damnation
of the soul, is by no means expressly elevated to a doctrine
of the Church in the confessional writings of the time of the
Eeformation. Eather it is said, in the " Apology of the
(Augsburg) Confession," while the sacrifice of the mass is
rejected : " So we know that the ancients (namely in the
post-apostolic church) speak of prayer for the dead, which
we do not forbid " (Scimus, veteres loqui de oratione pro mortuis,
quam nos non prohibemus),1 however little such intercession
was favoured and supported by the Eeformation. Besides, it
must be acknowledged that Holy Scripture is very reserved
on this point, when express declarations are sought for. Yet
we read in 2 Tim. i. 16—18 the following words of the apostle:
— " The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus ; for
he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain ; but

1 Libri sn/mbolici ecclesice tvang. Ed. C. A. Hase (Lips. 1827), p. 274,

LOVE TO THE DEAD.

271

when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently and
found me. The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy
of ike Lord in that day" When the apostle expressly wishes
and prays the Lord to show mercy to the house of Onesiphorus,
it is to be assumed that Onesiphorus himself was then dead.
For him even the apostle prays that the Lord would let him
find mercy at that day, namely, at the last day, which ever
hovered before the apostle's eyes. But if that is how the
matter stands, then we have here an apostolic intercession for
the dead. But especially we must draw attention to the
petition, " Thy kingdom come," which the Lord Himself has
taught us to pray in His prayer. For in this petition we pray
not only that God's kingdom may come to us, but that it may
come in all regions of the creation, so also in the domain of the
dead, till the day of perfection. And if we in our daily
petition, " Thy kingdom come," pray to God also for the
souls of all the heathen who have passed away without
knowing Christ, that the kingdom of God may come to them
likewise, should we not also be able to include the petition
for those with whom we were connected here below in the
Lord ? and should we not also be justified in including the
petition for those for whose salvation we were anxious at their
departure, while we likewise commit all things to the mercy
and wisdom of God ? Finally, reference may be made to
1 Tim. ii. 1, where the apostle exhorts that intercession be
made for all men. It is not said, " For all men who are still
in the flesh," that is, in this earthly life, but for all men ; and
accordingly is added, " For this is good and acceptable in
the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be
saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."

That the dead, or more correctly the living, the blessed,
pray yonder for us, is an idea which quite naturally arises in
the Christian consciousness, and is also by no means in con-
tradiction to Holy Scripture. For if the rich man (Luke xvi.
27f., 30) prays in hell for his brethren on earth, should not
much more the blessed who live in the love of Christ
remember us in their prayers ?

272 LOVE TO THE DEAD.

§ H8.

If we love and honour the departed as immortal spirits, we
must also honour them by taking under our care the earthly
matter which was the dwelling of the spirit here below. The
great importance which Christianity attaches to the body,
makes it for Christians a sacred duty to show becoming respect
to the corpse. In this body the dead has lived his earthly
life ; in it he has done his day's work, borne the burden of
life and enjoyed its pleasures ; and if he was a Christian, this
his body has been a temple of God's Spirit. As the most
worthy kind of burial, the Church has from the earliest times
commended interment to the Christian consciousness and
feeling. Although Holy Scripture furnishes no express
command to inter, yet this emerges as a necessary consequence
of Gen. iii. 19, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou
return." Burial is also presupposed throughout, when Scrip-
ture speaks in its figurative language of death and resurrection
(the seed, the corn of wheat, that falls into the ground and
dies : " It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body,"
John xii. 24 ; 1 Cor. xv. 44).

Interment preserves the mean between two other mutually
opposed ways of dealing with human corpses. The one is
embalming, which at times has also found entrance into
Christendom, and which aims by human art to preserve the
lifeless body, and, contrary to God's order, which has appointed
it to dissolution, will conjure up a seeming life, whereby it is
sought, as it were, to snatch his prey from death. The other
treatment is cremation, which will not preserve the body,
but hasten dissolution by an artificial practice, yea, cause this
to be done in the utmost haste, in urgent speed, as soon as
possible send the corpse out of the world, that phenomenon
so uncomfortable to the natural man. Interment constitutes
the right mean between these two extremes. We practise no
arts either to preserve the body or to annihilate it, but
deliver it to the dissolving power of nature, and let nature
in all quiet and secrecy perform the work of annihilation.1
We know that death is something else and more than a mere

1 Compare Schleiermacher's Rede bei Eimceihung eines Kirchhofes. Predigten,
Bd. IV. 864.

LOVE TO THE DEAD. 273

natural process, that it is the wages of sin (Eom. VL 23). We
bow in humility under God's order, but have a sacred dread
to enter upon voluntary experiments which should invade
that law of dissolution that is confirmed by the Divine word,
" Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," whereby
certainly not a process of burning is indicated, but dissolution
in the bosom of the earth. And on the grave we plant the
cross, which reminds us of sin, and death as the wages of sin,
but likewise of this, that the crucified Christ has taken its
sting from death, and by His resurrection has changed death
into an entrance into the heavenly kingdom.

When in our days voices are heard urging that burial be
exchanged for cremation, we can only recognise in them
utterances of a modern heathenism. For visibly the spokesmen
of this agitation lack all religious presuppositions, regarding
death as a mere process of nature, and relying exclusively
upon " sanitary " grounds, about which there may be infinite
disputations pro and contra. That the Christian Church —
even granting that unchristianized states should accept the
proposed procedure — will never engage in it, may be predicted
with confidence. The Church cannot burn her dead, and let
this custom take the place of the previous mode of burial ;
cannot break with her old venerable tradition, without like-
wise committing to the same fire also her figurative speech
founded on the Scripture, which throughout speaks of death
and resurrection, under presupposition of the burial of the
dead. She would then have to acquire a new figurative
language, and, for instance, appropriate the bird Phoenix from
the heathen myth, which indeed for a time wandered into
the Christian Church, an idea of the human spirit, how it
raises itself from the ashes, and by its own power conquers
death. That the Church shall sacrifice her old mode of speech,
derived from the Lord Himself and His apostles, in which
she expresses her ground-thoughts of earthly and heavenly
things, and — a thing quite impossible — shall frame to herself
a new view and language, is indeed to make a witless and
absurd requirement of her.

The opening and dismembering of human bodies (dissection
and anatomizing), in itself offensive not only to Christian but
also to heathen feeling, can only appear admissible for the

274 LOVE TO POSTERITY.

sake of medical science, namely, as a means that may lead to
the mitigation of human sufferings. But respect for the
human body requires that these investigations be reduced to
what is absolutely necessary. Also, the body of no man must
be made a sacrifice to this practice, except his own consent
may be presupposed. The survivors must be assured that
in this they are undertaking nothing opposed to the mind and
will of the dead. Only with those who have been executed
as criminals, and so have partly lost their human rights, can
an exception here be made. In all others it must be regarded
as an invasion of their rights as men. To employ the bodies
of poor people in such experiments, without consent previously
obtained, is a rude regardlessness. Former times were, upon
the whole, in regard to the execution of dissections, far more
reserved than the present. The Greeks confined themselves
to anatomizing the beasts. If hereby they were inferior to
the moderns in thorough knowledge of the human organism,
yet at any rate their respect for man's body, their dread to
violate it, deserves to be remembered to-day, in opposition to
the materialistic regardless way of thinking, which appears in
so many in our time, to whom the difference between the
bodies of men and those of beasts is entirely indifferent.1

Love to Posterity.
§ 119.

As we, spiritually as well as physically, not only hang
together with the generations that have gone before, but also
with those that follow, our love must also embrace posterity,
and even, besides those who as children, as young people, grow

1 Wuttke, Christl. S'Menlehre, II. 383. The antipathy that many Christians
feel against experimenting with the bodies of the dead, was expressed in a
peculiar way by Franz Baader. On his deathbed he forbade them to bring him
under the dissecting-knife after he expired. " If they " (that is, the physicians)
"knew nothing before," he said, "they shall also know nothing afterwards."
But his deeper reason against dissection was his view that the approaching
process of dissolution is of no smaller import than the formative process at the
birth of the body (Baader's Biographic und Briefwechsel. hrsg. von Hoffmann^
S. 130).

LOVE TO POSTERITY. 275

up under our eyes, those also who are not yet born. It is a
truth which holds in great as in small things, of whole peoples
as also of families and individuals, that the present generation
in many respects is living on the capital (material and
intellectual) which it has inherited, as also those now alive in
many respects must pay a debt which a previous generation
has contracted. Therefore it must lie on our hearts to leave
to our children and successors a good and blessed inheritance.
Above all, we should be eagerly desirous that we may leave
God's word to them as the best inheritance, by at once letting
the power of that word penetrate into all our works and
undertakings, our manners and institutions, that hereby a good
way may be made for those who come after us. The Apostle
Peter gives us an example in this respect, saying in his Second
Epistle to the Churches (i. 13-15), "Yea, I think it meet,
as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting
you in remembrance ; knowing that shortly I must put off
this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed
me. Moreover, I will endeavour that ye may be able after
my decease to have these things always in remembrance."
Here we have a great example of care for posterity. The
apostle will that they to whom he writes (" who have received
like precious faith with him") and their children have some-
thing to which to hold when he himself shall be no more with
them. And the same has been the leading thought with the
remaining apostles and evangelists, authors of writings which
should be propagated from generation to generation in the
Church. So should we also, each in the calling wherein he
is called, aim at and study that we leave our children what
can serve to strengthen and advance them. And although
we can leave our children nothing else whatever than Christian
exhortation and an honourable name, even that will prove a
blessing to them.

But as we should strive to leave to our successors a fruitful
inheritance, yea, as we, if possible, in self-denial and in the
elevating feeling of our unity with the race, should not only
in the literal but especially in the spiritual sense, plant trees
whose fruits and shadows may benefit not ourselves but our
successors ; so should we also beware of incurring any guilt
which we cannot ourselves atone for, but which would lie

276 LOVE TO THE IMPERSONAL CREATURE.

heavy on the race that comes after us. But the gravest
guilt is that which we contract by our sins, our pride, our
levity, our swindling, our sensuality, our luxury and pleasure-
seeking. And it often happens that the consequences of sins
committed by the fathers, as well in a physical as a moral
sense, come first in the children to their full and frightful
development. Therefore both the community and the indi-
vidual have to be on their guard that they do not fall into a
debt by their sins, the payment and satisfaction for which
they must leave to the following generation. To the many
flagitious words that have been spoken upon earth, belongs
that one also of the time of Louis xv., Apres nous le deluge, :
" The flood may break in, if only we happily escape, and it
cannot snatch us away ! " But likewise there lies at the
foundation of this word a terrible self-deception, pointing to a
state of security of the worst kind.

Love to the Impersonal Creature.
§ 120.

Although we cannot indeed speak of love to the impersonal
creature in the same sense as of love to personal being, yet no
one will deny that we can speak of a love to nature, of a
sympathetic intercourse with nature, and of a joy in it, without
one needing, therefore, to honour the creature > more than the
Creator. The Christian contemplation and regard for nature
forms the opposite of that ascetic-pessimist disregard and
lowering of nature, wherein corporality is regarded as evil,
and in every beauty of nature a demoniac temptation is seen.
But it is equally opposed to the heathen-optimistic view,
which will not see the disturbance that has undeniably
pressed into nature, which assumes that " the vanity "
(perishableness) to which nature is subjected, and which
incessantly destroys nature's own structure and objects (as, for
instance, when the worm secretly devours the blossom, the
worm of sickness and of death gnaws at the root of human life,
just when both should develop in their beauty), or that the
horrifying war of all against all, as the animal world pre-

LOVE TO THE IMPERSONAL CREATURE. 277

sents it to our eyes, the " struggle for existence," in which the
stronger creature tortures and exterminates the weaker, or that
organic beings, like those swarms of insects spreading mischief,
that also all vermin belong to the perfection which we should
admire in nature. Thus optimism seeks to comfort us with
this, that the ground of our complaint disappears as soon as
we place ourselves on the standpoint of the whole ; for then we
would find that the said imperfections and devastations help
to educe even the perfection of the whole.1 But no one has
hitherto been able to make the connection clear, which must
bind together all the presumed contributions to perfection, as
little as this perfection itself has been actually proved.
Moreover, in other relations, in other questions, a mode of
presentation will hardly be allowed, according to which a
work on the whole is to be called perfect, while it embraces
an infinitude of most imperfect, bad details.

The Christian view of nature perceives amidst all the
perishableness of nature, the traces of the eternal power and
godhead of the Lord (Eom. i. 20). And in intercourse with
nature, which, the more familiar one becomes with it, presents
us with the more images and parables of the spiritual world,
as well images of good as of evil, of conflict as of peace, the
Christian mind lays itself open to the internally liberating,
purifying, heart and life renewing impressions, which partly
the loftiness and grandeur of creation, partly its harmonious
beauty and loveliness, produces, and yields itself likewise
to the quiet power of the romantic, whereby the same nature
points beyond itself, and gives us a presentiment of a higher
nature not yet revealed. That life in and with nature has
its great importance for our aesthetic education, and by means
of this for the ethical, this view retains its truth, although
only within certain limits, for the Christian also, although he
will never allow that nature can give us what only the Spirit
of regeneration is able to give, who also first enables us to see
nature in the right light.

1 Die Flohe und "Wanzen, (The fleas and bugs,

Wie sie allo bcitragen — zum Ganzen. How they all help — the whole.)

278 LOVE TO THE IMPERSONAL CREATUEE.

§ 121.

When we speak of duties towards nature, these must be
conceived according to their proper, deeper sense, as duties
towards the Creative Will, which has appointed man as lord
of nature, and has thereby bound him to treat nature in
harmony with the creative thought, partly as a means for the
moral problems of man, partly as a relative self-object. There-
fore all arbitrariness in the way of treating nature, all useless
spoiling, all wanton destruction, is evil and to be rejected. In
one word we can say, man must treat nature with humanity,
that is, in the way that agrees with the proper dignity of
man, that is, with the dignity of human nature. Then he
will also treat the single products of nature, each of the crea-
tures according to its natural constitution and the destiny
given to it by the Creator; and while he treats nature as
means for his objects, remember likewise that all life is also
an object in itself. As God's image on earth, man should not
only mirror God's righteousness, which in the whole compass
of creation maintains law and order, measure and limit, but
also the goodness of God, who " is good to all ; and His
tender mercies are over all His works" (Ps. cxlv. 9). For
God has no pleasure in the death and destruction of that
which lives, but heartily grants to every living being the short
life, the short joy and refreshment, of which it is susceptible,
and that in the midst of all the dying and passing away,
amid all the mutual torture and destruction to which nature
is subjected — a curse that cannot be removed till the kingdom
of God shall be perfected, and the glorious liberty of the
children of God shall be revealed (Rom. viii. 18 ff.). This
finds a special application to our relation to the beasts, with
whom we must have a natural sympathy, so far as they,
although not with self-consciousness, yet with consciousness,
can feel as well pleasure as pain. Man is indeed justified,
yea bound, to kill beasts, partly in self-defence, partly that
he may satisfy his needs. But then all unnecessary cruelty
must be avoided. Eegardless harshness and cruelty towards
the beasts, which finds a pleasure in subjecting them to torture,
is devilish. Cruelty to animals, overtaxing beasts of burden
for greater gain, deserves the name of unrighteousness and

LOVE TO THE IMPERSONAL CREATURE.

279

rude violence. In opposition to the cruelty to animals,
which in our time is practised to no small extent, so that a
society has been founded to counteract it, reference can be
made to the Mosaic law, whose prescriptions on the treatment
of beasts breathe a humanity and mildness which in this
respect pervades the whole Old Testament. "A righteous
man regardeth the life of his bea!st," we are told in the
Proverbs of Solomon (xii. 10). He affords them not only
the needful care, but grants them also the needful rest.
Compare the utterance of the Lord in the prophet Jonah, iv.
11: " And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city,
wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot
discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also
much cattle ?" The humane, respectful treatment of nature
must also be shown in regard to the lower beasts, which the
naturalist has especially to lay to heart. It is told of Leibnitz
that he once observed an insect long and carefully under the
microscope, but then carefully carried it back again to its leaf.
This procedure serves as an example of the most tender
humanity, which corresponds as well to the dignity of man as
of nature (namely, of the living creatures). Nature is hereby
recognised at the same time as means for man's investigation
and effort, and also as self-object. Leibnitz in his optimism
was even conscious of having received a benefit from that
insect, in so far as he had been instructed by it.

To employ beasts as means for our pleasures is allowed
indeed, provided the pleasures are not cruel and inhuman,
which is not always sufficiently considered. While hunting,
for example, is unconditionally permissible, as long as it aims at
the extermination of noxious beasts (like the Calydonian boar),
or the satisfaction of human needs, it might on careful con-
sideration seem doubtful whether the chase, which is merely
arranged for the sake of hunting, admits of being justified as
a humane pleasure worthy of man, which especially applies to
so-called race-hunting or coursing.

Sir Walter Scott said of himself in his later years : J " Now
too I go no more to hunt, though I was formerly a very good
shot; but in some way I never was quite happy in this
pleasure. I always felt uncomfortable when I had hit a poor

1 Eberty, Walter Scott, II. 36.

280 LOVE TO THE IMPERSONAL CREATURE.

bird, which then cast its dying eye upon me when I raised it,
as if it would reproach me with its death. I will not
represent myself as more merciful than other people ; but
no habitude could root out of me this feeling of cruelty in-
flicted. Now that I can follow my inclination without fear
of making myself ridiculous, I declare openly that it gives
me much greater pleasure to see the birds happily flying about
in the free air above me." True, he adds to this : " Yet this
feeling is by no means so strong in me as that I should, for
instance, prevent my son from being a keen sportsman."
"Without doubt, Scott, who attached very great importance to
social usage, entertained the fear that his son might become
the object of aristocratic criticism, if he persuaded him to
desist from the noble passion.

So there may well be some ground to doubt whether it is
admissible to enclose birds (especially those indigenous with
us) in a cage, and to force them to a mode of life that 13
quite contrary to their nature, and whether Schopenhauer,
who hated men but loved the beasts, is not perhaps right,
when he maintains that many Buddhists in this stand higher
than many Christians, inasmuch as the former on feast-days,
or when they have experienced some joy, go to the market,
buy up birds, but then open their cages at the city gate, and
let them fly away into the free air.

A question which we dare not here pass over is this, Are,
for instance, vivisections to be approved, in which a living
creature (for example, a dog or a rabbit) is done to death amid
the most dreadful torments, that amid these tortures natural-
historical observations may be made for enriching science ?
Granted that really a vivisection is absolutely necessary to
gain insight that may become salutary for the life and health
of man, we do not venture to declare it inadmissible. But
then there is also a so-called science which, merely for the
satisfaction of an interest that is not specially distinguish-
able from ordinary curiosity, employs such animal tortures,
which are to be viewed as quite abominable. True, indeed,
one hears it said : It can never be known whether one may
not perhaps discover something in a vivisection that possibly
might be useful for human life or health. But we cannot
persuade ourselves that an experiment in which an innocent

LOVE TO THE IMPERSONAL CREATURE. 281

creature becomes the prey to the most dreadful sufferings, is
sufficiently justified by pointing to an indefinite and accidental
possibility. To justify an action which must at least cost
every one great self-conquest, where sympathy with living
creatures is not fully suppressed, and for which at any rate
only a higher regard to humanity can supply a motive — for
this, a well-grounded prospect is requisite that a really existing
need will thereby be met. A vivisection must only be carried
out in cases where, after the ripest consideration, it has be-
come indeed a matter of conscience, and on this presupposition
it will but seldom occur. How many vivisections have been
quite unconscientiously undertaken, only that a vain and
empty pleasure in experimenting may be satisfied ! How
frequently is nature stretched upon the rack, that one might
make himself important with a bit of " exact science " ! We
know also indeed the remark that even mere knowledge is in
itself a good to man, and has a value in itself, even if it find
no immediate practical application. But not to speak of this,
that much of what man loves to call science is of the most
trifling import, yet all knowledge in the end must be at the
service of the object of humanity, in which service knowledge
in any case only forms a single element, that must now be
onesidedly cultivated at the cost of other essential elements.
The investigator of nature is first and before all a man, and
only afterwards an investigator of nature. And sympathy,
feeling with the living creature, the feeling of our relationship
with them, resting on the unity of the life of nature, forms
one of the fundamental constituents of genuine humanity.
The naturalist must not, in order to gain a knowledge of very
subordinate, doubtful, and vanishing value, make himself the
gaoler of a fellow-creature, and along with that unhappy creature
sacrifice his own deliberately suppressed humanity on the altar
of natural science, not even when one might thereby gain a
famous name, yea, the happiness to be held up in some
journal of natural science as one of the men who have made
a contribution to the infinite array of the facts of natural
science. Truly great naturalists, like Blumenbach, have also
expressed themselves to this effect, and insisted that one
should only proceed to vivisections extremely seldom, namely,
only in most weighty investigations, promising an immediate

282 SELF-LOVE IN TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS.

benefit.1 Legislation must put limits to cruelty to animals,
and thereby also to the misconduct that is committed by
vivisections.

CHRISTIAN SELF-LOVE.

Self-Love in Truth and Righteousness.
§ 122.

Devotion to the kingdom of God outside of us, to the com-
munity, to our neighbour, to the whole creation, must not be
unlimited, but must have its limits, its measure, conditioned
by our devotion to the kingdom of God in ourselves, to my
own God-ordained ideal, by care for my personal relation to
God, my salvation, and my perfection ; and so by my effort
to become what God has destined me to be. As the devotion
of love may not be without healthy self-forgetfulness, so it
must likewise be accompanied by a healthy self-assertion, a
right interest in one's own self. He who will work and
labour only for the kingdom of God outside him, but neglects
to labour for the individual formation of the kingdom of God
in his own personality, will not be even fit in truth to be
and to effect something for others ; for only the powerful,
independent individuality understands how to love and to
devote himself. But especially must it be remembered that
ministering love is by no means a mere service of man, but
above all God's service, and that this essentially embraces all
that belongs to the kingdom of God in us, whereby that kingdom
should be planted and developed within our own personality.
And thus there results the conception of Christian self-love.
It is devotion to the ethical ideal, hovering before the indi-
viduality, to the ideal of ministering love, in its unity with
the ideal of freedom and blessedness, and that in this definite,
individual form. This self-love attains its full outer form
not otherwise than by long and severe labour, an earnest
struggle against our natural sinful individuality, which herein
places so great and ever new hindrances in the way.

When we said above that love to men must be inseparably

1 Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena, II. 400.

SELF-LOVE IN TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. 283

connected \\ith love as well to truth as to righteousness, this
applies also to self-love. In the effort to work out the ideal
of our own personality, we must be true to ourselves, that we
may know what we should properly be according to God's will
and appointment (our peculiarity, our talent, our calling), and
what hinders us from actually being it — a knowledge which
we gain in the hours of contemplation and of prayer, as also
amid the experiences of practical life. We must tell ourselves
the truth, and hear the truth from the mouth of others, be
able to bear it, keep heart and ears open for the voices and
testimonies of the truth, must " try the spirits, whether they
are of God " (1 John iv. 1), and prosecute our enlightenment,
our growth in knowledge. We must, further, be also just to
ourselves, and that not only in so far as we assert, preserve,
and defend that right of the personality which God has be-
stowed on us, as well in the kingdom of nature as in that of
grace ; but also by judging ourselves in righteousness after the
word of God, mindful of that word of the apostle (1 Cor. xi.
31), " If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged ;"
must fight against all unrighteousness that cleaves to our
existence, our abnormalities, so that we, comforting ourselves
with the righteousness of faith, may likewise be in earnest
with the righteousness of life. To this righteousness of life
it belongs that our natural disposition be more and more
brought under the dominion of grace, that our faults of
temperament be gradually done away by the power of the
educating grace of God. Although these faults never fully
disappear in the present life, yet the history of God's kingdom
shows us, in many comforting examples, what His grace can
bring to pass under the labour of man's free will. The
sanguine temperament in the Apostle Peter, which made him
so fickle and unreliable, that he even denied his Lord and
Master, was transformed by grace, so that later it became the
ministering and supporting foundation for that fiery enthusiasm
of faith, that ever fresh young labour in the ministry of God's
kingdom. He with the lightly moved temperament, formerly
a pliant reed, became the rock on which the Lord has built
His Church. For now his fiery being, his life in the present
moment, without thought and fear of what is coming — it is no
more the unsteady, easily shaken thing it was. The choleric

284 COMPASSION WITH OURSELVES.

temperament in Paul, which made him at one time a fanatic,
became, through the power of grace, the ministering and
supporting foundation for the world-vanquishing heroism of
faith and hope, which drove him over land and sea to the ends
of the then known world, in order to plant the gospel among
the heathen peoples, in the midst of dangers and troubles.
His firm, inflexible, energetic will, is now no longer the
egoistic will of former times. He is transformed and bound
in the love of Christ, which seeks not her own, and makes
him fit to become all things to all men. And innumerable
other examples can be added to these from the earliest times
to the present. To the righteousness of life which we are to
work out in ourselves, this also belongs, that all the elements
of the personal life get justice and attain the right relation to
each other, the right equipoise, that all in our life be in the
right place and in the right measure. Here, then, it is of
importance that we prosecute a rightly understood " moderate
morality," that extremes be avoided, and we be found in the
right mean, not an external, but the true inner mean. But the
inmost mean in all, the true centre of life, is the divine thought
of wisdom.

Compassion with Ourselves.
§ 123.

But in this work of realizing our ideal qf personality,
presupposing it to be actually carried out in truth and right-
eousness, it cannot but be that we — and that the more, the
more in earnest we are about it — make many sad experiences
in ourselves in regard to that " bottomless depth of corruption"
which lies hidden in our old man, to all the unrighteousness
and finer untruth which is revealed to us, the more we increase
in right self-knowledge, our many defeats and our small
progress, the constant recurrence of our former faults, with the
laying off of which, as it seems we are making no progress
whatever, our uselessness and incapacity. Many a time we
cannot avoid feeling a deep compassion with ourselves, that is,
not only repentance, which is inseparable from self-accusation,
yea, is frequently combined with anger, with indignation at

COMPASSION WITH CUES ELVES. 285

ourselves, but also genuine compassion with the misery, the
wretchedness of the state in which we are, the wide distance
between what we are and what we would like to be. If only
this compassion with ourselves does not degenerate into morbid
reflection and self-contemplation, or into weak and fruitless
complainings, or even into that self-satisfaction and vanity of
spurious pietism, it is an essential element of right self-love,
and a weighty basis of sanctification. We designate it, there-
fore, as the sacred compassion with ourselves, which we must
not let sink in false self-complacency, in Laodicean lukewarm-
ness (" I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of
nothing," Kev. iii. 1 7) ; but which we must just as little
confound with that perverted, merely worldly compassion with
ourselves, to which we are only too much inclined, because we
are far too anxious for our earthly wishes and dreams of
happiness. That men feel compassion with themselves is a
very usual thing ; but as a rule, it is of this world. One
laments about himself, mourns, complains, sobs and weeps over
his thousandfold sorrows, for ruined happiness, for poverty,
want, and death, for deceived hopes, misconception, and injury,
unfortunate love, that inexhaustible theme for the lyric poet's
feeling of compassion with himself, for so many temporal
losses. But the tears of sensitive compassion which men weep
over themselves, or over others, have often only a doubtful value,
because sin and the misery of sin, in which one is involved, is
entirely left out of account. " Weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves and for your children," said Christ, on His way to
Golgotha, to the daughters of Jerusalem (Luke xxiii. 28).
With these words He will awaken sacred compassion with
ourselves. This we should not only feel in our pre-Christian
state, while the goodness of God is leading us to repentance
(conversion ; Eom. ii. 4), but even so also in our Christian
state. No Christian, so long as he wanders here on earth, has
done with his regret and repentance, with the pain, " the godly
sorrow" (2 Cor. vii. 10), that it is ever still so amiss with us,
that so much in us is still hindered and bound, so much that
must still sob and complain, that longs for redemption and
awaits it (Eom. viii. 23). There is no single Christian on
earth who in this respect has gone out of mourning. " 0
wretched man that I am," exclaims the great apostle, " who

286 COMPASSION WITH OUKSELVES.

shall deliver me from the body of this death ?" (Kom. vii. 24).
He thus speaks, groaning and mourning in his inmost being
over himself; but he also raises himself above this, in that he
at once adds, " I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord,"
and thus gives us a pattern of what in this is the normal
state.

And this exclamation of the apostle, "O wretched man
that I am," is a tone which — modified indeed according to
individual differences — must resound through the life of
every Christian. In the life also of those who hitherto are
only engaged in the search of Christianity, we hear it,
although not with full distinctness. In all deeper natures,
who earnestly seek the solution of the riddle of their personal
life, we meet with this compassion with themselves which can
only find its right expression in the above words of the
apostle, when these are also uttered in the apostle's sense. " I
feel a deep sorrow and compassion with myself," says Mynster,
in the introduction to his Contemplations, when he is still in
the vestibule of Christianity, and is depicting the moods and
movements of mind leading to it, " as often as I think of all
that I suffered, even when the world deemed me happy.
Many a time my eye fills with tears when I consider my
child in its cradle: Shalt thou also suffer what I have suffered?
Shall a sword likewise pierce through thy soul also ?" And
Petrarch says : " When I expatiate in my quiet thoughts, I
am possessed by so keen a compassion with myself, that I
must often weep aloud." Human individualities are indeed
very different from each other, and the same thing cannot
possibly occur in all. But one may well maintain, that he
who has felt nothing akin to this within himself, who has
remained an entire stranger to such a state, is not adapted for
Christianity. But when any one has become sincerely a
Christian, his complaint has also learnt to understand itself in
those words of the apostle, and apprehended them also in the
apostle's spirit. And if we then say with him, " 0 wretched
man that I am," we must likewise be able to say with him,
" I thank God, through Jesus Christ my Lord," — thank Him
for this, that He has also shown me mercy, has heartily in-
terested Himself in me, and has internally given the pledge and
seal thereon : He will do so also in future. "We repeat, that

COMPASSION WITH OURSELVES. 287

that sacred compassion with ourselves must not degenerate
into vain sentimentality, into a soft life of feeling. Bather it
should awaken us to be ever inwardly renewed in thankfulness
and in faith in the mercy of God, to be renewed in longing
after perfection, and in earnest work on the problem of life,
which our God has set us ; that we, encouraged, work on in
hope and in patience with ourselves, which, however, is by no
means the same thing as if one might lay his hands in his
bosom and yield to an abominable laissez aller. But as
" Eome was not built in a day," it needs time and patience
that beings, so imperfect and sinful as we, may be built up
anew, yea, transformed, to become holy in spirit, soul, and
body, which in this earthly existence ever remains but a
fragmentary work. God the Lord must herein show un-
utterable patience with us ; and we should have patience with
ourselves.

And then, compassion with ourselves should also lead us to
feel compassion and pity for others, and thereby become fitted
also to co-operate, that human need far and near may be
supplied. Here an alternate action occurs. Only when we
feel a thorough compassion for ourselves, have recognised in
ourselves in what the misery properly consists, the dark secret
of life (or, as people say, " where the shoe pinches us "), only
then can we feel a thorough compassion with others. But, on
the other hand, it must be said : only when we have a thorough
compassion with the need of others, with the misery of
humanity, when we in entire self-forgetfulness can give our-
selves to the need of strangers, can take up into our heart all
the misery, all the woe of humanity, can our compassion with
ourselves also in the same manner be purified from false
egoism and small narrow-mindedness, and gain a truly higher
and spiritual character. While we feel ourselves as individuals,
we are likewise to feel ourselves members of the body of the
entire human community, we are also to be capable of suffer-
ing for others, for the whole, and keep alive in us the feeling
that the individual has to seek and finds his comfort even in
that which has been given for comfort to all the world.

288 COMPASSION WITH OURSELVES.

§124.

Schopenhauer, who in his doctrine of unhappiness directs
his view with special interest to compassion, and is of the
opinion that all love is at bottom nothing but compassion
(namely, with the universal unhappiness), attaches a special
importance to compassion with ourselves, and even maintains
that all weeping, the whole stream of human tears, has its
proper source nowhere else than in compassion with ourselves.
We will take occasion from this paradoxical contention to go
more fully into our view of the limited importance belonging
to the conception of compassion with ourselves.

According to Schopenhauer, we weep because we make our
sufferings, our difficulties, the object of our reflection, grasp
them in the imagination, and then feel ourselves such unhappy
and pitiable creatures, that we are seized with compassion,
with oppressive pity for ourselves, which finds by tears an
alleviation, an outlet. Little children may confirm this, in
that, when they suffer any pain, they for the most part only
begin to weep much when they are commiserated, so that
they do not so much weep for the pain itself as for the
imagination of it. If this imagination is more keenly excited
in them, they feel themselves indescribably unhappy, and
become the object of their own sincere compassion. Schopen-
hauer further thinks that when tears are drawn from us, not
by our own, but by others' sufferings, this only happens by
our setting ourselves, through means of the fancy, vividly in
the place of the sufferers, or as, for example, in cases of death,
seeing in that one fate the fate of all humanity, consequently
also, and above all, our own fate (?), and so at bottom,
although by a longer roundabout way, weeping from com-
passion with ourselves. Now, while we quite acknowledge
that an element of truth is contained in this theory, yet we
cannot, in the first place, convince ourselves that all human
tears find their adequate explanation in compassion, whether
with ourselves or with others. True, indeed, compassion is to
be viewed as a chief source of human tears. But if one be
not prepossessed and entangled by a metaphysical principle,
which must be carried through at all events, and in spite of
the reality, life and experience will show us that there aro

COMPASSION WITH OURSELVES. 289

also tears of joy, tears of admiration and emotion, of adoration
and thankfulness, which are pure tears of humility, so far as
we in our weakness and poverty conceive the good and joyful,
the great, glorious, and delightful, that we experience, as a
grace; and our finite ego in contact with grace melts, as it
were, and dissolves in tears for this undeserved glorious thing
that befalls us. In that grace makes us conscious of our own
triviality and unworthiness, it gives us likewise an internal
elevation, which is not the case with compassion. But in the
next place, we cannot at all see that all compassion with the
need of others is at bottom and especially compassion with
our own, so that we ever, although by a roundabout way,
should only weep for ourselves or in our own cause.1 This
view hangs together, indeed, with Schopenhauer's at once
pantheistic and egoistic presuppositions, but does not harmonize
with reality. We allow, indeed, that in order to have a com-
passion with the sufferings of others, we ourselves must have
in our nature, in our own individuality, a susceptibility for
these sufferings and pains, as otherwise we would lack the key
to them, the condition for understanding them, as it is even said
of our Saviour, that He " can have compassion with our weak-
ness, because He was in all points tempted like as we are (tcaff
O/AOIOTIJTO), yet without sin" (Heb. iv. 15). But one is not
yet hereby justified in saying that we in the fate of others
mainly see our own, and that all compassion with others is
only an indirect compassion with ourselves, whereby all its
importance and originality is withdrawn from compassion with
others. We say, on the contrary : We are not mere individuals,
only living to ourselves and to our own self-interest ; we are
as individuals also members of human society, and can there-
fore feel with that whole and universality, can also shed tears
in its cause and for its sake. There is, indeed, a compassion
with others to which Schopenhauer's contention may apply,
that it is essentially only a compassion with ourselves, so far
as we, on seeing the sufferings of others, think above all of
ourselves, of our own either actual or at least possible and
threatening fate. But then there is also a compassion with

1 " Weeping is — compassion with oneself, or compassion thrown back upon
its point of departure " (Schopenhauer, die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,
I. 445).

T

290 COMPASSION WITH OUESELVES.

others, in which individual regard for ourselves entirely with-
draws into the background. Let it be even allowed that
compassion with ourselves stands by the side of our compassion
with others, harmonizes with it, yet it is quite a different
thing to make the egoistic compassion with ourselves the chief
thing. True, Schopenhauer speaks repeatedly of an unselfish
love, in which we make no difference between ourselves and
others, so far, namely, as we pantheistically melt with them
into the All-One ; but at any rate we must designate his ex-
planation of human weeping as most one-sided and misleading.
There are indeed tears of righteousness, of indignation, of
bitterness, for the injustice suffered by others, where, neverthe-
less, regard for ourselves, the sense of the injustice done to
ourselves, remains predominant. But there are also tears of
indignation and bitterness where the thought of ourselves is
pressed into the background, and is by no means that which
essentially determines — tears as original and immediate as those
which our eye sheds for a wrong committed on ourselves.
Then it is not ourselves, so to speak, that weep, but the
totality that weeps in us for all that injustice, all that
oppression of the human, all that lying and craftiness which
hinders the true and good on earth. There are tears of love,
which at bottom only self-love, yea, the lower love of self, has
elicited ; but there are also tears of love, of which in the
strictest sense it can be said, Love seeketh not her own.
Who will maintain that Christ wept for Himself when He
wept for the people who would not recognise the things that
belonged to their peace (Luke xix. 41 ff.), that people that
had been appointed and chosen to so great a glory, but should
soon, with all their great memories, fall into the hand of their
enemies ? He wept as He who bore the world's sin, as the
Saviour of the world, as the Head of humanity. Or who will
maintain that He wept for Himself when He wept in that
hour of mourning at Bethany, and at the grave of Lazarus,
where He, through and beyond the mourning of the single
family, saw all the woe which had come into this world by
death, where the whole power of death and of corruption stood
before His eyes ? Here genuine sympathy is presented to us,
that is, compassion with the need of men, of the whole world,
and that in its entire originality, its most proper value, its

COMPASSION WITH OURSELVES. 291

glory. But then, as in Christ all elements of the personality
and of the personal life meet with justice, there appears in Him
the autopathetic also, that is, His individual compassion with
Himself. This is expressed especially in that passage of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, v. 7, where, in unmistakeable reference
to Gethsemane, to the hour in which His soul strove in keen
anguish and was sorrowful unto death, it is said, " Who in the
days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and suppli-
cations, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able
to save Him from death." But just in Gethsemane we see
that both this vivid compassion with Himself in His suffering,
and His compassionate Saviour's-love to the race, whose sin
and guilt He bears upon His heart, are most wonderfully,
yea, inscrutably intertwined. And when we direct our view
to the disciples and followers of Christ, we find that in the
measure that their life is more fully penetrated by the re-
deeming and sanctifying influences of Christ, those two
elements, the sympathetic and the autopathetic, compassion
with others and compassion with himself, ever also har-
moniously interpenetrate, whereby, however, it is not excluded
that in the course of life, and amid its various situations,
these contraries many a time emerge in their relatively in-
dependent importance and validity. So with the Apostle Paul.
The same man who, in purely individual compassion with
himself and his soul's need, says, "0 wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " testifies
in another mood, yet in the course of the same epistle (ix. 2,3),
" I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for
my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh " (if, that is,
the children of Israel were thereby to be brought to salvation
in Christ). He here fully felt himself a member of the people
Israel, so that individual interest for his own person entirely
withdraws. And so we should all, in the communion of
Christ, grow up to this, as well to feel compassion with our-
selves, to weep for ourselves, to say with Paul, " 0 wretched
man that I am ! " as also to add our thanks for God's mercy
to us. But also we should be educated for this, that, with
repression of individual self - interest, we can weep over
Jerusalem, for the misery of men, of the people, of the wide

292 COMPASSION WITH OUKSELVES.

world ; but thereupon also let this grief and sorrow pass into
a hearty, "I thank God through Jesus Christ," — for this,
namely, that His kingdom is still coming. And this twofold
mood of the mind holds good not only in the highest, the
religious sphere, but the one as well as the other asserts itself
also in the lower, the so-called merely human relations. There
are purely individual tears, of which we can say with the poet —

" And have I also wept alone,
The pain of it is all my own. "

But there are also genuine and justifiable tears for pains which
are not our own.

Whether Christ ever wept tears of joy we know not, as
nothing has been told us of this. But He appeared as the
personal grace, in order to draw forth tears of joy and thank-
fulness, of admiration and adoration, from publicans and
sinners, from the spiritually poor, the humble in heart. But
here also it may be said : there are not merely tears of joy
for what we have personally experienced. There are also
tears of joy which, without special regard to ourselves and what
is ours, are wept for the sake of others, of the people, yea, of
the whole world.

After the present discussion, then,, we absolutely cannot
agree with the paradox of Schopenhauer. If we were to agree
to a partial concession, perhaps it might be allowed that the
most of " the many sublunary tears " are not witnesses of
humble joy and thankfulness, nor of sympathetic joy, not
witnesses of admiration and inner elevation, but of compassion ;
and that again the latter, for the most part, do not spring from
sympathy with others, but from sympathy with ourselves ;
that, in fine, by far the most of these are begotten by a break-
down of earthly happiness, a wound inflicted on our flesh and
blood. Yet one would err were one to admit this position
without limitation, and were without more ado to apply so far
from pleasing a view to the whole human race. There are,
that is, in the compass of the history of humanity, very
different times. There are times, the organic periods in history,
in which the sympathetic, devotion and self-sacrifice, life in the
whole and for the whole, for great universal objects, and for
the religious, the sacred problems of humanity, is much more
powerful, more generally diffused and prevalent, than in other

THE EAKTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING.

293

times in which egoism shows itself predominant ; fellowship
is dissolved by a bad individualism, the individual knows only
his own personal joy, only his own pain. By this various
character of the times, the contemplative view is necessarily
modified. We will not, indeed, attempt to count human tears,
to give the statistics of them. There is Another and a Higher
here who counts them. But our comfort against every dis-
heartening view of the race is this, that the love of Christ,
with unutterable forbearance, continues to develop far and
near its redeeming efficacy ; that His kingdom truly comes,
although, as at least it appears to our limited view, so very
slowly; that it yet comes in many places where we see
nothing of it; and that we will yet one day see, to our
surprise, that this kingdom is far greater, and embraces far
more, than we are commonly disposed to admit.

The Earthly and the Heavenly Calling.
§125.

The life-problem that God has given us embraces at the
same time devotion to the community, and devotion to the
ideal of our individuality determined by God Himself, a
problem that is set to each one by his calling, understanding
by this not merely the earthly, but especially also the heavenly
calling, the religious destination of each one, which is the
universal human, which on this earth should be carried out in
all forms of human life, and thereby approve itself as the
iQligions-ethical. In his calling the individual is to serve
the community ; and the most essential service which the
individual is in a position to render to society, is not to
squander his powers for all manner of secondary things, but
to accomplish something effectual in his calling. But in his
calling the individual is also to find the deepest self-satisfaction,
and to work out his personality.

The earthly calling, whether this be found in the family
circle, or in the state and in the civil community, or in the
Church, or whether it be found in the service of art or science,
is the finite, the temporal form within which the heavenly and

294 THE EAETHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING.

therewith the universal-human calling on earth, is to be realized,
is to gain hold and limitation. Every calling is justified, when
as a service it co-operates for the problem of the totality, and
the universal-human (the one thing that is needful for all)
can be realized by means of it. The earthly calling rests
partly on the individuality and the talent, partly on the special
divine leading, that makes itself known through certain ex-
ternal circumstances and relations. It is it that establishes
inequality among men, that places an illimitable multiplicity
of differences between men, while the heavenly calling, which
is to be fulfilled within the sphere of those earthly callings,
in spite of individual differences, makes men alike, remains the
same for all and each. While we, as regards the heavenly
calling, cannot be in doubt what God's will for us is, this is
by no means the case with the earthly calling. For each one
the most earnest problem must be this : in the choice of the
earthly calling to attain to clear consciousness as to what is
God's good and acceptable will with him. It is a sad pheno-
menon, often recurring in human life, that men do not find
their right and proper calling, that not a few fail in their
earthly calling because through circumstances, family rela-
tions, favourable prospects, they let themselves be drawn into
a career to which they are not called at all, or because they
have conceived an unhappy love for a calling for which, how-
ever, the requisite gifts are denied them. How many have
imagined that they heard the voice of the Spirit calling them
to be poets or artists, have pursued an ideal that was not
appointed for them, and thereby have missed the goal for
which they were destined ! They resemble the man who in
the morning enters on his journey on the highway, but lets
himself be drawn aside from it to catch some bird that allures
him upon sideways and footpaths, hunts over meadows and
brooks, through wood and thicket, round extensive lakes, till
he at last remarks that the hours are fled, and that it is now
mid-day, or perhaps he even becomes aware that it is after-
noon, and already the sun is sinking lower and lower to the
horizon, and — the bird is not caught. There are others who
easily find their earthly calling, because early in life's morning
the fairest bird alights upon their shoulder, and does not leave
them again, but who do not become aware of the heavenly

THE EAETHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING.

295

calling, or do not find it, because this earth with its glories
is enough for them; and others who do not find the heavenly
calling because the world with its troubles, amid the fatiguing
toil of duty, suffices them, and leaves no time for anything
more. Hence so many unfinished and incomplete, so many
half and quarter human existences.

§ 126.

To tear asunder the heavenly calling from the earthly,
or conversely, alike deserves the name of unrighteousness.
Asceticism (life in pious exercises), so far as it asserts itself
as an independent mode of life, places the destination of the
earthly existence not in the junction of the heavenly with the
earthly, but in dying to the earthly, which is merely destined
to be sacrificed, that is, burned. Eenunciation, resignation, is
regarded as the destination of the earthly existence. So in
the life of hermits and monks, especially of the East, which
is from ancient times the home of asceticism. For with the
monks of the West, especially the Benedictines, the ascetic
ideal does not appear in its absolute purity, as they likewise
wrought for objects of culture, as for the reclaiming of waste
lands, for agriculture and gardening, for the preservation of
classical literature, and for the instruction of youth in their
own schools. This is a principle altogether separating from
asceticism ; it is the principle of humanity, that here breaks
through, although held under strictly ascetic discipline. But
the more consistently the ascetic ideal is pursued, it will
everywhere become the more evident that an existence untrue
in itself proceeds therefrom. The ascetic will, that is, seize
the infinite, outside and independent of the finite ; and by
casting finitude behind him, he robs himself of the condition
for getting the other as his own. He lacks, as it were, the
vessel to receive and bear it, and is overwhelmed, as it were,
by the infinite. As the ascetic will live exclusively and im-
mediately for the heavenly calling, which is the universal-
human, his life can acquire no truly individual character, but
is lost in the effort to become a disciple of Christ, a follower
of Christ, a child of God, but in pure (abstract) generality. For
the earthly calling is awanting as the temporal form by means

296 THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING.

of which the children of eternity are to be brought up and
developed. And hence it arises that the ascetic so often ends
by sinking into the pantheistic ocean of mysticism. The
suppression of the individuality, the lack of true and free
individuality, characterizes throughout the whole monkish life.
The rule of the order clothes all monks in the same uniform.
And although the many orders of monks present a great
difference in their organization, the most manifold modifications,
yet herein we can rather speak of the particular than of indi-
vidual differences.

In the domain of Protestantism, the life one-sidedly dedicated
to the heavenly calling cannot properly emerge in the forms
named, especially not in the externality of monasticism. Yet
it shows something corresponding to this in pietism and
methodism. Pietism in the Protestant Church is the exclusive
piety which will acknowledge nothing but what is immediately
religious. The truth in pietism is this, that man's life should
be lived for the heavenly calling, that for each man one, thing
is needful. But while it thus has an open eye for the universal
human destination, namely the religious, it lacks the eye for
the ethical, which is inseparable from that, for the multiplicity
and free movement of man's life. It forgets that in the
heavenly calling we are to live not only for the future life
beyond, but also for the present, and that the heavenly calling
embraces the ethical side of the whole life of man. It fastens
its gaze on the One in such wise that the many and manifold
entirely vanishes from it. This disregard of the manifold has
indeed its importance in the beginning of the Christian life,
but is not destined always to remain. In this, pietism con-
stitutes an opposition to mysticism. For while mysticism
likewise lets the gaze rest upon the One, but with this will
anticipate the final goal of the Christian life, namely, the
everlasting rest in the perfection of eternal life, pietism stops
at the beginning, at the revolution of the soul, its movement
away from the world to Christ ; and that must indeed, in the
nature of the case, be a world-renouncing movement. This
movement, this first rush to the kingdom of God, pietism
incessantly and again and again brings about, as is especially
observed in the so-called revival preachers, who, preaching re-
pentance and conversion Sunday by Sunday, make their hearers

THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING. 29*7

repeat this first movement from the world to Christ without
rightly leading them deeper into the Christian life itself. As
pietism thus stops at the first beginning, its ethics, despite all
talk of the life and the fruits of faith, can only turn out extremely
defective. The problems of the earthly life are limited to the
most indispensably necessary. For pietism there exists no
free realm of humanity, full of life. To the great spheres of
humanity, to state, art, and science, its attitude is that of
refusal and condemnation, or of absolute indifference. And
the world-historical development of the race it regards only
from the point of view of the judgment and of damnation, and
awaits impatiently the last day. Even for the Church, in its
historical appearance among the nations, it feels no interest.
It feels an interest only in individuals, in " the little flock,"
and has ever a tendency to separatism, to withdrawal into con-
venticles. From this its character of fleeing from and enmity
to the world arises the unspeakable monotony of its piety.
Eeligion can only show itself the true vital unity of human
life, when it comes forth in the midst of a free and great
manifoldness of the world's life.

But in strong contrast to the exclusive life for the heavenly
calling, the world of to-day shows us just as exclusive a life
for the earthly calling, and that in a far preponderant majority
of the race. We speak not of such as live on without any
definite calling, without a life- problem imposed by duty, whose
life is thus altogether a prey to accident. We speak of those
who live for their calling. But how many there are — which
we already found occasion to show in what precedes, namely,
where we treated of civil righteousness — who live a life of
unrighteousness, so far as they live indeed with great
energy and conscientiousness for their special life-task, be that
a task of civil and business life, or a task belonging to the
world of ideas, with which they feel themselves connected by
their special talent, while they absolutely remain unconscious
of their universal human life-problem, and their life is thus
spent in that which differences and separates them from other
men, but does not move in that which is common to them
with all, with the cultured and uncultured, the wisest and the
simplest, who never ask themselves the one question, what it
means to be a man. Again, there are others who see indeed

298 THE EAETIILY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING.

that the special calling must be taken up into the universal
human, and subordinated to it ; but the moral alone is viewed
by them as the universal human ; or in so far as the
religious is included, it takes place only in indefinite and
formless generality. With this, then, the abstract, purely
formal idea of humanity is insisted on, which emerges under
the title of a philosophic righteousness. The good, quite in
general, likewise duty and conscience, is recognised as the
highest, embracing all. But then this consciousness of duty,
this conscience, is — as we see, for example, in Kant — nothing
more than an " altar to the unknown God," whom Christianity
has first revealed to the world. But the truly universal
human is the Christian -religious, in which the ethical is
included, is " the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus "
(Phil. iii. 14), which is destined to be most intimately
united to the earthly calling, — is life in following Christ. He
upon whom the revelation of Christ has not yet dawned,
on him the idea of humanity has also not yet dawned.

§ 127.

While we serve in both the heavenly and the earthly calling.
— for an alternative must here be excluded, — we do not serve
two masters, but one. It is only one will that " is to be done
in heaven and on earth," in heavenly and earthly things. Our
earthly day's work we do, not merely for man's sake, not merely
to our glory, but for God's sake and to God's glory, after the
example of the Saviour, who approved Himself on earth in all
things as the faithful servant of the Lord, and whose word is,
" Must I not be about my Father's business ? " (Luke ii. 49).
But this does not mean that our action is to have an immedi-
ately religious impress, and to display, as it were, its Christliness.
It is a pietistic requirement, that even the handiwork of a
shoemaker or a tailor must have a Christian impress. When
Paul wrought his carpets and tents, he wrought on them
assuredly not otherwise than other capable carpet-weavers at
that time. When Peter launched out into the deep to catch
fish, he assuredly cast out his nets like other capable fishermen.
Regarded from without, and materially, no difference exists
between the handiwork of a Christian and that which is

THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING. 299

wrought by a non- Christian, except the activity be expressly
transferred into the religious sphere as such. On the contrary,
the difference lies in the disposition with which the work is
done, and consequently also in the intention and spirit spread
over the work, especially the stamp of purity and unblameable-
ness which is impressed upon it. The difference consists in
this, that while a Christian performs the work of his temporal
calling, he likewise also works as well as prays for the coming
of God's kingdom in himself and outside of him. He works
for the coming of God's kingdom within him ; for he knows
that the most proper meaning and the deepest importance of
that, his bodily, earthly working, does not lie in that working
itself, nor in what he thereby accomplishes in the world, but in
this, that it becomes for himself a means of education for his
own perfection, for the growth and ripening of his inner man,
which amid all this work is to be more deeply rooted in faith,
obedience, and love. But he works also for the coming of
the kingdom of God outside of him ; for he knows that this
whole earthly order of things, in which also the single day's
work obligatory on him occupies its appointed place assigned
by God Himself, bears its last object not in itself, but has a
purposeful meaning for God's kingdom that is to come to us.
Nevertheless he works with all energy for his earthly problem ;
for it is that problem that is to be solved just now, according
to the requirements of the divine economy addressed to him,
the problem, the fulfilment of which the great Educator of the
human race just now requires of him, and that in the place
in which he has been put in the present school-class of
humanity. It is this work that the great Master-builder
requires of him if he will become his helper and co-worker on
the temple of humanity, and therewith likewise on the temple
of God's kingdom in humanity. But what place we are to
occupy in the great varied multitude of builders, who work
from one century to another on the great temple, depends
solely on the will of the heavenly Master-builder. It becomes
us only to be faithful over a little. Yet it holds true of us
all, that our work in the moral upbuilding of humanity can
in many respects be nothing else than a participation in the
first preparations and preliminary works, very often only a
work on the scaffold of that building, which in more than one

300 THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING.

respect meanwhile is only a building of the future, our work-
ing and doing often only the labour of a hodman, whose task
is limited to bringing together materials for the building. The
great work of civilisation, which in our days is praised by so
many loud voices, and which sets innumerable labourers in
motion, what is it but a labour on the external works of the
moral world-building, a labour for the purpose of presenting
the foundation and the first conditions for that building ?
And our scientific and philosophic systems, our state constitu-
tions, are in many cases nothing but scaffolds, preliminary lath
and timber work for actual buildings of the future. And even
when one succeeds in creating an actual edifice, does this afford,
as a rule, more than a temporary dwelling, whether for a longer
or shorter course of years, to be thereafter pulled down again ?
Not to mention those poetic or philosophic erections, mere
booths and tents, which, scarcely taken possession of, must
soon be again vacated. Nevertheless these scaffolds must be
reared, these preliminary labours done, these materials provided,
these often so subordinate helps procured, this accumulated
rubbish put aside, these stones dug out of the way, these
perishing buildings erected, here in great and there in small
style ; and from generation to generation that must so pro-
ceed, until, in place of this imperfect part-work, the eternally
continuing, the completed temple-building can come. The
individuals who are exclusively absorbed in their earthly
calling, without connecting it with the heavenly, such as
regulate their life after the previously mentioned ^morality (that
confined to this life), are indeed in their way co-workers also
on this building, and at any rate furnish stuff and material,
even though they for their part have built on loose sand.
And granted also that it is a higher idea for which they devote
their life, yet they ever remain only unconscious co-workers.
They have not seen the Master-builder, and also know not the
proper plan of the building. Only to believers — and even
should these only perform the humblest hodman's service — has
the Master-builder revealed Himself ; to them alone has He
shown the sketch of the great building, and given the promise
that they shall once be partakers of it (" dwell in His temple "),
provided they remain on the foundation of rock and are
faithful over a few things (Matt. vii. 24 f., xxv. 21).

THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING.

301

§ 128.

We are to show faithfulness in our calling, conscientious
fulfilment of duty in exercising our calling as a service of our
Lord. For this humble self-limitation is requisite, which will
be nothing else than that for which God has placed us, will
not serve the community with a gift which we have not
received, with works and performances for which we have not
the calling, but with the gift that we really have received, and
which we are therefore to stir up and preserve, protect and
further educate (compare the Lord's parable of the entrusted
pounds, Luke xix. 12 ff.). John the Baptist, Joseph the
foster-father of Jesus, are examples of men who in humble
self-limitation would be nothing else than that to which God
had appointed and ordained them. Many men, if their eyes
were opened to themselves, would perceive with pain how
infinitely much they have lost through their pursuit of false
ideals, and how infinitely much they could have attained,
had they remained upon the way that God pointed out to
them. It belongs also to fidelity in our calling that we employ
all means to educate and make ourselves fit for it, and that
we do not refuse to bear its burdens also.

Faithfulness in the special calling does not exclude, but
rather includes, that we cultivate in us the sense and interest
for all other callings and moral spheres of life, in which we
cannot show ourselves active. For we only then rightly
understand our own problem when we conceive it in connection
with the universal problem of the totality. While we develop
our productivity, we are likewise to develop our receptivity,
our participation in all human efforts. He only who with
energetic productivity in his special sphere combines all-sided
receptivity, the open eye, looking round about, the universal
interest, will work right in the centre of the social current,
and will influence it salutarily.

§ 129.

True faithfulness in our calling is shown not only in the
care, exercise, and development of that which is entrusted to
us, but also in contending against the hindrances and obstacles

302 THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING.

that place themselves iii the way of our activity. An essential
hindrance makes itself often felt by us in the limitation of our
abilities and powers. Who does not often feel with grief that
he cannot serve as he would like, because his powers fail him,
because in this respect, in a word, certain wants and limitations
are present with him, and because hereby more than one of
the conditions fail him which are requisite for performing
what is perfect ? The point, then, is not only to labour to
overcome these limits, — and certainly by diligence and con-
tinued effort much can be attained, — but also to be faithful
over little, to be satisfied with God's grace, and to lay to
heart that word which the Lord addressed to His disciples,
" But to sit on my right hand and on rny left is not mine to
give, but to those for whom it is prepared " (by my Father)
(Mark x. 40). Another hindrance lies in the resisting earthly
stuff in which we must labour, the external and spiritless, the
prosaic and trivial, which, in a word, is inseparable from all
human activity, even the most spiritual, and which becomes
even in such a one the most perceptible. Here arises the
problem, to breathe spirit into the spiritless. And all human
labour, from that of the thinker and artist down to that of the
handicraftsman, aims at bottom at impressing by means of the
spirit the stuff that one works, at impressing the stamp of the
spirit upon it. That there is so much raw stuff in which we
must toil, so much coarse work that must be done, so that
even in the most spiritual work the old word is fulfilled, " In
the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread," because even
the highest work of the spirit is not without trouble ; in this
we are to recognise a divine means of discipline and education,
an ascetic means which our sinfulness makes necessary. Be
it the clergyman, or the physician, or the warrior, be it the
housewife or the mother, each one will find in his calling the
ingredient of prose which is indispensable to the education
of the man or the woman. In the triviality, pettiness, and
pitifulness cleaving to all temporal things, with which we
cannot avoid being more or less occupied, under all these great
and small burdens and depressing circumstances, we are to be
exercised in breaking our self-will, in self-denial, in obedience
and patience, in order hereby gradually to ripen to a higher
grade of moral freedom. A third hindrance of our activity

THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CALLING. 303

lies in the opposition of the surrounding world, so that with
our efforts we so often accomplish nothing, and they remain
without fruit. But just here appears the difference between
the Christian and the merely worldly labourer. The worldly
labourer is turned outwards, lost in his work ; with him all
depends on what he effects. The Christian labourer does not
ask first and chiefly what he effects, not for the visible fruits,
but whether he so executes his service as the Lord will have it
executed. We are to do our day's work with the greatest possible
energy, yea, are to work as if on our endurance and continuance
all depended; but at the same time we are, as regards the
possible result of our labour, to remain in believing resignation,
believing surrender, — what the mystics of former times called
holy indifference, — are also to be prepared for this, that
possibly it will not be given to us to bring our labour to an
end, that perhaps nothing will be accomplished by it, and that
it — to speak with Fenelon — may please God to annihilate our
work before our eyes, as one annihilates a spider's web with
a broom. And this broom — oh how many philosophic, poetic,
and political spider's webs, which were wrought with many
years' unwearied diligence, has it already swept away ! In the
truly Christian worker, the practical is combined with the
contemplative. He works standing in the Christian view of
life, which is present to him, not only in the quiet hours of
contemplation, but amid the work itself. And therefore he
knows that, apart from the result of his work, it is not in
vain. He knows that, what before and above all else is the
Lord's will in our work, does not consist in what we bring to
pass, but what we by means of our work ourselves become.
And then he knows likewise that divine providence, without
whose will no sparrow falls from the roof, extends also over
each true thought, each word uttered in the spirit of truth,
each good and well-meant effort, and weaves all this into his
great work, although in quite another manner, and by entirely
different ways from those that lie in our reckoning.

304 SOCIAL LIFE AND SOLITUDE.

Social Life and Solitude.
§ 130.

In order that the earthly as well as the heavenly calling
may be fulfilled, the duties must be harmonized, measure and
limit be observed in the position and the procedure that one
maintains between the inner antitheses within the personal life.
As life in following Christ is at the same time lived for the
perfecting of the community to which we belong, and for our
personal perfection, it belongs to the righteousness of life that
in the life of a Christian a regulated alternation takes place
between social life and solitude. True social life leads to
solitude ; for how are we to carry out God's will in the com-
munity if we do not in solitude unite our will with the will
of God, in prayer and quiet contemplation, in conscientious,
earnest consideration and reflection, in those inner struggles
in which our heart becomes firm ? And in this our Lord
Himself has left us an example (see General Part, § 8 2). And
conversely, true life in solitude leads back again to the
community; for that within us which during solitude is
strengthened and renewed, is even love to God and men, is
the ministering relation to the Lord, whereby we are brought
to fulfil His will. On the one hand, we are to seek a whole-
some protection in solitude against the dangers of social life,
namely, dissipation, infection, and defilement by intercourse
with others, loss of our individuality, the absorption of our
inner man in externality and worldliness. On the other hand,
we are to seek in social life a protection against the dangers of
solitude. These dangers are shown us in the hermit's life,
where they have become standing aberrations. The hermit
flees from the corruption of the community ; but he flees at
the same time from the protecting and supporting power that
lies in the community. He separates himself in his own
personal relation to God, and thinks he can fight out his life's
battle without being supported by the community, and the
means of grace which the Lord has established in the com-
munity. This false self-confidence is punished in this way,
that the world and its impure spirits follow the anchorite

SOCIAL LIFE AND SOLITUDE. 305

with redoubled power into his desert, as we see in the
struggles of Saint Antony with the demons, struggles in which
it was sufficiently apparent that " it is not good for man to be
alone" (Gen. ii. 18 ; compare Prov. xviii 1). The anchorite
despises the vanity of the world, but despises also the men
that live in the world, and exalts himself above them in
spiritual pride. He loves God, but denies love to men, where-
fore his love to God is an egoistic care for his own salvation.
This denial of love, this spiritual pride and false self-confidence,
which in the struggle between flesh and spirit thinks it does
not need the surrounding and helping power of the community,
were the snares into which those old hermits fell. And the
same snares still threaten a Christian everywhere, when in
one-sided exaggeration he gives himself to life in solitude.
While natures preponderantly inclined to the practical are in
danger of being secularized by social life, of losing themselves
in empty bustle, and missing the inner life, contemplative
natures are mostly liable to yield to a propensity to solitude,
and likewise to fall a prey to the many temptations of solitude.
In the life of a Christian there must therefore be found a
healthy union of practice and contemplation, contraries which
find their unity in love, in surrender to the will of God, in the
ministering relation to the Lord, which should present itself
as well in the one as in the other of these two forms.

But in what way this ministering position must be regulated
in the individual human life, how much must be allowed to
contemplation, how much to practice, is conditioned by the
individual organization, as also by the special calling of the
individual. Herein each one must apply the true morality
of moderation to himself, and hold the mean between the
extremes. In one-sided and exclusive practice, the inner man
is blunted and relaxed; and those who live exclusively in
business, gradually get, so to say, an earth-rind round their
soul, by which all susceptibility for higher impressions is
smothered. However such men may show fidelity in their
calling, yet they live continually in the sin of not, subordinating
the earthly to the heavenly calling. Saint Bernard has
admirably developed this in his treatise On Contemplation (de
consideratione), which he dedicates to his former pupil, Pope
Eugenius in., and in which he expresses the fear that his

u

306 SOCIAL LIFE AND SOLITUDE.

pupil, who \vas now occupied by the many worldly affairs
connected with the papal dignity, by the many processes and
secular transactions in which he had to decide, by the daily
overflow of men who brought before him not religious, but
mainly worldly questions and affairs — might thus amid all
these externalities lose his inner man. " I know what sweet
rest was granted thee before. Now it pains thee that thou
art torn away from the embraces of thy Eachel (Contemplation).
But what cannot the power of custom do ? What does not
harden in the course of time ? It now seems to thee intoler-
able. But when thou art somewhat accustomed to it, thou
wilt find that it is not so burdensome after all ; after some time
thou wilt find those burdens light, at last even pleasant. I
fear that thou mayest become at length quite hardened, and
no more feel any void, any deprivation whatever. I fear that
thy mind, amid this spirit-deadening business, may become
quite unnerved, thy spirit emptied and deprived of grace."
Here Bernard has depicted the progressive secularization that
enters with worldly business, when no counterpoise is afforded
by the quiet hours of contemplation. " I do not exhort you
entirely to break with these occupations, which is simply
impossible, but only sometimes and at certain seasons to
interrupt them. Thou art a man ! Then show thy humanity,
not only towards others, but also towards thyself, that thou
mayest be a right, a whole man. That thy humanity may be
healthy and perfect, let the arms that embrace all, embrace
thyself also ! l What does it avail that thou gainest others, if
thou lose thyself ? If all have thee, then be thyself one of
those that have thee ! Thou art a debtor to the wise and to
the unwise (Koin. i. 14); be then also thine own debtor."

While fully appropriating these thoughts, we must, on the
other hand, insist that a life exclusively devoted to contem-
plation contradicts the example of Christ, denies love and
duty, and becomes a life of spiritual pleasure-seeking and
mystical dreams. Tauler justly says : " If God calls me to a
sick person, or to the service of preaching, or to any other
service of love, I must follow, although I am in the state of

1 Et tu Jiomo es. Ergo ul Integra sit et plena humanitas, colligat et te intra
se sinus, qui omnes recipit. Bernardius, De consider., III. 1, cap. 5 (Migne,
Patrologia latina, torn, clxxxii. p. 734).

SOCIAL LIFE AND SOLITUDE. 307

highest contemplation." Further, it may be maintained that
contemplation itself receives strength from the side of practice.
Not those who exclusively contemplate become partakers of
the deepest and strongest spiritual glances and views, but those
in whom contemplation alternates with practice, with life in
the fresh and sharp air of reality, with labour in hard matter,
with the struggle against the world. There is so much that
we must learn in an entirely different way from that of con-
templation, and which they only know who have practised it.
The more complete a human existence is, the more forcibly a
union of the practical and the contemplative meets us in it.
For that is the destination of man, that the utmost extremes
of existence shall find in him their transforming point of union,
infinite and finite, the heavenly and the earthly, the spiritual
and the bodily, the finest and the coarsest. So we find it in
the great followers of the Lord, — for example, in the Apostle
Paul. He who has high revelations, and is caught up into the
third heaven, must also endure the daily pressure of all the
churches far and near, not merely in their higher, but also in their
temporal affairs. He who in the Spirit searches the depths of
the Godhead, and takes the deepest glances into God's purposes
and economy, undertakes also distant, laborious, and dangerous
journeys by land and sea, suffers shipwreck on the shore of
Malta, and is amid the terrors of that shipwreck the one only
who preserves presence of mind, and keeps the numerous crew
in their senses. With the same freedom he moves in both
elements, as well in the earthly as in the heavenly. A similar
freedom to move in the one as in the other sphere of life
meets us also in Luther.

§ 131.

The opposition between social life and solitude recurs as
the opposition between speech and silence. The latter must
also be observed in intercourse with men, no doubt, under
certain imposed limitations. We must not only be able to
keep the secrets of others entrusted to us, but also our own
secret. There is a secret of sin as well as one of grace, which
the individual is only to know for himself and with his God,
and cannot utter before others without profanation. There is

308 SOCIAL LIFE AND SOLITUDE.

a silence that is to be preserved amid those inner struggles,
which we are to fight through alone, for our own training. The
deepest sorrow (like the highest and most inward joy) is dumb,
as we see in Mary at the cross. Hers is an unutterable, a
nameless pain. There is a silence of resignation, under which
a man bears his cross in quiet surrender, without giving utter-
ance to the painful feeling, yea, in which he in other respects
can be social and communicative, and even can bear an
expression of cheerfulness, so that one is reminded of Christ's
word, " But when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash
thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy
Father which is in secret " (Matt. vi. 1 7). There is a silence
that one has to observe in times of misconception, of a
misconception the mist of which cannot yet be dispersed,
as we likewise see in Mary, who as against the world had
to observe silence for misconception, while she was carrying
the Saviour of the world in her womb. In this she found
only one comfort, namely, in going to the hill country to the
aged Elizabeth, who understood the Virgin's secret. Also
against injuries experienced, as well as human baseness, the
moral requirement may emerge to be silent — a silence that is
as well the expression of meekness as of the feeling of internal
dignity, of which an example is presented to us in the
behaviour of the Lord before Herod, as well as before Pilate.
But not merely in regard to the wrong we meet with may
silence have its moral significance, yea, as against it appear
as the morally lofty : the good and great purpose must also
advance to ripeness in silence, as it may, by premature
disclosure, and if too soon exposed to the air of publicity, be
injured, weakened, yea, made to wither altogether.

Men who cannot be silent betray not only lack of self-
control, but also lack of mental depth. Superficial natures
have within them no reservoir, can contain nothing, but must
at once yield up all. Deeper natures, again, can cherish and
keep much in their heart. For them, amid inner and outer
experiences, amid what they consider in quiet, and that which
they meet with, circumstances and relations may occur in
which, with the pain of love, they must lock up in themselves
what they would willingly have revealed, but dare not at this
moment reveal :

WORKING AND ENJOYING. 309

* Bid me not speak, but bid me silent be,

For unto me my secret is a duty.
I fain would show now all my heart to thee,
Only hard fate will not allow it me."

Yet there is a suspicious and soul-imperilling silence, against
which we must be on our guard. Dangerous, yea, of the evil
one, is such a silence as is the expression of an egoistic
unfriendly closeness, with which a man at last in his pride, or
self-consuming hypochondria, may perish from inner con-
tradictions and confusions. Doubtful and dangerous is also a
silence in which the feeling enclosed in our breast becomes so
overmastering that it might rend the breast.1 Against this
one can seek an escape in prayer. Likewise an alleviation is
afforded in confession, while the sufferer commits his secret to
the breast of another man, whether it be a minister of the
Church or a faithful friend. That we must be so frequently,
at least in part, veiled and locked up to each other, rests upon
the conditions of earthly development, belongs partly to our
trial and exercise, partly to the necessarily quiet and hidden
growth of our life. The goal towards which we must work
is that we become ever more manifest one to the other in the
all-illuminating unity of love. Therefore we must even now,
so far as it is morally possible, seek our joy in mutual com-
munication. Therefore an old poet says,2 referring to the
visit of Mary to Elizabeth : " Why do we always remain at
home ? Let us also go to the hill country, let us there speak
one to the other, that the Spirit's greeting may open the heart,
so that it may become glad and spring ; the Spirit in true faith
may sing : My soul doth magnify the Lord."

Working and Enjoying.
§ 132.

Not only the contrast of social life and solitude, practice
and contemplation, speaking and silence, but also the

1 As an example of a love-story, we may here mention Heiberg's novel,
Das gefahrliche Schweigen (Poetische Schriften, Bd. x.).

2 Namely, Ludwig Helmbold (born 1532, died 1598). S. Lbber, Das innere
Leben, S. 340.

310 WORKING AND ENJOYING.

commoner contrast between working and enjoying, labouring
and resting, must be equalized, must be harmonized. The
good things of life are not merely to be produced by our
labour, our industry, in which we sacrifice ourselves for the
community, but we have also to appropriate them, and that
as human gifts as well as divine, and by means of this
appropriation to enrich our personal life. Enjoyment is the
individual satisfaction that we find in the appropriation of
what is presented to us. The one-sided ascetic view of life
will allow justification and value to none, except only to the
immediately religious enjoyment, and preaches in every other
respect the duty of abstinence. The Christian view of life,
again, says that the earth with all that it contains is the
Lord's, that every creature of God is good, and nothing to be
refused that is received with thanksgiving, that we should
use the world as not abusing it (1 Tim. iv. 4 ; 1 Cor. vii. 31).
At the marriage in Cana, in which our Saviour takes part,
and where He works His first sign, changing water into wine,
He reveals the contrast of the healthy tendency of life as
against the ascetic, against John the Baptist, who lives in the
wilderness. And in letting Himself be anointed by Mary in
Bethany, He speaks in defence of a luxury in which that
which in a material sense is noble and costly is offered in
the service of the Spirit, and rebukes a view of life which
considers a regard to the useful, to plain necessaries, as the
highest. " The poor ye have always with you, but me ye
have not always " (John xii. 8). If you really want to help
the poor, opportunity will always be found for this. But our
existence is not so poor that there should not still be room,
beside the care of the poor and the interests of necessity, for
the poetry of life, and for the sacrifices that it requires. While
Christianity asserts the right of enjoyment, the ethical
character thereof rests not only on this, that sensual be
subordinated to spiritual enjoyments, but on this, that wo
in the enjoyment acknowledge the gift of God, that every
enjoyment in its deepest meaning serves to strengthen our
relation of love to God, becomes to us a new inheritance and
experience of God's mercy, while we " taste and see that the
Lord is good " (Ps. xxxiv. 9). " I could not drink water,"
says Master Eckart, " if there were not something of God in

WORKING AND ENJOYING. 311

it ; " and we add, we would not drink from the refreshing
springs of nature, of poetry and art, were there not something
of God therein, something of His eternal power and God-
head. The ethical character of enjoyment lies further in
this, that it is conditioned by one's own activity, by the
work of moral freedom of will. For there is, to those who
withdraw from that work, only a spiritless enjoyment. Only
for him who himself works at his soul's salvation, exists the
comfort of reconciliation, and joy in the word of God and
the facts of His revelation ; only to the higher, inspired
endeavour, do science and art open a world of ideals ; and
only sacrificing love and fidelity knows the blessings of
communion and of intimate social life. As the union of
productivity and appropriation, life is a rhythmical alternation
of working and enjoying, of labour and rest. True rest is
not only a pause during which new strength is gathered, not
only a breathing-time after the exertion and straining of our
powers, as that is inseparable from labour, which strives to
work the idea into resisting matter, and so not a mere
liberation. True self-conscious rest (cessation from labour)
is a positive enjoyment of the unity of life, in that our
personal life is blended with the whole. If we really repose
in the glory of nature, or in the realm of art, we feel our-
selves not only redeemed from the burden of toil and of
fmitude, but have likewise an increased joy in existence, in
that our special life unites with the life of the whole, to
whose beneficent currents we yield ourselves. We are raised
above our specialty, and feel ourselves only as men. Even
therefore is the highest rest, rest (cessation from labour) in
God. It is an ordinance full of wisdom, that this relation
between labour and rest finds expression also outwardly
(parochially and civilly) in the alternation of workdays and
holidays.

It belongs also to the right relation between labour and
rest, that we allow no longer time to sleep than is necessary
for the daily renovation of our life. That we must sleep
away so great a portion of our earthly existence, must daily
sink back again into a state of passivity that is akin to
death, we have in common with all that lives on earth. In
the whole domain of nature, in plants and animals, this

312 TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT.

sinking back occurs, sleep asserts its claims. Christ also, by
becoming man, subjected Himself to this human necessity of
nature, which, however, He dominated ethically by spending
the night awake as often as His calling required, and slept
again by day, as on the Lake of Gennesaret in the midst of
the storm (Matt. viii. 24).1

Temptation and Assault. — Suffering.
§ 133.

The harmonies of life are disturbed by disharmonies, which
are to be resolved in a higher harmony. For our education,
as well for this earth as for heaven, God has appointed
temptations and sufferings in our life. Whether the man
works for human society, or specially for his own perfection,
he will neither be exempt from a history of temptation nor
from a history of suffering. So far as the temptations are
appointed by God, they are no temptations to evil, but trials,
proofs, aiming to make the undecided one decided, the virtue
as yet unproved approved and unquestionable, the Christian's
" calling and election sure " (2 Peter i. 10). From this point
of view we must understand what the apostle says when he
would comfort the Christians in their trouble, " Count it all
joy when ye fall into divers temptations " (Jas. i. 2). The
apostle in this looks to the divine purpose, namely, the
firmness and immoveableness in good to be attained, as the
end of the divine guidance and education. So far, again, as
it is " the devil, the world, and the flesh " from which
temptations come, they are incentives to evil. And from the
same point of view we must understand why the Redeemer
teaches us to pray to our heavenly Father, " Lead us not
into temptation." In this prayer we are to confess our
weakness, our impotence, therefore our dread of getting into
situations through which we might fall into temptation.
The alluring temptations occur, as a rule, in the beginning of

1 After the resurrection, that is, the dawn of the new, perfect existence, free
from nature, there will be no more sleep. The spirits also do not sleep ; the
angels as little as the demons.

TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT. 313

the Christian life, the threatening again at a later period.
The Lord has gained the victory over the one as over the
other, — in the wilderness over the alluring, in Gethsemane
over the threatening temptations.

§ 134.

For the regenerate, temptation has another and a higher
meaning than for the unregenerate man. The latter lives
under the power of sin ; and however high he may stand in
a moral aspect, so far, namely, as he is considered from the
point of view of a heathen morality, yet he is included in
the chief and root sin in which the whole of merely human
morality is embraced, namely, unbelief ; he lives in revolt and
separation from God. In the regenerate, again, the fellow-
ship of God is restored in faith. The power of sin is broken,
and the new life planted and founded in him. But regenera-
tion is in the first place only in the centre ; in the circum-
ference there is still sin, which is to be slain, that the new
birth may pervade the whole man more and more. Tempta-
tion, therefore, applies itself to the old man, in order to
awaken a reaction against the new man, to bring to pass a
relapse into the old sinful state.

Now, however variously the history of temptation may
take shape in the life of this or that Christian, the chief
temptations of the old man will ever recur, namely, both pride
and sensuality. Yet they recur in a higher form in the
regenerate, and that because he himself occupies a higher, yea,
the highest step of the moral world. And because the
Christian lives under the constant mutual action of freedom
and grace, the temptation of pride lies near him, namely, to
seek, independently of grace, to rise unto likeness to God,
or to accept grace like a prey. The pride of knowledge, as
well as the pride that appears as fanaticism, may here emerge
in such manifestations as are impossible outside of Christianity.
And further, because the contrast between flesh and spirit
is a far deeper one than the contrast between reason and
sensuality, the temptation to sensuality, and every falling
into sensuality, acquires in the regenerate a far more serious
meaning than in heathen life. The legend of the Mount of

314 TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT.

Venus, with its demoniac temptations, could only arise in the
Christian world. In both the directions named it is and
remains heathenism which comes forth as a reaction against
Christianity in potentialized form ; for the post-Christian
heathenism is in a far deeper sense demoniac than the
pre-Christian. The old heathenism knows nothing of chastity,
as expressive of the dominion which the spirit of holiness
exercises over the flesh, over the body as the temple of the
Spirit ; knows nothing of humility and the obedience of faith
in ministering love. We may add that not only the tempta-
tions of sensuality and of pride, but also those of avarice and
of greed acquire a far more serious character for those who
have their proper home, their citizenship in heaven, than for
those whose whole life and effort is only directed to this earth.
The course of temptation which the regenerate must pass
through is partly conditioned by his individuality, partly by
the situation in which he finds himself. In general it may
be said that every regenerate one finds himself in the midst
of Christendom surrounded by heathen ways. Whatever
transforming influence Christianity has exercised on human
and civil society, on institutions and manners, yet heathenism
incessantly reacts, and aims at the erection of its kingdom.
The tempting powers that are overcome by the Lord, as the
head of His Church, react and rebel now against His kingdom,
work against those that are members of His body. A
Christian may appear to himself in the midst of Christendom
now as in a desert surrounded by leasts (Mark i. 13), now as
placed on a mountain where the spirit of this world shows
him the splendid glories of this world, for example, political
and national glories, now as standing on the pinnacle of the
temple, where the spirits of darkness, disguised as angels of
light, beckon to him. While he must fight the good fight,
in exercising self-denial and fighting the powers of temptation
outside of him, his severest struggle consists in having to
fight the powers of temptation in himself. For although
the old man is thrust out of the centre, dethroned, yet he
constantly moves, and rests not with his deceitful lusts, as
long as we still live in this flesh and blood.

TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT. 315

§ 135.

II we are to fight the good fight, we must take care to gain
a thorough knowledge of our individual dangers and tempta-
tions, of our weak sides, must conceive a proper distrust of
ourselves, must learn proper foresight in regard to ourselves.
Watch and pray ! In the fight it is of the greatest import-
ance to resist temptation in its first beginning (principiis obsta),
that it grow not unperceived, get strong, and at length over-
come us like a too mighty monster. Many of our falls into
sin arise from this, that we in a half-unconscious state let a
succession of sinful acts occurs in us, which we do not further
regard because they appear to us so trifling, till at last, after
all is prepared, the catastrophe happens in which we are
overcome and fall. The more a Christian learns to gain the
victory in temptation by early showing himself the master,
and gaining a battle, the more he progresses in holiness, so
much the more will alluring temptations be changed for him
into sufferings, into a painful Vanitas vanitatum ! To Christ
each alluring temptation was changed into a suffering ; and
as such He must also have felt it when the people shouted
their applause to Him, and would take Him by force and
make Him a king (John vi. 15). The danger enters when
the temptation becomes our own pleasure, agrees with our
inclination, and when the alluring phantasy-picture becomes
the object of continuing delight (delectatio morosa), whereof
we have treated more fully above (§ 15) in the exposition of
Jas. i. 14.

While we watch over our heart that we may get the
victory in temptation, we must also as far as possible go out
of the way of the occasion thereto, and ward it off. There
are temptations against which the only means is — flight. When
the occasion has grown together, as it were, with our whole
existence, the Saviour counsels us to tear ourselves violently
asunder, however painful this sundering may be. " If thy
right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee ; for
it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish,
and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And
if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee ;
for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should

316 TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT.

perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell "
(Matt. v. 29 f.). This figurative speech means to say, that
as we amputate a single member, if the whole body can be
saved thereby, even so must we separate from and renounce
a single good, however precious and dear it may be to us,
should it become a hindrance to the salvation of our soul.
If, for instance, you stand in social connections, have a male or
female friend through whom your soul sustains injury, break
with them, however painful it may be to you ; or if you
exercise a talent, or love an artistic pleasure, which is quite
allowable in itself, but for you involves temptations that you
cannot withstand, take farewell of them, although they have
become, as it were, a component part of your existence, and as
dear and indispensable as your right hand or right eye,
although by the want of them you should feel as if mutilated.
For it is better for you to enter the kingdom of heaven
one-eyed, or lame and a cripple, than that you, in a worldly
sense, with a complete human existence, with the entire
adornment and riches of this earthly life, should go to hell
(compare Mark ix. 45-48).

§136.

The threatening temptation is the temptation to flee from
suffering and the cross as intolerable, and thereby wilfully to
sacrifice our obedient position towards God, our position as
His children. The alluring is hidden under the threatening
temptation. For fleeing from the cross points back to self-
love, to love for the comfort and rest of this life, to the
eudemonism of this present world. " Lord, spare Thyself :
this shall not be unto Thee," said Peter to the Lord, when
the latter spoke of His approaching suffering (Matt. xvi. 22).
He will not give up his darling thought of an earthly
Messiah and a kingdom of earthly bliss. But this " spare
Thyself " is the prelude to a denial of the suffering Lord, to
his " I know not the man." A frequently applied type for
Christians who flee from the cross is that disciple who
forsook the Apostle Paul during his sufferings in the Eoman
imprisonment, and of whom Paul writes : " Demas hath
forsaken me, having loved the present world " (2 Tim. iv. 1 0).

TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT. 317

There is no ground whatever for the assumption that Demas
meant to turn his back upon Christianity itself, to cast from
him faith in the cross of Christ Only for himself personally
he would have a Christianity in which there is no cross ;
and so far he no doubt belonged to the " enemies of the cross
of Christ " (Phil, iii 1 8) ; an enmity which in stronger or
weaker measure is ever present in us all, and must be com-
bated by us. Flight from the cross has a far more serious
meaning for the regenerate than for the unregenerate ; for
the regenerate must know the secret of suffering ; and it
becomes us through much tribulation to enter into the kingdom
of God (Acts xiv. 22). By fleeing from the cross he in
reality denies communion with the Lord, and for his part
takes the side of the false, sensuous, and worldly Messiah's
kingdom.

§137.

A special kind of threatening temptation is the assault, a
temptation which only the believer knows. The assault
arises, as an attack upon the faith, from within the man
himself. And it does not, like so many other temptations,
attack faith only mediately, but directly and centrally. It is
a state of anxiety and doubt, in which we thus have not to
fight against an alluring temptation, dazzling the man with
bright prospects, with something fair to see, promising him
higher knowledge, and so on, but against a temptation that
threatens a Christian with spiritual death, and threatens to
rob him of that which is his dearest possession. It moves
as a spiritual power in the gloom, dejection, unbelief of the
old man, emerges from this dark region, and attacks the
centre of the soul, its inmost relation to God, will bring the
believer to the point of doubting the word and grace of God.
The assault may move in an objective and a subjective
direction, — it may relate, on the one hand, to God's revelation
and His government of the world; on the other, to the
relation of the individual personality to eternal salvation. In
the first case the assailed one endures the incessant presenta-
tion of a contradiction, which meets him in the divine
revelation and government of the world, and which tempts
him to let go his faith, while he yet has the feeling that with

318 TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT.

his faith he loses all and becomes boundlessly unhappy. This
pathology, this feeling of pain, is inseparable from assault, and
therefore only the believer can be assailed. Men who are
without faith-experience, and only occupy themselves with
Christianity in a purely scientific way (like so many theo-
logical critics), may indeed, without special assault in in-
different repose of soul, let fall one part of Christianity after
the other. They have nothing to lose, and stand outside the
whole matter. The assailed one, on the other hand, is
distressed by the danger, far transcending all that is finite
and temporal, of losing what is his life's last support, comfort,
and refuge.

In Old Testament times, Job presents to us the picture of
one sorely assailed. His temptation belongs to the first of
the two directions, the objective. His internal suffering-
arises from a contradiction, insoluble to him, in the divine
government of the world, in that he is unable to bring the
fatalities befalling him into harmony with his faith in God's
goodness and righteousness ; and he expresses himself in
long speeches in which faith struggles with doubt. In the
New Testament, John the Baptist appears as such a tempted
one, when from his prison he addresses the question to Christ,
" Art thou He that should come, or look we for another ? "
He suffers in consequence of a contradiction, to him insoluble,
in the appearance of Christ, in that he thinks he must require
quite different facts in proof of the true Messiah. In a dark
hour he is tempted to mistake Christ and the cause of Christ,
and therewith likewise to mistake himself, since he had
exclusively found the purpose of his life in testifying of and
preparing the way for Him, upon whose divine mission doubts
had now risen within him. As a tempted one of this kind,
we know also the doubting Thomas, the dejected one, who
like the other disciples was assailed by the crucifixion of
Christ, and became wavering in his faith, and now does not
venture to believe in the resurrection, although there is
nothing in the world in the truth of which he would rather
have believed — in this the complete contrast to the modern
faithless critics.

In these temptations we see a form of offence. " Blessed
is he whosoever shall not be offended in me," says Christ,

TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT. 319

with reference to John (Matt. xi. 6). To be offended means
so to take offence at what is holy, that one is thereby injured
in his soul, that our faith in the good, our holiest conviction
is shattered. Not only may one be offended by evil and its
power in the world, so that one is thereby perplexed about
the good and the power of good. One may also take offence
at the holy itself, when it opposes our natural heart, or our
previously formed conceptions. Offence may sometimes
appear as hatred and enmity against the holy, as with the
unbelieving Jews, as with Saul, when he, panting with rage,
persecuted the Church of God. But it may also appear as a
suffering, and in this form it shows itself in the temptation
here referred to. The tempted one, that is, feels himself drawn
to God's revelation ; he recognises that on it the salvation of
his soul depends ; and yet that revelation offends him, by its
peculiar character of secrecy, of veiling ; yea, it so repels him,
is so much in conflict with all his expectations and require-
ments, that he is tempted entirely to cast faith from him.
These temptations can only be overcome by doing as Job at
length did (xxxix. 37 f., xlii. 1—6), bowing before the in-
scrutable in God's works and leadings, by saying with Asaph,
" Nevertheless, I am continually with Thee " (Ps. Ixxiii. 2 3),
because, although surrounded by mysteries, we yet keep in
view the clear and irrefragable testimonies of God's grace and
truth ; and above all by doing as John the Baptist did, and
applying to Jesus Himself, to get better information, by a
thorough search into the whole appearance and personality of
Christ, into the nature -and power of His kingdom, laying to
heart at the same time that word of the Lord to Thomas,
" Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed "
(John xx. 29).

But the temptation may also take another direction. Then
the tempted one doubts not God's revelation, His wise and
righteous government of the world, doubts not Christianity.
He doubts himself, his personal salvation, whether he too dare
appropriate the promises of Christianity and of God's grace.
This temptation is exactly the opposite of that which we
observe in Job and John the Baptist. In Job the temptation
revolves round the form of his fate, in John round the
question whether Christ is really the Kedeemer, the Messiah.

320 TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT.

But the tempted one of whom we now speak feels himself
overwhelmed by his consciousness of sin, his feeling of guilt,
feels himself unworthy of the grace of God, and does not
venture to believe in the forgiveness of his sins. His sin
stands uninterruptedly before him, and bars his view of
grace. If he reads the promises of Scripture, he says : That
is not written of me ; it does not apply to me ! This
temptation must also be viewed as a trial of faith, into which
God often lets His children fall, as we, for example, see in
Luther, who was often and severely tempted in this way.
The true sedative, the truly quieting means under this
temptation, is only to be found in the tempted one reminding
himself, or — as Luther often sent for his friends, to be com-
forted by them — letting others remind him, of the evan-
gelical doctrine of universal grace, the truth that it is the
earnest will of God that all men without exception, and so
also this tempted one, should be saved, that God willeth not
the death of any sinner, but that he be converted and live.
Of the greatest importance, and especially advisable herein,
is the thought (the vivid realization) of our baptism, by which
God has received us into His covenant of grace. The tempted
one must also remind himself, or be reminded, that we are
justified before God for Christ's sake through faith alone,
and not through our merit, not through the works of the law.
Amid the struggles of the distressed conscience, this article
cannot be enough emphasized and insisted on, and that in
connection with baptism. For when the tempted one will
not be comforted, it always proceeds from this, that he is
one-sidedly holding by the legal standpoint, and is ever
regarding himself as against the requirements of the law.
After the law of holiness, he knows himself worthy of con-
demnation ; and amid all the pains and terrors within him
he finds a painful pleasure in dwelling on his own unhappy
state as the state of one for ever lost, instead of looking away
from himself, from his searching and brooding, and keeping his
glance exclusively directed to the Saviour, " who was delivered
for our offences, and was raised again for our justification "
(Bom. iv. 25). When the tempted one will not be comforted
at all, a secret offence and unbelief lies at the foundation of
his temptation, which finds it inconceivable and self-contra-

TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT. 321

dictory that the holy God could graciously forgive so great a
sinner. But this is just the gospel, that God out of pure
grace will give us exceeding abundantly above what we ask
or think, will freely bestow a salvation which stands in' no
relation whatever to our desert ; for else it would not be given
us of grace. The tempted one must be reminded that it is
the greatest sin not to believe in the forgiveness of sins, for
unbelief is the sin of all sins, that severs us from life in the
love of God. The tempted one must be reminded that if he
despairs of himself because his faith is so weak, and but like
a smoking wick, a weak faith is still a faith, and that we have
God's word for us, assuring us that the Lord " will not quench
the smoking wick, nor break the bruised reed " (Isa. xlii. 3).
It is not this or that degree of faith by which a man is
justified before God. It is Christ's merit, it is Christ Himself
who is our righteousness, when He is appropriated in sincere,
though it may be weak faith. And if the tempted one desires
a sign, namely, a sign within him, a consciousness, a happy
feeling, which is to testify to him that his sins are forgiven
and that he is received to grace by God, here again we must
urge, what we formerly urged in reference to prayer, that
the training grace of God will certainly also give us that sign
as soon as it is helpful, but that obedience is the right believing
disposition, and that even in this consists the trial of faith —
in believing God's word without a sign. We are to show " the
obedience of faith " (Rom. i. 5), by faithfully adhering to the
word, to baptism, absolution, and the communion.

Finally, we would refer to Luther's explanation that he
gives to the sixth petition : Lead us not into temptation.
" God indeed tempts no one ; but we pray in this prayer that
God would guard and preserve us, that the devil, the world,
and our flesh may not deceive nor seduce us into superstition,
despair, and other great shame and vice; and if we be tempted
thereby, that we may yet prevail in the end, and gain the
victory."

§ 138.

When temptations and assaults are brought into connection
with the devil and the demoniac kingdom, this is a mode of
conception which many regard as superstition, the consistent

322 TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT.

denial of which can only, however, be made by those who
say, as Baader expresses it, " II n'y a que nous, qui ont de
1'esprit," that is, only we men possess spirit ; but outside of
us, whether above us, under us, or round about us, there is no
spiritual being neither good nor bad, yea, not even God who
is spirit. He who once takes up this position has thereby
no doubt ensured himself also against demons, and declares in
brief the whole to be delusion and subjective fancy-pictures.
But if, again, we believe revelation, it tells us that a higher,
a superhuman world of spirits is interwoven with the struggles
of God's kingdom that take place here below, and that our
flesh and the world are the media, serve as means and channels
through which the demoniac temptation seeks to press in upon
us, and, as it were, furnish the material from which the demons
form their ensnaring phantasms. The temptation is demoniac
in the same degree as it leads us back to a strange super-
human will, which contests the will of God and Christ
within us, and will sever us from salvation in Christ. It has
often been asked whether there are immediately demoniac
temptations (that is, a direct, purely spiritual relation between
the demons and man's soul), and how far these are to be
distinguished from the mediate, and we by no means deny
the possibility of a purely spiritual relation. But experi-
mentally to point out an absolute boundary between the
immediate and the mediate is impossible, and that because
of the sin and darkness in the world and in ourselves. When
it has been thought that the immediately demoniac is to be
recognised in this, that suddenly bad, impure, godless, and
blasphemous thoughts can arise in the soul, as thoughts that
are strange to the man himself, and when reference has been
made to the histories of the tempted, who against their will
were plagued by such thoughts; this is no absolutely certain
criterion, because such sudden thoughts on closer investiga-
tion are often to be referred to previous states of the soul,
and at least are partly explicable as pictures suddenly emerging
from the dark sinful nature-ground in man himself. For as
man in the dark, nocturnal part of his nature bears an
unconscious depth of good thoughts and powers, so he also
hides therein an unconscious depth of bad thoughts and
powers, which, as counterpart to those good genial rays that

TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT. 323

pierce the soul like something strange and surprising to him,
can break into the clearness of the consciousness. Only when
He who is tempted is personally the sinless and Holy One,
who can bring forth nothing but good from the depth of His
heart, is the demoniac temptation at once to be recognised as
such, as a power absolutely strange, existing entirely outside
His being. With those, again, who themselves are infected with
sin and the sinful nature-ground, the demoniac temptation is
mostly recognisable only with those Christians who spiritually
stand high, who are advanced in their holiness as in their
activity for God's kingdom, and therefore, like Luther, — of
whom it is said that, more than any one, he looked the devil in
the face, — have to endure the severest contests with the prince
of this world. On the other hand, the demoniac temptation will
mostly quite discernibly emerge only with those who without
resistance consent and fall a prey to it, by yielding themselves
as instruments for the spirit of darkness (e.g. Judas Iscariot,
and similar characters in life and literature). In an ethical
point of view, the chief thing here is not to refine about the
immediate and the mediate, and not merely earnestly to
renounce the devil, but also all his ways, and all that is akin
to him, considering well that demoniac temptation does not
exclude but includes the temptation and enticement of each
sinful man by his own evil lust also. Demoniac temptation
only becomes dangerous to us when it finds a prop, a con-
federate in our own inclination. The demoniac temptation,
e.g., to ambition, is only dangerous when ambition — as Shake-
speare has depicted it before our eyes in his Macbeth — is the
man's personal tendency and passion. And the demoniac
temptation to sacrifice our faith, and cast it behind us, only
becomes dangerous when a man — as the poet has shown us
in his Faust — is tempted by his own sceptical and ambitious
thoughts.

Therefore we must watch over our heart above all things,
but consider too that we have not only to contend with flesh
and blood, but with the bad spirits under heaven, " who rule
in the darkness of this world " (Eph. vi. 1 2), at the same time
also quicken faith anew in Him who lives in us, who is
greater and mightier than he that is in the world (1 John iv.
4). must strive in prayer and labour, and when it is needful,

324 TEMPTATION AND ASSAULT.

with dietetic means also. For experience teaches that the
body, and especially the nervous system, plays a great part
particularly in temptations.

§ 139.

Turning now from temptation to the consideration of
suffering in general, all sufferings that befall the believer in
following Christ have this in common, that, despite the
general connection that exists between suffering and sin, they
are allotments of the disciplinary grace of God. The suffer-
ings of a Christian are veils beneath which the love of God
conceals itself. The sufferings that may befall a Christian
may be regarded partly under the point of view of fatherly
chastisement, partly under that of fatherly trial. Chastise-
ment is not equivalent to retributive punishment, which
is appointed to the ungodly. For the judgment upon
the ungodly embraces only retribution as such, a revelation
of God's righteousness, that they may receive what their
deeds have deserved. In chastisement, again, although this
includes punishment and retribution, yet paternal love pre-
dominates, which will lead and prepare the disciple to a
renewed exercise of godliness. "No chastening for the
present (that is, so long as it lasts) seemeth to be joyous, but
grievous : nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable
fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby "
(Heb. xii. 11). "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten"
(Eev. iii. 19). This experience ever recurs in the history of
God's children ; and we may maintain that the higher a man
stands in the kingdom of God, the more will he experience,
internally or externally, the chastening hand. Precisely with
the saints and elect God reckons exactly, and in them much
is chastised which remains unchastised in those who stand on
a lower stage. Every chastisement is likewise a trial ; but
every trial is not a chastisement. Trial as such contains
nothing of punishment and retribution. It is so far an
unmerited suffering, which may overtake the believer in the
midst of the work of sanctifi cation. It aims to establish his
fidelity more deeply, to confirm his election (the consciousness
that he is God's child), victoriously to reveal his love to God

SUFFERING. 325

as the pure, unselfish love, that God may be glorified in His
servant. As regards the undeservedness in this kind of suffer-
ing, we may recall the word that the Lord spoke to the man
born blind : " Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but
that the works of God may be manifest in him " (John ix. 3).
Yet it must be remembered that this expression, " an undeserved
suffering," must ever be limited, on account of the sinfulness
cleaving to all and every one. Only in the case of Christ can
we in the strictest sense speak of an unmerited suffering.

Whether now we are to understand our own sufferings as
chastisements, or as purifying trials, or as both together, are
questions to which each one must give the answer within
himself. Two men may suffer the same thing, and yet it is
not the same (duo, quum patiuntur idem, non cst idem). For
the moral state of the individual cannot be judged after his
suffering ; but the suffering must be judged after each one's
moral state. But then, although in the suffering that befalls
us there is ever something inscrutable, yet in very many cases
we will discover an internal connection between our suffering
and our individuality, and that the cross laid upon us is just
the suffering that we needed for our exercise and confirmation,
for attaining greater ripeness.

§ 140.

The import of the sufferings of the believer, of the just, is the
problem whose solution is striven for in one of the books of
the Old Testament, namely, the "book of Job, that wonderful
work, that is among the highest that sacred poetry has pro-
duced, whether we regard the descriptions of nature contained
in it, the exhibition of the mysteries of the visible creation,
or its psychological descriptions, its exhibition of the mysteries
of the human soul, the suffering human soul (wherefore also
for both the greatest poets, Shakespeare and Goethe, this
poem has had the value of a fructifying fountain). In its
range of ideas it is properly a work of the meditative
Wisdom under the old covenant. It belongs also to the circle
of the Old Testament books of wisdom, in which not the
specially Israelitic and positively Mosaic forms the object
of contemplation, but the universal human (as, e.g., also in the

326 SUFFERING.

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes). It goes back to the original
religion which existed independent of Abraham's, wherefore
Franz Delitzsch has aptly designated the book of Job
as a Melchizedek among the books of the Old Testament.
Job is no Israelite, but a just man in the land of TJz, who
believes in the living God, before whose face he has walked,
but who by a succession of terror-messages that struck him
one after the other, and finally by one of the most frightful
diseases, — Satan smote him with boils from the sole of the
foot to the crown of the head, and he sat in the ashes and
scraped himself with a potsherd, — was suddenly plunged from
the highest step of earthly happiness into the deepest abyss
of suffering and temptation, into a seemingly God-forsaken
condition. The sting of these sufferings is the incomprehen-
sibleness, the mystery in them, that such a thing can befall
the just. The solution of the riddle is given beforehand to
the reader in the prologue in heaven, where God the Lord
permits Satan to assail Job with every kind of plague, that
his righteousness may be proved and approved, that the Lord,
who sees to the issue of the sufferings, may be glorified in
His servant. But to Job himself this riddle is impene-
trable, and becomes only the more so by all the grounds of
comfort of the friends, who, instead of extracting the sting of
his suffering, press it in yet deeper, in that they are unable
to give him any other interpretation and comfort but that his
suffering must be a just punishment, or at least a retribu-
tive chastisement for some guilt, and they call him to sorrow
and repentance. Job fights a tragic fight with the riddle of
his life; for his suffering appears to him a fate, a blind
destiny : the God in whom he believes changes for him into
a fatalistic power, a God whose omnipotence is only a capri-
cious, despotic power. The God of kindness seems to him
to disappear ; and yet he cannot give up believing confidence
in Him. His discourse is an unbroken alternation of faith and
unbelief, of humility and defiance, of hope and despair.
Then there suddenly appears, in contrast to the three aged
friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the young Elihu, as
representative of a new view of suffering. That Elihu indeed
is to represent a new view already appears in the introduction
of his discourse (chap, xxxii.) : " Great men are not always

SUFFERING. 327

wise : neither do the aged understand judgment. Therefore
I will also speak ; hear me ; I also will show mine opinion.
— For I am full of matter, the spirit within me constraineth
me. Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent; it
is ready to burst like new bottles. I will speak, that I
may be refreshed : I will open my lips and answer." Elihu
is not what many would make him, a young philosophic
phrasemaker, who boastfully praises a hollow wisdom. He
has a really new wisdom to bring ; but this has yet, like
every new wisdom on its first appearance, the taste of new
wine.

The mistake of the old view did not consist in conceiving
suffering as punishment and as retributive chastisement, but
in making this point of view the only one, embracing and
explaining all. The new wine, the new wisdom by which
Elihu is inspired, and by which his inmost being is pressed
to utter it, is the conception according to which suffering is
not merely retributive chastisement for a wrong committed,
but also preventive, cleansing, and purifying trial. His view
of sin approaches the evangelical standpoint, points to the
many sins that are hidden from the view of the man him-
self, and to the acknowledgment and cleansing of which God
will lead the man even through suffering. We also find in
Elihu the conception of chastisement, but in a far wider
meaning than his friends had formed it, in that he assumes
into it the other conceptions of education, instruction, correc-
tion, by means of sufferings; and that Job truly needs
correction appears even from his boasting of his own
righteousness, wherewith he constantly appeals to his works.
While Job complains that God regards him as his enemy,
while he disputes with God, because he " will not give him
an account of all that he does," Elihu reminds him that
men pay no regard to the voice of God's grace, which so
often speaks to them for their salvation. " For God speaketh
once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream,
in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men,
in slumberings upon the bed ; then He openeth the ears of
men, and sealeth their chastisement, — (chastisement here
means educative suffering, to the understanding of which He
opens the ears of men), — that He may withdraw man from

328 SUFFERING.

his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keepeth back his
soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword "
(chap, xxxiii. 14-18). Thus, amid suffering, Elihu points to
God's grace. And in contrast to Satan, the accusing angel,
who spies and discovers the sufferer's weakness, Elihu reminds
him of this, that by the sufferer there also stands an angel of
grace, " one of the thousands " of the heavenly hosts, an
advocate and substitute, who leads the sufferer to faith, to
humiliation before God, and to quiet surrender. "He will
pray to God, and He will be favourable unto him, and he
shall see His face with joy ; for He will render unto man his
righteousness." The ever-recurring thought in Elihu is this :
that as against God the Lord, Job and every man is wrong,
and that humility alone as against Him is man's right posi-
tion. " Job hath spoken without knowledge, and his worJs
were without wisdom (prudence). My desire is, that Job
may be tried unto the (victorious) end, because of his answers
for wicked men" (chap, xxxiv. 35 f.).

Meanwhile the deeper and more satisfying solution of the
riddle is already given in the prologue, namely, that Job by
no means suffers only for his guilt, but because God will be
glorified in His servant, who, notwithstanding all trials and
temptations, yet does not forsake his God, which serves to
shame Satan, who, so to say, has lost his case, — a prelude to
the infinitely greater case that he afterwards lost through
Christ's sufferings, — and therewith for edification, and as an
example for all who place their trust in God/ Job and his
friends know not this prologue performing in heaven, know
not the plan and purpose of God. Were that and this known
to them, they would not have got into all these perplexities.
They, as it were, only represent persons in a drama, the con-
nection of which they do not understand — herein, again, a
type of us all, who possess only a partial knowledge of God's
dealings with us, who, if this expression may be allowed us,
are likewise unacquainted with the prologue in heaven pre-
ceding our life and all history, which we must know in order
really to understand God's government and ways with us :
wherefore we are directed, in humility, in unconditional
obedience, to bow ourselves under God's unsearchable purpose.
Elihu already recalled to mind the unfathomableness in the

SUFFERING. 829

wonders of the visible creation. But this unfathomableness,
and likewise the requirement that we should hold fast to the
invisible in humility and faith, even where we do not see, is
expressed in the grand majestic discourse, in which at last
the Lord Himself, after Elihu's discourse is ended, — without
praising the latter, as his discourse was also insufficient, and
without initiating Job into that which the prologue has
revealed to us, — corrects His servant Job because of his folly
in seeking to contend with God. Accordingly, the veil of
unsearchableness is not lifted ; but the sting of it, its bitter-
ness, is taken from it by this, that it is God the Lord Himself
who reveals Himself to His servant Job, and although correcting
him, yet confesses him as His servant, wherefore Job here
deeply humbles himself, and so attains to peace, while he
says : " Therefore have I uttered that I understood not : things
too wonderful for me, which I knew not.— Wherefore I abhor
myself, and repent in dust and ashes " (chap. xlii. 3, 6). For
although face to face with an impenetrable secret, he is yet
irradiated by heavenly light, and has the certainty that God
accepts him.

The conclusive understanding of suffering appears in the
book of Job not in any doctrine expressed by word, but in
the actual close of the history, where Job's sufferings result in
glory ; he is restored to his earlier happy state, yea, higher
than before. But just here is seen the great interval between
the Old Testament and the New. For as Job lacks the view
of the suffering of Christ, of the crucified Christ, who, amid
all temptations, reveals to the believer a gracious God, while
that his suffering likewise unveils the abyss of sin hidden in
.every man ; and as Job lacks, with the full consciousness of
sin, the comfort that springs from the cross of Christ, he
must also lack the comfort which springs from this gospel
passage : " Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and
to enter into His glory ? " (Luke xxiv. 26). The future glory
beyond only glances through in single passages of the book of
Job. Only in following Christ, only in Christian patience,
the hope of glory soars aloft, where our every wherefore will
be answered, where we will fully understand the heavenly
purpose concerning us, and where we will recognise its full
meaning after the righteousness of the Lord, not only the

330 SUFFERING.

judicial and retributive, but also the distributive and all-
adjusting righteousness.

§ 141.

Having set forth suffering as chastisement and trial, we
must mention yet a third class of sufferings, namely, sufferings
for righteousness' sake, for Christ's, for the kingdom of God's
sake, in which we can also include Job's sufferings in their
wider sense, so far, namely, as they also are to serve to glorify
God, that is, to establish more firmly the kingdom of God in
the heart of man. In those sufferings for righteousness' sake
is fulfilled in its deepest import that word of the Lord, " He
who loseth his life for my sake, the same shall find it"
(Matt. x. 39). Of sufferings for Christ's sake, the apostle
speaks (Col. i. 24): " Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you,
and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ
in my flesh." The meaning is, of course, not that something
is lacking to the atoning suffering of Christ, that His atoning
sacrifice is not perfect, not sufficient, but must be completed
by continued atoning sacrifices, which is the error of the
Eomish Church. Eather the apostle will say that, like as
Christ our head had to suffer for righteousness' sake, even so
also His Church, the communion of His saints, of those justi-
fied by Him, must undergo sufferings and conflicts, that the
kingdom of God may be extended on earth, ill that His
followers, like Himself, " are a sign that shall be spoken
against in the world" (Luke ii. 34), and are to experience
essentially the same sufferings from the world as the Lord
Himself. Not alone martyrs and His great witnesses have
experienced this. Nay, something of this each of His fol-
lowers will have to experience in the opposition of the world
to the confession of Christ, whether that opposition express
itself in persecutions or in ignoring and contempt. Such
sufferings may be embraced under the title " cross," that word
being understood in its strictest meaning, because by them
we approach most nearly to the sufferings of Christ. Yet
the designation " cross " is also extended to the trials with
which a Christian is visited, while we, when regarding the
sufferings under the point of view of punishment or retri-
butive chastisement, prefer to use the expression that " the

SUFFERING. 331

hand of the Lord" is laid upon the sufferer. But just
because suffering for righteousness' sake is the highest of all
Christian suffering, the Christian must carefully beware that
he do not confound, without more ado, his personal concern,
or, say, the cause of his Church party, with the cause of Christ,
whence an imaginary martyrdom arises. Also, it must not
be forgotten that sufferings that one suffers for God and His
kingdom's sake are likewise to be viewed as sufferings for
the man himself and his salvation's sake. Even of Christ's
sufferings, which were all undertaken by Him for the kingdom
of God's sake, it holds good that He Himself " learned
obedience by the things that He suffered," and " by suffering
must be made perfect" (Heb. ii. 10, v. 8 f.).

If we understand " the cross " in a wider sense, so that
it embraces all sufferings so far as they are trials, we can
distinguish a twofold cross. There is a cross, a suffering that
is laid upon us without our will. We are, like that Simon
of Gyrene (Mark xv. 21), compelled to bear it; for example, a
sickness, the loss of a beloved one. But now all depends
upon how we bear it, whether with resistance or in faith and
obedience, in yielding ourselves to the will of God. There
is also, however, another cross, which is not so much laid
upon as offered, presented to us, and in which it depends
upon our will, our free choice, whether we will accept it or
leave it. If we decide henceforth to live our life in follow-
ing Christ, that is equivalent to the decision to take up the
cross, because we then have chosen a life of self-denial.
When Luther felt called to testify against the corruption of
the Church, he chose the cross after the example of Christ ;
for he could foresee all the opposition, all the enmity and
persecution, all the dangers to which he exposed himself.
But the same thing recurs in the smaller every-day relations,
as often as the question is to make a sacrifice, to bear a
burden, to engage in a contest, which one could as easily
avoid. It is more convenient to remain in one's domestic
and social quiet, than to come forth with the testimony for
a good and righteous cause, when the latter has public opinion
against it, and we might thereby in one respect or another
injure ourselves, as it is called. In general calamities, like
plague, war, or famine, it is more convenient to care for one-

332 SUFFERING.

self than to make sacrifices for the whole, perhaps with danger
to health and life. It is more convenient to withdraw from
a burdensome situation, in which one earns more unthankful-
ness than thanks for his labour, into quietness, than to re-
main in it because duty — which to the Christian means the
same as God's will — requires it of us. In countless cases
no compulsory duty can bring us to accept the cross, but only
the duty of love. Could our glance penetrate into secrecy,
we would see how the earth all around is full of the cross
that men refused, or that they cast from them. Compare
2 Tim. iv. 10: " Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this
present world."

§ 142.

The sedatives, the grounds of quieting and comfort which
we have to apply amid our sufferings, are different according
to the nature of those sufferings. The chief sedative, the
deepest and strongest ground of contentment, is the conscious-
ness of the grace of God in Christ, the consciousness that we
are beloved of God in Christ, that nothing can separate us
from the love of God, and that all things must work for our
good, if we love God (Eom. v. 5, viii. 38 f.). But this finds
its special application in the different situations. If we
must view our sufferings as chastisements, there must be a
comfort for us in this, that they are fatherly chastisements,
that aim at our salvation, our improvement, that we may
bring forth the fruit of righteousness. Yea, there may be
times in which we must repeat that word of the prophet,
" I will bear the anger of the Lord, for I have sinned
against Him " (Micah vii. 9), but in which we also, with this
humiliation under the righteous hand of God, should wrait on
Him, in the firm confidence that He will again lift the light
of His countenance upon us. When we, again, can regard
our sufferings mainly as trials, our comfort lies in this, that
these sufferings are to serve for our education, that within
us a progress, a transformation into the more perfect may take
place, which otherwise would not come to pass. They are to
purify us like a fire, in which the dross is separated from the
pure metal, in which also the finer egoism and pleasure-seek-
ing is to be burnt out and consumed (1 Pet. i. 6 f.). And

SUFFERING. 333

sufferings not only serve to purify, but also to edify. They
teach us self-knowledge ; for only in suffering do we become
aware of very much on and in ourselves, which otherwise
we would never notice and experience, learn also to know the
world in its unsteadiness and unreliableness, learn to know
God the Lord as the alone abiding and reliable One. They
form us to more intimate communion with God, to surrender
to God, to an intercourse of prayer with the Lord, such as is
hardly to be learned in any way but this. They teach us ta
thank God for much for which we otherwise would certainly
not have thanked Him, at least with all our heart. And as
they train to surrender to God, and at the same time — pro-
vided they are understood and borne in the right way — make
us more sympathetic for men's lots, milder, more forbearing
with their weaknesses; so they also train us to genuine
freedom of spirit, to internal independence of the world and?
of worldly things. " My soul is like one that is weaned
from his mother" (Ps. cxxxi. 3 ; comp. Phil. iv. 11-13)..
Certainly it is very painful to have to suffer, to lack, want,
whatever it be, whether love, or honour, or health, or other
good things of life ; very painful to have to fight the lonely
fight with one's own heart. And only too often we behave
in this not otherwise than the crying child which is taken
from its mother's breast, and passionately desires to be put to*
the breast again. We would fain return again to the rest
and comfort of life, to the sweet habit of existence, to the-
wonted unions of love and intercourse, to the recognition and
applause of men. But it is so wholesome to us " to be-
weaned " from all that, as we simply can have no continuing
place either in the one or in the other, as at last the whole
fashion of this world is for us to pass away. All depends
on this, that the inner transformation may take place. We-
are to cease to be children, and become of age, that
we may go and stand alone. To this we must be trained
by the struggle against hindrances and misfortunes, to
which also belongs the resistance, the opposition we ex-
perience in our efforts, must be trained, and ripen to
firmness of character, to independence. True, indeed, this
success only befalls those who in obedience bow beneath the
will of God. In the opposite case, suffering rather produces

334 SUFFERING.

bitterness against God and man, and the whole wretchedness
of egoism.

But sufferings not only according to God's will serve to
purify and edify, but also to prevent (prophylactically ;
compare Elihu in the book of Job). " Lest I should be
exalted above measure through the abundance of the revela-
tions, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the mes-
senger of Satan to buffet me " (2 Cor. xii. 7). The apostle
does not say he was exalted by the abundance of his revela-
tions. He only says that he felt a temptation to this, and
that his sufferings were given to him as a counterpoise,
whether we understand by the stake or thorn in the flesh a
strong inner temptation, or a suffering brought upon him by
opponents, or, what may be the most probable, a severe and
protracted bodily suffering. This is given him by God as a
preventive, defensive, quenching means, and is ever anew to
conduct him into the school and exercise of humility. The
application is plain to all of us. Our sufferings are to help
us to gain the victory over temptations, in which without
them we might easily come to a fall. They may be compared
to a drag which is put on a coach to keep it from rolling
down with headlong rapidity.

What has been said above of the more earnest, deeply
incisive sufferings, is also applicable to those disturbances,
annoyances, discomforts, and plagues, mostly touching but
the surface, which daily life brings with it, and which can so
often make us impatient and excitable. In contesting these
plagues, our mind is to be fashioned to freedom and repose,
to what the quietists call " holy indifference " (passivity).
Such daily recurring little plagues have also their prophy-
lactic, defensive object. This especially applies to the little
torments that our corporality causes us, and the care we have
to employ to overcome them. Were they not present, we
would be in danger of falling into a false spiritualism. As
pure spirit-beings, we would be quite intolerable with our
egoism. Therefore we need these bodily restraints.

§ 143.

Under sore, mysterious allotments, like Job's sufferings,
there is no better quietive than this ; " Humble yourselves

SUFFERING. 335

therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt
you in due time " (1 Pet. v. 6), and that with this we like-
wise renounce the unreasonable requirement, that already in
the midst of time a theodicy shall be given us, that is, that
God shall justify to us His government of the world, the
ways of His providence, while we often forget how we our-
selves are to be justified before God. We must familiarize
ourselves with the thought, that so long as we only know a
fragment of the divine government, and are not yet able to
survey the connection between the whole and the individual,
so long as we have not yet heard the " prologue in heaven,"
many an inquiry must remain unanswered, and we must keep
alive in us the consciousness that as against God's wisdom
our wisdom, even as against God's righteousness our right-
eousness is ever wrong. Instead of asking, Why ? we must
ask, Wherefore ? what problems will God set us ? what
duties does He lay on me just now ? And if it be said
that that unanswered Why remains ever in the soul like a
thorn, we remark, in reply, that the point of this thorn is
broken off to the believer, who knows that he humbles him-
self not only under the hand of omnipotence, but also under
the hand of wisdom and grace, and that the same hand that
now bows him down will in due time raise him up. And
although at the moment it is hidden from us when and how
our God will exalt us, yet we know that the true exaltation
of man consists in nothing else than the glorious liberty of
the children of God.

A great error in which many men, meditating and brood-
ing over their sufferings, are found, is that they regard their
person as the proper centre of the world, and think that they,
as isolated individuals, are the object of the divine government,
while they ought to think that as individuals they are yet
likewise members of the great whole. Now, since suffering
is inseparable from the whole of this sinful world, the
individual, who is a member of the whole, must also neces-
sarily suffer, not merely for his own sake, but also for the
whole. That the individual suffers with the whole is seen
most strikingly in public calamities, social misfortunes, where
the individual must bear his share cf the general suffering.
But, even apart from this natural connection, there are —

336 SUFFERING.

\vithout the possibility oi drawing a sharp, distinctly recog-
nisable boundary — certain sufferings in the life of every man,
which he bears not only for his own sake, but for the whole,
for the entire race, people, family, be they moral and mental,
or bodily sufferings, whether he have received them from the
past as a sad inheritance, or as a burden rolled also upon his
shoulders by the present. And there are individuals who can
very properly be designated as the bearers and vessels of the
general suffering, because in them the sufferings diffused over
the whole appear in a greater concentration, as a disease
diffused through the whole bodily organism may take its
chief lodgment in particular organs. In such cases, how-
ever, the creature dare not argue with the Creator, nor the
clay quarrel with the potter, and ask : Why hast Thou formed
me thus ? Why hast Thou assigned me just this place in
Thy order of the world ? Why hast Thou not given me a
more favourable position, in which existence were more toler-
able and comfortable, were more beautiful ? And even if this
world of sin and corruption is inconceivable without suffer-
ings, why didst Thou not at least make an entirely different
and more perfect division of them ? Instead of darkening
the counsel of God by such unreasonable speeches, the only
light thing is to say, " I will be silent, and not open my
mouth" (Ps. xxxix. 10), obediently to enter upon the task
set us by God, to leave the division of the sufferings, their
measure and limit, to the Almighty and alone Wise, in the
confidence that He on that day will certainly justify Himself,
not only in His judicial, but also in His distributive right-
eousness.

As a counterpoise to the one-sided, individualistic view of
our sufferings, as also in order to lower our claims, it is ad-
visable carefully and diligently to observe the sufferings of
the whole, and then to ask ourselves, what right we have to
be discharged from participation in these sufferings ? Wo
here mention Baruch, who, as scribe of the prophet Jeremiah,
had to write down the severe words that God the Lord caused
to be spoken by the prophet to His people (Jer. xlv.).
Baruch himself felt very unhappy in those evil, disturbed, and
joyless times. He complained : " Woe is me now ! for the
Lord hath added grief to my sorrow ; I fainted in my sighing.

SUFFERING. 337

and I find no rest." But the Lord said to him : " Behold,
that which I have built will I break down, and that which
I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land. And
seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not ; for,
behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh (that is, upon the
whole earth), saith the Lord ; but thy life will I give unto
thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest." Baruch
is thus exhorted amid the general misfortune not to desire
great things, and something extraordinary for himself; amid
the everywhere prevalent unrest, not to claim for his own
person mere quiet days. " Thy life will I give unto thee for
a prey," it is then said, and by this the earthly life is meant,
which God of special grace will preserve to him wherever
he may be driven away. And indeed there are times of
overthrow and of general devastation on earth when one must
regard it as a gift of grace if a man can only prolong his
earthly existence. But from the standpoint of Christianity,
we can say that whatever fate may burst upon the earth and
the individual, yet the Lord will at all times grant grace to
His believing people that they may save their soul, that they
may grasp and keep eternal life. But as regards earthly
happiness, the claims we make of life, we all need the ex-
hortation : Thou seekest great things for thyself : seek them
not. Behold these great revolutions round about on earth ;
see how the proudest kingdoms dissolve and sink into dust :
place before your eyes all the unhappiness, all the misery that
prevails far and near in the world of man. Behold the terrors
of war, the misery of poverty, in which thousands of your
fellow-men must daily struggle for an existence that hovers
on the borders of starvation : behold the misery of pestilence,
devastating whole countries ; see how death snatches away
the living in masses, without regard to age and rank. And yet
seekest thou great things for thyself ? desirest amid this great
world-calamity — and at all times this world is in trouble and
great calamity — to have good and quiet days for thyself alone ?
Seek it not : think in what kind of a world thou art, and to
what a race thou belongest. and thank thy God that for all this
it is still given thee to save thy soul (comp. 1 Tim. vi. 6 ff.).
The noblest and highest form of suffering for the whole
presents itself to us where God's grace will glorify itself in

Y

338 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

the sufferers in such wise that they thereby become a Ness-
ing for the whole, for many of their fellow-inen. Such a
suffering form appears to us in Job, who suffered not only
for his own sake, but likewise for the whole, so far as he was
to stand as a picture of human misery, like a vessel in which
human sufferings in special multitude and multiplicity should
be collected, but which in this should glorify God, and at
the same time should become to men a type of patience
(Jas. v. 11), adapted to become, as well by his virtues as by
his weaknesses, a mirror even for the latest generations. So
also with those followers of Christ who have suffered perse-
cutions for righteousness' sake, and thereby also for the whole.
In them Christ is glorified, and they illumine their brethren
as comforting lights. But in the wider sense of the word,
it must be said that God will be glorified in all His believing
ones in their sufferings, and that they are all called to give
an edifying example to their fellow-men.

§ 144.

The final aim of Christian self-love is the formation of
the Christian character. But a fundamental feature of the
Christian character is not only ministering love and devotion,
but also " the liberty of the children of God." In making
in the sequel Christian liberty the object of a fuller con-
sideration, we enter on a new, relatively independent sphere,
in which domain, however, love will still accompany us.

II.-CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
§ 145.

Only in the ministering demeanour of love, in devotion to
God and His kingdom, to the earthly and the heavenly call-
ing, to the special dealings of God with us, is true liberty
developed and formed. The ideal of liberty, the ideal of
independence and self-dependence, forms indeed the opposite
of the ideal of surrender, of love and obedience, or of ser-
vice, but yet only attains its truth and realization in unity

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 339

with it. Internal liberty is the condition of love ; but it
is also its noble fruit, its result. Only the -will expressed
by the spirit of surrender, of love, and of obedience is the
true character. Whether we consider the heathen or the
Christian character, we will still adduce the following as
the general (formal) criterion of character: — freedom, self-
determination, and self-dependence, independence of all that
is extraneous and agreement with self. But the peculiarity
(specific) of Christian character consists in this, that it will
not be like the heathen, free and self-dependent without love,
that it does not pursue the ideal of self-dependence as some-
thing isolated, but only in the subordination thereof under
the ideal of surrender and of service. In contrast to
heathenism (modern and ancient), in which the wise man will
be free and self-dependent without God, we hold firm to the
consciousness that only that existence can be called really
free that lives and moves in full agreement with its proper
being, that can unfold its powers unhindered and undisturbed.
But the essence of man is the being in God's image ; the
destination of man is to find and gain himself in God, to be
a law to himself in fulfilling God's law, to be a lord over all
things in being God's servant, to be free under grace. God
is the element of human volition ; and each being can only
be itself in its element. As the bird is only free in the
element of air, the fish only in water, so man only in God,
and in the fulness of His love. Without the fulness of love,
liberty goes to ruin, remains only an empty, a merely formal
self-dependence, must wither away and shrivel up for lack of
true nourishment, of the true warmth of life, as plainly ap-
pears in the Stoics with all their declamations about the self-
dependence and elevation of the human will. The Autarkia
(self-sufficiency, sibi sufficient) of the Stoics is, rightly viewed,
at bottom nothing but a constant " sucking one's own paw."
The formal (abstract) ego will feed itself from itself, but
lacks that which can truly satisfy it, namely God, to whom
it can surrender, and in the surrender gain itself as filled
by God.

When the old mysticism says, " That is free which does
not depend on another," it says what applies in its full im-
port to no one but to God alone. But of man we can say,

340 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND THE LAW.

He only is free who does not depend on anything else in
false dependence. But in the same measure as a man in-
creases in the relation of love to God, he becomes free from
false dependence on himself, on the world, and on the things
that are in the world, on which the heart of the natural man
depends ; yea, he becomes free and rid of untrue dependence
on God, depends not in a bad, merely external sense on Him.
For Christian communion with God excludes the relationship
of bondage and of servile fear, in which the man stands to
God not otherwise than the slave to his master, excludes also
the pantheistic relation to the deity in which the man only
adheres to the latter as the drop adheres to the ocean, soon
to vanish in its infinite depth. In the Christian relation of
man to God, true dependence is accompanied also by self-
dependence, which corresponds to the position of a free and
voluntary servant to his master, or of a child to his father.

When we now proceed to consider Christian liberty more
closely, we do so under two chief points of view, namely,
according to its position to the law of God, and its position
to the world.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND THE LAW.

§ 146.

'•' I pray God to make me free from God," says Master
Eckart. We cannot indeed appropriate this saying in the
pantheistically tinged sense of the old mystic, but can in
this sense : I pray God to make me free from the improper
relation of dependence on Him, but to lead me into the
genuine and true dependence on Him, to redeem me from the
pressure of the law, which lies on my soul like a heavy
burden. For as, according to Fr. Baader's apt comparison,
the air only weighs heavily on such bodies as are void of
air, so God's law, and so far God Himself, who reveals Him-
self by means of the law, rests like a heavy oppressive
burden on the souls who have not God within them, to whom
therefore the law, as soon as they become conscious of it, is
only an inconvenient, burdensome requirement, that convinces
them of the emptiness of their heart, of the impotence of

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND THE LAW. 341

their will. But redemption from the pressure of the law is
given us in the communion with God brought about by
Christ. Through justifying faith the regenerate one is freed
from the curse of the law, in that by grace he has received
the forgiveness of sins, and is become a child of God ; and
in this new relation to God he receives the power for a
development of life, with which he begins an entirely new
attitude to the law; for the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts (Eom. v. 5), and we love God with the love
with which God loves us. Grace has become in us the
principle of liberty, and we live our life after the impulse
of the Spirit (Eom. viii. 14): "As many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are God's children."

Christian liberty stands therefore at once in opposition to
antinomianism and to nomianism (lawlessness and legality).
We here refer to the more detailed view that was given in
our General Part of these false doctrines and tendencies of
life, especially of antinomianism in its various ramifications
(§ 126 ff.). A Christian has not liberty for "a cloak of
maliciousness" (1 Pet ii. 16); but, as God's servant, he
denies the false geniality and the false emancipation that
will make for itself an exception to the validity of the law
that binds all others, yea, that will continue in sin that
grace may become the mightier, or may show itself the richer
(Eom. vi. 1). But Christian liberty is equally opposed also
to nomianism, which places man only in an external relation
to the law, the mere commandment, the mere imperative,
while it does not become for him " the perfect law of liberty "
(Jas. i. 26), and without his own heart becoming homo-
geneous to the law. The principle in the life of a Christian
is the unity of the law with freedom of the will, or, what is
the same thing, the unity of freedom with grace, with God's
love. And the more the new love, the new obedience, the
new pleasure is diffused from the centre over the whole cir-
cumference of life, from the heart into the other spiritual as
well as bodily organs, the more also will the whole life-walk
show itself a walk in truth and righteousness. Such a
Christian cannot but speak the truth ; for he himself is true ;
the truth has passed over into his being. He cannot but
deal justly and honestly, for, as Master Eckart says, " Eight-

342 CHRISTIAN LIBEETY AND THE LAW.

eousness has overpowered him ; he is laid hold of by right-
eousness, and is one with it." And so much the more will a
Christian also be in the position to take the right attitude to
what is allowed (" All things are lawful for me, but all
things are not expedient," says the apostle, 1 Cor. x. 23),
and will understand how in this to unite his own liberty
with a loving regard to others, especially to the weak
(" Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat
no flesh while the world standeth," 1 Cor. viii. 13) ; he will
solve the questionable (casuistic) cases and collisions, not by
rules which only lead into endless reflections about their
applicability or inapplicability, but by immediate tact, and by
the power of the personality. And while he feels no more
the pressure of the law, neither will he feel the pressure of
time, which will appear to him neither too long nor too short,
because he will take the moment into the service of the
spirit, and will transfigure time into a form, a vessel for the
eternal. He will gain the victory over the power of time,
that withers and makes all old ; for " though our outward
man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day "
(2 Cor. iv. 16).

True, however, this ideal only becomes approximately
realized. We are God's children only so that we likewise are
to become such. As long as we wander in this temporal life,
the contrast between ideal and reality remains. No one
attains to a perfectly harmonious life of liberty this side the
grave. As long as we are in the tabernacle, this mortal
body, as long as we live in the flesh, we groan and are
burdened; and the glorious liberty of the children of God,
after which the creature longs with us, can only begin
with the redemption of our body (Born. viii. 21 f.). A
Christian will therefore all his life need what our old Church
doctors called " the third use of the law " (tertius usus legis),
of the law as far as it is also valid for the regenerate.
Earnest Christians are on their guard against being done
too soon with the discipline of the law, which leads only to
an imaginary " evangelical " liberty, resting upon self-decep-
tion. A Christian will hardly be able to avoid times in
which, though in the state of grace, he feels himself partially
under the law, feels himself involved in the opposition be-

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND THE LAW. i>43

tween duty and inclination, between obedience and love.
Yea, hours may come in the life of a Christian, when, in the
struggle between spirit and flesh, he must exclaim with the
apostle, " 0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me
from the body of this death ? " But assuredly these states
will more and more disappear through the progressive victory
of the spirit.

§147.

After what is here said, one can estimate an objection
which is raised against Christianity from the standpoint of
modern humanism. Namely, it is asked, What advantage,
then, have the Christians, if the contrast between ideal and
reality, between duty and inclination, which we have de-
nounced on the non - Christian standpoints, yet recurs in
Christianity? When we spoke above of Schiller and the
aesthetic education, through which the contrast between duty
and inclination is supposed to be overcome, and a harmoni-
ous morality brought to pass, it was urged as an actual truth
that this dualism is not overcome by the natural means of
man, but solely and alone in the power of regeneration.
And now we ourselves admit that, despite of regeneration,
even in the Christian life there is still found a disharmony
between ideal and reality, yea, that there are also states in
which the soul is " under the law." It is asked, Wherein,
then, consists the essential difference between a believing
Christian and such a non-Christian as with enthusiasm strives
after the ideal of liberty, although in many cases he is not
able to realize it, and is again involved in the struggle between
duty and inclination ? Is it not exactly so with you Chris-
tians also, as yourselves confess ? And as those who place
themselves outside of Christianity have a very special interest
in pointing out blots and defects in the life of Christians,
for which they have so sharp an eye, and in which they
seek and suppose they find a justification for themselves for
their refusal to have anything more to do with Christianity,
they raise the question whether really many a non-Christian
does not present an existence more harmonious, in a moral
point of view, than many even among the better Christians ?
and whether the supposed advantage of the Christians does

344 CHRISTIAN LIBEKTY AND THE LAW.

not in the end amount to a phantasy, an imagination, be-
cause the unsettled dissension between ideal and reality is
simply the lot of humanity ? and so whether the great thing
for every one is not earnest moral effort ? That this in all
remains, it is true, a fragment, is what must be accepted with
resignation.

As is so often the case in the attacks upon Christianity,
this objection leaves on one side the proper fundamental
question, and moves outside the internal connection of the
matter in question. We admit willingly, and to our humilia-
tion, that not seldom in this or that point even good Chris-
tians in respect of moral conduct may be excelled by a
non-Christian. Nevertheless we declare with all emphasis,
that viewing their life in its totality, the Christians surpass
the non-Christians in that which is essential in life. For
even then, when a Christian must complain, " 0 wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death ? " even when he has to contend with a sinful weak-
ness, a " thorn in the flesh " (2 Cor. xii. 7), with which a
morally earnest heathen has not to contend, yet he can break
off his complaint and say, " I thank God through Jesus
Christ" (Eom. vii. 25); he still bears in his inmost being
reconciliation and peace, because he knows himself redeemed
of grace through the righteousness of faith, because he
knows himself placed under the protection of saving, pater-
nally training grace — a certainty which a non-Christian does
not know, as he in his inmost being is unreconciled towards
God, and just here carries about with him the deepest dis-
sonance. Then also a believing Christian possesses the
power for progressive conflict and victory over sin and the
world, the power of grace awanting to the unbeliever, the
heathen, who is fully given over in his philosophic righteous-
ness to the powers of nature. That Christians often omit to
make use of this power of God, which amid all human weak-
ness fulfils its work on and in us, is no disproof of the
presence and efficacy thereof. And to mention only one
thing, the Christian possesses, in prayer in the name of Jesus,
a means to draw down higher powers to himself, of which a
non-Christian can never be a partaker. And, finally, how-
ever slow the progress, in whatever degree Christian virtue

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND THE LAW. 845

remains a mere fragment even to the grave; yet the Chris-
tian possesses a living hope, of ultimate perfection, which the
heathen in the like case must lack. For the heathen (the
modern, as he of olden time) is with his philosophic right-
eousness either entirely without hope, completely uncertain
what will become of him in the end, or he leans on an
imagined, hovering, and flickering hope of immortality, which
in the struggles of life can afford no support, and at best is
a feeble reflection of the Christian hope.

§ 148.

But what has been said of the relation to the law, applies
also to the relation to authority. Liberation from the bondage
of the law is likewise also liberation from the bondage of
authority. We mean by this especially the relation to the
divine truth, and have in view as well divine as human
authority. As Christianity has emancipated men from
spiritual and bodily bondage, that they may appropriate (or
also reject) the gospel of redemption quite freely, no human
power may place itself as a hindrance between man and the
divine truth. A chief part of evangelical liberty which has
been recovered by the Reformation consists in this, that a
Christian man is free from the yoke of human laws, from
the papacy, from ecclesiastical doctrines that have no ground
in the word and Spirit of God ; but therewith also free from
the authority of all human views and doctrines which do not
agree with God's word, from the authority of the time-spirit,
the so-called public opinion, from what are called the require-
ments of the time, wherein the true and false are ever mixed
up together, and which one therefore dare not accept without
careful sifting ; therewith also free from the authority of the
heads of church parties, who often set forth their contentions in
the form of prophetic utterances, when it becomes our task to
" prove all things, and hold fast that which is good " (1 Thess.
v. 21). True, there is a stage in our development when we
cannot do otherwise than lean upon human authority, and
must be content to have the truth at second-hand. That is
the stage of minority. We believe, then, on the authority
of parents and teachers, of the wise and experienced, which

346 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND THE LAW.

pledges itself to us that what is told us is also so indeed.
But when we have attained our majority, and are ourselves
in a position to judge and to decide, to test and undertake
the responsibility for our convictions, then, with all recognition
and regard towards human teachers, every human authority
will have but a relative importance for us. Above all, we
must shape out our own conviction as regards the highest
truth and the matter of salvation, by placing ourselves in a
direct relation to the truth, and not only to the views that
others have of the truth. And then it becomes us also to
manifest immoveable fidelity towards recognised truth, even
granting that it should have the majority of our contem-
poraries and the time-spirit against it. " Ye are bought with
a price ; be not the servants of men " (1 Cor. vii. 23).

But the Eeformatiou has not freed us from the yoke of
human opinions and laws in order to free us from all and
every authority, but because it would lead us back to the
absolute authority, to God in Christ. But even then there
is still a relation of authority from which we must become
inwardly free. And here again that saying of Master Eckart
may be recalled, " I pray God to make me free from God,"
namely, from a merely external relation of dependence, an
oppressive and narrowing relation of bondage to God, viewed
as normal by the papists. But the evangelical relation be-
tween authority and freedom is this, that the gospel of Christ,
and that independent of frail human guarantees, attests itself
to the consciousness, to the conscience of men, through its
original power of truth and grace, as the sun in the heaven
proves its illuminating and warming power to every creature
that is not placed outside the domain of its influence ; that
Christ's is no merely external, but through the relation of
our free subordination likewise becomes an internal authority,
and in this unity of its outward and inward revelation, as
authority of truth and grace, not only shows itself confirming
and promoting true freedom, but also communicating power,
dispensing light and quickening. Then we understand from
our inmost experience, and ourselves realize that word of
Christ, " If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples
indeed ; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free " (John viii. 3 1 f.).

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND THE LAW. 347

Still, what we said before of the relation of freedom to the
law recurs here also. Even when in the centre of our life
the unity of authority and liberty is restored, it is so
therefore by no means at all points of the circumference.
There may remain in the revelation of Christ very many
points where His authority as yet stands over against us
only as external, without this outward having become an
inward. Are we in one respect already become free by Christ,
and are continually kept spiritually free by Him, yet we are
on other sides in the state of nonage ; and if we may in one
respect appropriate to ourselves His word (John xv. 15),
" Henceforth I call you not servants ; for the servant knoweth
not what his Lord doeth : but I have called you friends," yet
in another respect we are servants who do not yet know what
the Lord doeth. Certain words of Christ may also seem to
us like a " hard saying " (John vi. 6 0) ; certain events in His
life may be dark to us, which we could not yet inly appropriate.
Yet it becomes us to bow under the one as under the others,
and in humility to expect that the right understanding will be
given us when we have become ripe to receive it. And that
in His words there is much which we cannot yet, or only very
imperfectly, appropriate, follows quite naturally from this, that
His words are designed not merely for a single time, but for
all times, and that their entire riches will only be displayed
in the last times, which is equally applicable also to His
works and to His life's destinies. Therefore we bow ourselves
under His testimony, even where we do not understand it,
where it stands before us only as an external authority.
But we could not do that if He had not, by the impression
of His revelations as a whole, the impression of His whole
personality, given us a witness within, in virtue of which we
can say, " To whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of
eternal life" (John vi. 68). The total impression of His
revelation, combined with the deepest heart's experience made
in following Him, is what also guarantees to us the part whose
truth and import are not yet apparent to us.

Those who hold no external authority valid in regard to
the knowledge of the truth, forget that even in the natural
things surrounding us there is much that we must accept on
external authority. How many historical and physical truths

348 TEMPORAL GOODS AND EVILS.

do we accept on external authority ! How many of us are
in a position to give an account of the grounds on which the
Copernican system relies ? and yet we accept it as right.
True, however, we must, in order to accept it, be convinced
of the reliability of those who are our guarantors for it. And
what holds good of natural things holds good also of super-
natural. Here Christ stands before us as the true and
faithful witness (Rev. iii. 14), as He who can say, " We speak
that we do know, and testify that we have seen. And no
man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down
from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven "
(John iii. 11, 13). We regard Him as that one who has
come to us men from an unknown land, that lies entirely
beyond the domain of human discoveries, and of which He
only can give us word (John i. 18). And if we accept His
testimony, and continue in His words, He will also certainly
lead us more and more, deeper and deeper into that land, and
let us experience its glory.

LIBERTY AND THE WORLD.

Temporal Goods and Evils.
§ 149.

In the same measure as our liberty, our moral volition and
action, gains the normal relation to the law, it enters equally
into the normal relation to the world, to temporal goods and
evils. Only salvation, the eternal good, only communion with
the Lord, is then the object of absolute search and pursuit ;
whereas blessedness, or the union of salvation and happiness,
eternal and temporal good, whose conditions lie outside of us,
honour in the world, domestic happiness and friendship, free-
dom from temporal cares, and noble pleasures of life, health
and long life — all this is only conditionally pursued. Every
one pictures to himself his ideal of blessedness in harmony
with his individuality, wherefore it assumes as many different
forms, and inclines to as many different hues, as there are
different individuals. But if we are to pursue our ideal of

TEMFOEAL GOODS AND EVILS. 340

blessedness, without at the same time denying the ideal of
salvation, we must pursue it as those who, so soon as the
Lord requires it, are ready to sacrifice it. We must live our
life as those that know that suffering and death have been
associated with blessedness as its contrast ; that as well
blessedness as suffering, in their proper import, are means in
the hand of God for our education ; that God in His wisdom
determines for each of His children just the measure of bliss
and just the measure of suffering that is good for him, and
that every ideal of bliss, if approximately realized, has yet but
a soon vanishing realitv.

O t/

§ 150.

Strict and consistent stoicism must hold temporal goods and
evils as entirely indifferent or equivalent. Virtue alone is
valuable, and can be realized in misfortune just as well as in
prosperity, which are both to be regarded as accidents, or as
effects of a blind fate. This is a view of things which, as
Christians, we cannot approve, and do not share. For even if
temporal goods and evils may be viewed in abstracto as in-
different for the eternal destiny of man, or as something that
does not affect God's kingdom, yet the Christian belief in
providence, which, it is true, stoicism knows nothing of, must
impart to them a definite import, namely, an end in the
educative dealings of providence with that individual. What
we men designate accident, fortune, and misfortune, is
changed by the all-pervading, all-guiding providence of God
into a means for its man-educating government, is interwoven
with the whole sum of appointments or dispensations which
stamp their proper impress on the development of moral
liberty, and thereby on the development of the soul's sal-
vation. Temporal goods, if regarded not under the view-
point of accident, but that of divine providence, are divine
gifts, and likewise embrace weighty problems for the indi-
vidual. Temporal evils mean problems that hide divine gifts
and blessings in them, which the man is, by means of the
work of the will's freedom, to develop from them and bring to
light. But providence as little apportions its gifts as its
problems blindly. Whether, for instance, a man is placed

350 TEMPORAL GOODS AND EVILS.

under such conditions of life that he can live like the rich
man in the gospel, or whether in respect to his external situa-
tion he must live like a Lazarus, may appear to the worldly
j udgment a work of accident ; but it is by no means indifferent
to providence, to which all the hairs of our head are numbered,
even if the wisdom at the foundation of it lies beyond our
range of vision, and we are unfit to recognise the deeper
correspondence which prevails between allotment and indi-
viduality, between the life's problem, life's trial, and man's soul.
But while temporal goods and evils are not indifferent,
when viewed from the objective standpoint, namely, from
the point of view of the divine providence, they are so just
as little when viewed from the subjective view-point. A
Christian cannot possibly occupy a position of stoical indiffer-
ence to them. And even the Stoics were not consistent in
practice, for among these things they made a difference
between the Desirable, that which one must prefer (TO
fjiivov}. and the Not-desirable or objectionable (TO a.
pevov) ; and reckoned among the indifferent things in the
strictest sense only that which is of so small worth or so
entirely worthless that it can neither be an object of desire nor
of aversion. Among the desirable things they reckoned good
dispositions, beauty, strength, health, also riches, noble descent,
and so on, but the opposite to these goods among the reject-
able things.1 But now, if a Christian were to regard temporal
goods as entirely indifferent, he could neither thank God for
temporal benefits, nor invoke Him for the averting of temporal
evils, or pray for divine assistance to fight against or rightly
employ them, which is all, however, inseparable from Christian
life and endeavour. The gospel also expressly declares that
temporal goods are not something indifferent, for it says,
" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. vi. 33).
For it is hereby said that also the rest may be desired by
Christians, only not as the first. And to this also the apostle
points when he says that " godliness has promise of the life
that now is, and of that which is to come " (1 Tim. iv. 8).
It must also be acknowledged that a certain measure of tem-
poral goods belongs to a complete human existence on earth,

1 Zeller, Philosophic der Geschichte, III. i. 241.

TEMPOKAL GOODS AND EVILS. 351

and that pleasure in life, the longing for a harmonious self-
unfolding of life, and a full satisfaction of his needs, has been
implanted in man by the Creator Himself. What herein
comes into question is only the right subordination of the
lower life to the higher, the honest application of the former,
so as neither to over nor under- value it.

An overstrained asceticism, which has often appeared in the
Christian Church, in its disregard of temporal goods, goes to
the extreme of holding them as not at all intended to be
enjoyed, but as merely intended to le sacrificed; for suffering
is the onlv normal form of a Christian's life. Accordingly,

*/ O J *

this asceticism comes to over-estimate temporal evils, attribut-
ing to them an exclusive value. But such a view is also
irreconcilable with apostolic Christianity. The Apostle Paul
lays down the rule, " That both they that have wives, be as
though they had none ; and they that weep, as though they
wept not ; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not ;
and they that buy, as though they possessed not ; and they
that use this world, as not abusing it : for the fashion of this
world passeth away" (1 Cor. vii. 29 ff.). In this, then, he by
no means says that a Christian is to renounce and separate
himself from temporal goods ; but he says that a Christian is
to have them as one who has them not, and so is to be ever
ready to yield them up as soon as the Lord requires it ; is to
desire them as one who does not desire them, that is, does not
passionately covet them ; is to sorrow at the loss of them as
one who does not sorrow, that is, is not swallowed up in his
sorrow. " The fashion of this ivorld passeth away." That is
the frame of mind in which a Christian is to use this world.
But amid this frame of mind there lives the hope of an eternal
salvation and glory. If, then, a Christian, in prosperity as in
adversity, is to preserve this frame, it may no doubt be said
of the miserable one that in a certain respect he is nearer the
truth and salvation than the happy one, in so far, namely,
as the latter has the consciousness of the transitoriness and
perishableness of this life in a merely mental fashion, that is,
only as thought and imagination ; while the wretched one, like
Lazarus, has this consciousness at first hand, as an actual
experience, a realization, and is internally nearer eternity ,
wherefore also the old " Preacher " (vii. 2) says, " It is better

352 TEMPORAL GOODS AND EVILS.

to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of
feasting. Sorrow is better than laughter." But the following
of Christ is to be carried out as well in the one form as in the
other, as well in earthly prosperity as in suffering, after the
measure that the educating and guiding wisdom of the Lord
requires. Therefore also the apostle says (Phil. iv. 12 ff.),
" I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound ;
everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full
and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can
do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me."

How he inwardly stood related to earthly goods, of which
he was independent, but which he yet did not despise when
they were offered to him, because they served him as means
for his moral personal life, Paul showed in the most beautiful
way in the last days of his life, when the martyr death was
appearing to him as the end. Eternity, the future glory into
which he was soon to enter, before his eyes, he writes to
his Timothy, " I am now ready to be offered, and the time
of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith : henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day : and not
to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing "
(2 Tim. iv. 6 ff.). Now, from the ascetic standpoint, whose
essence is renunciation and contempt of the world, one might
think that, to the man who was done with life, and had only
in view the martyr death and the heavenly glory, all that is
temporal must be entirely indifferent, and that he was far
beyond wishing any temporal refreshment for himself for the
short time that might still remain to him. But such is not
the case. Immediately thereafter, and in the same epistle, he
writes, " Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me " (iv. 9).
He wishes his dear pupil to bear him company in his loneli-
ness. He writes further, " The cloak that I left at Troas
with Carpus, bring with thee" (iv. 13). He might use this-
cloak to warm himself in the cold prison. At the same time-
he writes, " Bring also the books, but especially the parch-
ments" (iv. 13). In the solitude in which he is awaiting
death, he will occupy his time with reading. An overstrained
ascetic would have scorned all this, and have busied himself

HONOUR AND DISHONOUR. 353

exclusively in thoughts of the heavenly, would have " had no
time" to think of these subordinate earthly things. Not so
the apostle. He has time for these also, will still on earth
enjoy the refreshment that the Lord allows him, will enjoy a
friend in solitude, asks for books likewise in his loneliness,
and a cloak for the cold.1

While now we judge temporal goods and evils from the
point of view already laid down, we consider in what follows
the chief manifestations of this most comprehensive contrast.

Honour and Dishonour.
§ 151.

If salvation and blessedness is the religious expression for
the ideal of the personality, honour is the worldly expression.
Internal honour (dignity), or the mystery of honour, as the
individual's consciousness of his value in the moral order of the
world, the individual's consciousness of his worth before God,
— "By the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. xv. 10), — is
inseparably connected with salvation itself. External honour
again, is the acknowledgment which human society allows to
the worth of the individual, or what we are in the idea of others,
and is inseparable from our earthly calling, and the faithful-
ness connected with the exercise of the calling. For the rest,
external, phenomenal (belonging to the world of appearance)
honour is only a relative good. It is a good so far as it is a
weighty condition of our activity, in order to accomplish
something among men, but also because the man has a need
rooted in his nature to be acknowledged and accredited in the
consciousness of others ; a need to be respected, which in its
deepest root is connected with man's need to be loved and to
love. This need to live in the consciousness of others, without
respect to the gain or advantage which we may have from it,
is revealed also in the importance that we attach to the
memory that survives us, not only as regards fame, which can
ever be the portion of but few, but also where an honourable
name is in question, as the old saying has it :

1 Compare Rich. Rothe, Enlwwrfe zu den Abendandachten iiber die Brief e
Pauli an den Timotheus und Titus, p. 280 ff.

Z

354 HONOUR AND DISHONOUR

" Turn sin away from me and shame,
That I may go into my grave with honourable name."

We are therefore to strive to make ourselves worthy of external
honour, which is an ideal good ; and if our honour be assailed,
we are in case of necessity to defend ourselves. Indirectly,
we at all times defend our assailed honour, if we, after the
apostle's direction (1 Peter ii. 15), with well-doing, by good
behaviour, put to silence the ignorance of foolish men ; when
we thus let our actions speak, and by a consistent carrying
out of our mode of action in the service of good, compel men
to be convinced of the higher normality that dominates our
conduct. But in certain circumstances it may also become
necessary to give a direct account to ourselves ; and here we
can point to the example of the Apostle Paul, when he is
defending himself, for example, against those who had attacked
his exercise of office, and would lower him in the regard of
others, in that he not only asserts his official warrant and
authority, but also his personal worth, his labours and suffer-
ings for the cause of Christ, boasts himself, even if " foolishly"
(eV a^poavvrj), because all human glory is nothing before the
Lord, in whom alone may we glory (2 Cor. xi. 21 ff.). A
defence after this example, which again refers back to the
example of the Lord, who against the accusations of His
opponents (John x. 32) refers to the good works that He had
shown them from His Father, and asks them, " For which of
these works do ye stone me ?" — such a self-defence, yea, such
a self-praise, is only irreconcilable with a false humility, but
not with the true. For true humility is the consciousness
that we are nothing of ourselves, but are all that we are
through the Lord alone ; but for that very reason faithfulness
towards the Lord requires — not that we deny or undervalue
the worth that God Himself, by nature as well as by grace,
has imparted to us, but that we maintain it. Only false
modesty is opposed by it, but not genuine ; for modesty is the
consciousness of my own limited worth, in comparison with
others ; but for this very reason fidelity to the community
requires — not that I deny my real worth, or let it be denied
by others, but that I maintain it within the proper limits.
Right self-defence thus presupposes right self-knowledge;
and as the latter in so many cases is only relative, and affected

HONOUK AND DISHONOUR 355

with deceitful seeming, self-defence, it is true, must be so too
But in the same measure as this last proceeds from true
Christian self-knowledge, it becomes justified, and will then
appear also with an impress in which are combined dignity
and humility, self-respect and modesty. A bad way of main-
taining injured honour is when one repays passion with
passion, scolding with scolding. On the other hand, the
application in certain cases of the weapon of irony and satire
is not absolutely to be rejected, — whereof traces are even to
be found in the Apostle Paul, when, for example, he designates
Ijis opponents as the " very high apostles," — if, that is, the
folly of the attack to be warded off can thereby be made
strikingly manifest. Only, let such a thing never be done at
ihe cost of love, in which respect the application of this weapon
has its great dangers. A brutal and utterly abominable means
is duelling, by which in reality nothing is proved, but, with
levity, life, and all the higher goods of life, are placed in
hazard. This immorality of the Middle Ages, which has
continued to exist in some classes, will, it is to be hoped,
soon be entered in the register of antiquated and vanished
customs.

Thus, according to the above development, external pheno-
menal honour, or that which we are in the idea of others,
must be ruled by the internal essential honour. False depen-
dence on honour with men is to be viewed as a branch of the
desire of the phenomenal, and appears now as vanity, now as
the wish to please, to interest others, and constantly to
receive outward proofs of the interest we produce in others ;
now as ambition, as the endeavour after an important position,
eminence, and tokens of honour, while yet vanity and ambition
very often shade into each other. But among their many very
various shades, the false dependence on honour shows itself in
this, that the picture of our person existing in the imagination
of others is weightier to us than the essence and reality. This
false dependence not only shows itself in him whose whole
thought and effort is directed to seeming something externally
without being it, to live a life of seeming in the imagination of
others without corresponding reality : but also in him who in
deed would like " to be something," and pursues earnest aims,
but who still besides regards "shining" in the eyes of the

356 HONOUR AND DISHONOUR.

world, and counting for something — and so the image and
shadow he casts in the consciousness of others, the echo
resounding in human society — as the indispensable thing.
But by this very means it necessarily comes to this with the
man, that he ceases in the full sense of the word " to be," that
he suffers shipwreck in honour with God. For he who at no
price will dispense with honour with men is compelled to
arrange his actions according to the claims of men, the require-
ments of the time-spirit, according to its standard of what
deserves to be honoured. But one who places his life under
a false standard, a counterfeit rule, thereby makes it impossible
to himself to comply with what the divine will requires of him.
" How can ye believe who receive honour one of another, and
seek not the honour that comethfrom God only?" (John v. 44).
True, for men to receive and give honour among each other is
in no way objectionable in itself: we are to "give honour to
whom honour is due" (Rom. xiii. 7), and even so to accept also
the honour that in truth belongs to us. But to give and receive
honour by false measure and weight, — which ever happens
where honour with God is not sought after, where the relation to
God is not held as normative, — in this consists the blameable-
ness. The conceptions of the Pharisees of what deserves to be
honoured in human society were formed after the requirements
of the time-spirit, which required an external sanctity, a
sanctity impressed with a definite political and national
stamp. In themselves passing as the personal representatives
of what was supposed worthy of honour, they received honour
from each other, and greeted each other in their on all hands
acknowledged excellence, as down to the present day the
representatives of the time-spirit, and the people's leaders,
receive honour one of the other, and mutually incense them-
selves. But as those did not seek honour with God, did not
search earnestly in His word, did not go down into their own
conscience, but only pursued an honour coming from without,
they could not give Christ honour, could not believe in Him
whose revelation, whose whole manifestation insisted on a
thoroughly different standard of what deserved to be honoured ;
for to believe in Christ meant as much as to break with the
time-spirit. Therefore every Christian, should his faith come
into question, or his doing and omitting, must be able to say

HONOUR AND DISHONOUR 3o7

with Paul, " But with me it is a very small thing that I
should be judged of you, or of man's judgment" (1 Cor. iv. 3),
whereby the apostle expresses the infinitely relative import of
human judgments and criticisms, to which is also to be added
the incessant change of these judgments, their swift rebound
to the opposite. The honour and respect which a Christian
finds with men he must therefore " have as had he it not,"
being ever ready, when a change of popular favour occurs, to
die and be extinguished in the idea of the people, or what
comes to the same thing, only to live on as a caricature in
their idea. In this also Christ will have us to be His followers.
A Christian is to bear to be undeservedly mistaken, not with
stoical proud contempt, that thinks too much honour is shown
to men when any weight is attached to their judgments, nor
yet with indifference, namely because one considers — and there
is indeed much truth in it — that in general men only make
extremely faulty pictures of each other, and there is an infinite
difference between what a man is in himself and the image of
his person mirrored in the opinion of others, and that therefore
it may be at bottom very indifferent to us what others think 01
do not think. A Christian, knowing well that, according to the
problem assigned to our earthly existence, men should mutually
understand and so become manifest to each other, is to bear
misconception with patience, and in the consciousness that the
Lord knows him, in that self-respect that is rooted in humility,
and even thereby is distinguished from that which the world
designates noble pride, by which is generally understood a
consciousness of one's own worth, which is very far from
being received into the consciousness and communion of God.
Finally, he must bear misconception in the comfortable hope
that a day of revelation is coming — " when it will come to
light " [English version, " in the day of visitation "] (1 Peter
ii. 12) — often even in the present world, but absolutely cer-
tain, when all must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ
(Eom. xiv. 10; 2 Cor. v. 1 0). " Cras mihi respondebit justitia
inca," (that is, to-morrow my righteous cause will answer for
me), was the motto of Hans Tausen.1 As the perfect example

1 Hans Tausen, bom in the year 1494, in the neighbourhood of Kiertemunde
in Fiinen, became, after he had heard Luther and Melanchthon for two years in
Wittenberg, the reformer of the Danish Church. — A. M.

358 SOCIAL PROSPEBITY AND ABANDONMENT.

of patience and a pure conscience amid all the misconception
of the world, the Saviour Himself stands before us in the
history of His passion. Here is revealed in an absolute sense
how different it is, on the one hand, to have honour with the
Father; on the other, to have honour with men. And the
more we make ourselves acquainted with the history of the
passion, the sooner will we also acquire the right standard for
estimating aright the answers that the time-spirit, the masses,
the leaders of the people give to the question, What is truth ?
What is righteousness ? the standard for the hosanna of the
multitude, for the " Crucify Him ! " of the same multitude.
With every hosanna we should have in mente the correspond-
ing "Crucify Him," and already bear in spirit, with all renown,
every mark of honour we meet with, the corresponding blame
and scorn that comes after. What we may observe in all
spheres of life, viz. that the higher the cause and personality
in question stands, the more unreliable is the judgment of
the multitude upon them, the less does it matter to regard
their honour or dishonour, is shown in the highest sense in
reference to the relation to Christ and His cause. And for
this very reason it becomes those who would be Christ's dis-
ciples and servants, to be ready to go on their way through
honour and shame, through good and bad report, while they
remain conscious that, as unknown and unconcerned, they are
yet known (2 Cor. vi. 8 f.). The deepest pain for misconcep-
tion experienced is the pain of ignored love. But here the
example of Christ stands by our side, warranting us that we
are known by God, and that a day will yet come when we
shall also be known by men.

Social Prosperity and Abandonment.
§ 152.

Honour, or good name, in connection with an activity in one's
calling, striving after the ideal, and founded on fruitful talent,
may be fitly designated the highest among the relative goods of
life. But there will still be a very essential lack in earthly bliss,
if two things be not added which appear most desirable for private

SOCIAL PKOSPERITY AND ABANDONMENT. 359

life : domestic happiness and friendship. Yea, Aristotle regards
friendship even as an indispensable happiness. In the further
course of our contemplation we will view family life and
friendship from another side. Here we view both as rightly
desired relative goods, which, when given, one seeks to pre-
serve to himself. They are goods, not only because in several
respects they support and help us in the prosecution of our
calling, but because the moral satisfaction of our need of love
in the peace of the domestic hearth, in mutual confidence and
cordial cohesion, in sympathetic participation in good and evil
days, in mutually removing and bearing personal burdens, is
in itself something desirable, and because herein also that
utterance applies, "It is not good for man to be alone" (Gen.
ii. 18). Yet there is a false dependence on family life and
friendship. Such a dependence arises — so far as not only we
have family and friendship, but also these have us — when we
let ourselves be so taken possession of by them, be ruled in
such measure by their influence and by regard for them, that
higher duties and higher bonds of love are set aside, and do
not get justice. And in this relation, too, the example of the
Lord is set before our eyes, how at the marriage of Cana He
says to His mother, " Woman, what have I to do with thee ? "
(John ii. 4); or on that second occasion, when He is interrupted
in the midst of His prophetic activity, because His mother
and His brethren were standing without, and would speak
with Him, how He then points to His disciples, and says,
" Behold my mother and my brethren ! " (Mark iii. 34) ; or
how, on another occasion, He says, " He that loveth father or
mother more than me, is not worthy of me " (Matt. x. 3 7).
We are indeed to belong to them, then, but as if we belonged
to them not, namely, so that we let not ourselves be hindered
by them from fulfilling what we owe to our earthly and
heavenly calling. And with this is inseparably connected that
our loved ones must not be in an absolute sense indispensable
to us, and that we are therefore to have them as if we had
them not, that is, so that we are ready to part from and to
lose them, if the will of God commands, and so that the
thought of this possibility is always alive in us. To keep
alive these thoughts in us will not cool our hearts towards
them, but, on the contrary, move us to love them still more

360 SOCIAL PKOSPEKITY AND ABANDONMENT.

tenderly, and rightly to use the hours of united life that are
still granted us.

And when the said possibility becomes reality, in that our
loved ones are called away by death, no stoical apathy is
required of us, like that of the Stoic who, on the death of his
son, said with indifference, "Why, I knew that he was mortal!"
Yet there is a Christian repose of mind on the loss of our
loved ones, which may be referred to what quietism understood
by " holy indifference," in which the soul is powerfully pene-
trated by the consciousness of the evanescence of this life, the
consciousness of eternity as alone essential and valuable — a
repose of mind which, however, can only be the fruit of a
deeply Christian development of life. For the individual need
of love and the need of earthly props is deeply rooted in
human nature, and every one who has not either killed the
feeling of humanity in his breast, or else has learned, by a
holy love to Christ and His kingdom, to die to all earthly
blessedness, and in an eminent sense not to look to what is
visible and temporal, but to what is unseen and eternal (2
Cor. iv. 18), will feel it as a cutting pain to have to leave
those to whom he is joined by dear ties, especially when such
a loss leaves him lonely and forsaken. The problem of a
Christian is to bear such a cross in " patience and faith of the
saints" (Eev. xiii. 10); to let the pain be glorified in the
consciousness that when the Lord withdraws earthly supports
from us, He will train and teach us to hold to Him as to our
only support ("If I have but Thee, I ask for nothing in heaven
and earth," Ps. Ixxiii. 25), in the consciousness that we yet
belong to a community surviving every earthly one, namely,
the congregation of His saints in heaven and on earth; finally,
in the hope that at last in His kingdom all they shall be re-
united who truly belong to each other. The older we become,
the more are these supports, one after the other, taken from us,
that we may be weaned from the life on this earth, as the
child is weaned from its mother, and so ripen for the future
life beyond.

Still more deeply than by the departure of our nearest are
we pained by the experience of unsteadiness and faithlessness
on their side, when we are morally abandoned by them, because
we, in their consciousness, in their love, as it were, die, and are

EARTHLY POSSESSION AND POVEKTY. 361

buried ; or, what is the same thing, because we are changed in
their idea, and become other than we were before, although in
reality we are still the same. Such an abandonment is in
many cases not without guilt on our side ; and had we a richer
measure of love, we would in no case so easily feel ourselves
lonely and forsaken. But the perfect example of conduct
in cases of the sort we possess again in the Lord. A chief
feature of the history of the passion is formed by His entire
isolation during His sufferings. Not only is He forsaken by
the world and by the great multitude, but also by His friends.
And they are not haply called away by death ; no, it is He
Himself whose divine glory has died or is dying "within them,
while they become uncertain during His humiliation in their
faith in Him, do not venture to confess Him: one denied,
another betrayed Him. And the like, although after an
infinitely shortened standard, may befall all His followers ;
and certainly this is among the bitterest things in the cup of
suffering, not only to stand alone, but also to be given up and
denied by those who were our nearest and most intimate
friends. But even under such a suffering we are to be pre-
pared and learn to preserve love to men, and to be able to
say after His example, " Yet I am not alone, for the Father
is with me" (John xvi. 32); since we owe to Him the cer-
tainty that such states of obscuration are not of eternal
duration, but that sooner or later a day of resurrection and
revelation will dawn.

Earthly Possession aiid Poverty.
§ 153.

Earthly wellbeing by no means depends merely on the
relation in which the individual here below stands to the
world of personalities, but also on his relation to the world of
things. The free personality needs earthly possession and
property, a certain sum of outward conditions for earthly sub-
sistence, of means for the satisfaction not only of the natural,
but also of the higher spiritual needs — all conditions and
means that have their equivalent representation in money,

362 EAETHLY POSSESSION AND POVERTY.

which thereby likewise represents a great multiplicity of
enjoyments. Earthly possession is a good, so far as it fur-
nishes a foundation for a free, independent human existence
and development. But no man should seek greater possessions
than he can in a moral sense transform into his true properly,
than he can really and fully make his own, than he is in a
position to ethicize (ethically to work), that is, to take into
the service of the moral will and spirit. To possess money as
a dead, unfruitful treasure, or books and pictures, without
having sense and understanding for them, is nothing more
than to have the rude possession, but not in a spiritual sense
to have these things truly as one's own. But no one should so
possess his property as to hang his heart on it, or let it be
fettered thereby. False dependence on earthly possession is
shown not only in the form of avarice, which renounces all
enjoyments only to collect its treasures on earth and gloat over
them ; it is also shown not only as luxury and extravagance,
which changes possession into enjoyment, without the enjoy-
ment being ordained by the moral problem of life, but even in
the sentiment by which the assured and secure existence, as
this is conditioned by the possession of means, is held as
something indispensable. Just this insurance of our existence,
resting upon capital, it is, against which the previously quoted
words of the apostle (1 Cor. vii. 29 ff.) are directed. For
although that was an unquiet time in a special sense, in which,
especially for Christians, nothing was sure, and in which they
needed earnest warning against thinking that man could have
quiet days here on earth, and dwell in secure comfort ; yet at
all times the truth holds that " the fashion of this world
passeth away," and that we can never say to ourselves, " Soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease,
eat, drink, and be merry " (Luke xii. 1 9) ; but must, on the
contrary, ever be prepared for the change of things. A
Christian should at all times remain vividly conscious that it
may be required of him to follow his Lord also in poverty, in
struggling with care for daily support, a struggle under whose
consuming pressure this word is, in a very special sense, to be
proved, " Man shall not live by bread alone " (Matt. iv. 4).

But now if the poor, who are shielded from the temptations
of riches, may indeed be called happy, if they also overcome

EARTHLY POSSESSION AND POVERTY. 363

the temptation of poverty, and in deed and truth are followers
of Christ ; yet it is a great error to think, with the begging
monks, that the following of Christ is tied to external poverty,
— a view for which the gospel narrative of the rich young
men (Mark x. 17—22) has often been referred to without
reason. The unfolding of our moral freedom is tied to no
external form of life ; for this is just the conception and
essence of freedom, to be independent of external forms, and
in each of them to be able to pursue its highest ideal. " Let
the brother of low (poor) degree rejoice in that he is exalted ;
but the rich in that he is made low" (Jas. i. 9 f.). When
the Lord sent out His disciples, with the command to have
" no gold, nor silver, nor brass in their purse, nor scrip for
their journey," — (the begging monks, however, have their
pockets or purses with them), — " nor two coats, nor shoes, nor
staves " (Matt. x. 9 f.), it is manifest that this must not be
understood literally. For had the disciples literally followed
this prescription, they would thereby have got into the very
opposite of the world-free state which the Lord would make
manifest to them, and would have been on many occasions
involved in painful casuistical questions. Then we lind, too,
that Paul, in contradiction to the letter of this prescription,
had "two coats," as he made his cloak, left behind in Troas, be
sent after him. The meaning of the Lord amounted only to
this, that in their apostolic labours they must have the fewest
possible needs, and above all, no such needs as might hinder
them in the fulfilment of their calling. But as regards the
carrying out of this rule, it must be different according to
the different circumstances, while under all circumstances it
remains sure that needs that hinder us in the fulfilment of
the duties of our calling are to be rejected. And as regards
the Saviour Himself, "the poor life of Christ" has indeed
often enough been spoken about ; but there can here be no
question of poverty, in the strict sense of the word, as it would
also have been opposed to His personal dignity to accept alms
in the proper sense. He found His means of subsistence
in the common property that was brought together by those
that belonged to His nearest circle, and followed Him for the
kingdom of God's sake. And this common property cannot
be regarded in the light of alms, but rather as free contribu-

364 EARTHLY POSSESSION AND POVERTY.

tions from all for the promotion of the cause of God's kingdom.
He took part in banquets of eminent Pharisees, which were
scarcely consistent with proper poverty and with the accept-
ance of alms. He allowed Himself to be anointed by Mary
in Bethany, and defended this luxury — this attention far
surpassing what was necessary — against Judas, who thought
the ointment were better to have been sold for the benefit of
the poor (whom he thus saw outside their circle). That coat
which He wore on His way to Golgotha was, according to
John's statement, not sewed together of several pieces, but was
" without seam, woven from the top throughout " (John xix.
23), which points to a certain state of wealth. On the other
hand, one may speak of the poor life of Christ, namely, in a
spiritual sense, or in the meaning of the perfectly world-free
life, so far as He was internally bound to none of the goods
of this world, as one who had nothing and possessed nothing,
that is, in the worldly sense in which the men of this world
possess its goods, while they themselves are taken possession
of and ruled by them. When He Himself says, " The Son of
man hath not where to lay His head" (Matt. viii. 20), He
thereby designates His life not merely as that of a pilgrim
who has no continuing place of abode, but likewise hints that
there is no place in this world, no earthly or worldly "where"
(Trot)), in short, no single thing here below whereon He leans
or whereon He has His support (and so His homelessness on
earth) ; for His support was the Father alone, His place of
abode and rest the work of the Father, in which He was
engaged early and late, and His Father's house, which is
everywhere. And the requirement He makes of His followers
is, that they are to be internally independent of every earthly
support, that affords us a worldly security, as " their holes
afford to the foxes, their nests to the birds," but that, when it
is required of them, they are also to be ready to let go such
support (compare Tauler, On Following the Poor Life of Jesus
Christ}.

While, then, internal poverty is an absolute requirement
addressed to all the followers of Christ, the external contrast
between riches or wealth on the one side, and poverty on the
other, will at all times be found on earth (John xii 8), while
at all times there will also be those who belong neither to the

EAUTHLY POSSESSION AND POVEKTY. 365

rich nor the poor, but whom God " feeds with food convenient
for them" (Prov. xxx. 8). That riches and poverty should
ever be removed from the world, and community of goods
introduced, is a fantastic imagination. For, granted that to-
day all have equal property, there will be to-morrow already
a great number of people who have spent what they possessed,
while others have come into possession of it. Moreover, the
great Educator of humanity does not permit Himself, by the
communistic chimeras of men, to be robbed of those means
that play a great part in the guidance of man's life, and the
divine plan of education. With this for the rest it is
thoroughly consistent, that to our power — whereof \ve shall
speak more fully afterwards — we are to labour for the solution
of the social problem.

That no kind of luxury, that is to say, no kind of use
of property that surpasses what is just necessary must be
found in a Christian, is an arbitrary contention, and conflicts
as well with the example of Christ as with the destination of
human life. The justification of luxury lies in this, that life
is also destined for enjoyment, so that here the only question
is the contents and value of the enjoyment, especially whether
one brings the enjoyment, be it one belonging to the lower or
the higher order, into the right relation to the total problem
of life. It belongs to the requirement of respectability, that
to every class, to every position in life, a certain amount of
external good things of life corresponds. That the rich man
in the gospel was clothed in purple and fine linen, was not in
itself blameable. Every one may clothe himself according to
his rank, and it were not respectable if a man in high position
would clothe himself like a day-labourer. On the other hand,
all luxury is unjustifiable as soon as it assumes an egoistic
character, and lays itself out for the assertion of the personal
ego, or for boundless enjoyment of one kind or another,
whereby it becomes blameworthy extravagance.

Besides egoistic extravagance in the stricter sense, there is
also a thoughtless extravagance, against which we must take
heed, that is, that we use not up our material goods in an
entirely regardless way, let them be consumed without advan-
tage or true joy, either to ourselves or others. " In the higher
classes," says Mario, " there often occurs a consumption or

366 HEALTH AND SICKNESS.

enjoyment, arising from that recklessness that is almost always
combined with superfluity. He that destroys a sheet of white
paper without using it, or lets a candle burn without use to any
one, acts immorally, however small the value of the objects so
consumed. What the work of a man has made for the use of
others, no one must destroy from whim or arrogance ; and it
is a sign of the greatest corruption of manners to regard such
a habit as expressive of a fine mode of life." l How often do
we incur the guilt of so thoughtless an extravagance ! And
to all it is salutary to lay to heart these words from the
miracle of the multiplied loaves and fishes in the gospel,
" Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost, "
(John vi. 12).

Health and Sickness.
§ 154.

Earthly wellbeing is not only conditioned by earthly
possession and property, but also by the harmony of the
bodily organism, which we call health, without which all
earthly activity, as also all earthly enjoyment, if not made
quite impossible, is at all events very much hindered. " Mens
sana in corpore sano " is from ancient times the designation of
a normal human life. A superficial consideration might make
us think that Christianity must spiritualistically despise the
body, as e.g. Neoplatonism and other tendencies,' that regarded
corporality as something unworthy of the spirit. On the
contrary, the truth is, that precisely the most spiritual of all
religions is likewise that which most emphatically vindicates the
importance of the body as the organ for the plastic self-repre-
sentation of the spirit, which is also testified by all plastic art.
Christianity makes prominent the importance of corporality,
not only by its doctrine of the resurrection of the body, but
also by this, that it regards the body in the present life as the
temple of the Holy Spirit, as also in Christ the eternal Word
became flesh and blood, and dwelt bodily among us and Christ
did not arise as pure spirit, but in a glorified body. As it will
have our body regarded as the temple of the Holy Spirit, it
1 Mario, System der Wdtokonomte, II. 117.

HEALTH AND SICKNESS. 367

thereby declares most strongly against every abuse and pro-
fanation of the body, against all undermining of the health
by immoderation and low passions, and makes it our duty to
apply ourselves to the cultivation of the body for a worthy
dwelling and a willing instrument of the spirit. A false
dependence on our body, and an overestimate of the care for
its health, takes place when this is pursued at the cost of the
health of our soul, when the body, which is appointed to be
the servant of the spirit, becomes its master, and the spirit is
degraded to bondage under the body. Thus, in fact, to many
men care for the health and bodily welfare becomes something
like the essential problem of life, as the numerous frequenters
of baths and mineral waters, and the crowds of those travel-
ling about for their health from year to year, sufficiently show.
To prevent and to counteract such a bondage, it is of the utmost
importance that we strive as much as possible to get the body
under our power. In this respect the gymnastic exercises of
the old Greeks testify to a right insight. In consequence of
the present sinfulness and disturbance of the normal relation,
it may very often become necessary for us, with the apostle
(1 Cor. ix. 27), to treat our body not so much like a voluntary
.and obedient servant, as rather like a slave, a contumacious
serf, who is ever thinking to emancipate himself, is lurking for
the favourable moment to effect a rising, to snatch the mastery
to himself and dethrone the spirit, a serf that must be con-
strained by the strictest discipline. This is the ascetic mode
of view (Saint Franciscus named his body his Brother Asinus,
the beast of burden, needing hard treatment) ; and though this
"view-point is carried through one-sidedly by asceticism, yet it
preserves its validity according to time and circumstances.
As against the too anxious care for the health, and the weak
yielding to bodily weaknesses, Schleiermacher's rule applies :
One dare have no time to be sick. And in every special case
it may be commended to earnest consideration how far one
dare follow his principle, laid down after Plato's example, that
one must only apply for medical help in acute diseases, that
quickly run their course, while in chronic diseases, that
require many years' treatment and a great sacrifice of time, one
must not subject oneself to the physician's treatment, because
that might withdraw us for an indefinite, incalculable time,

368 HEALTH A1SD SICKNESS.

from the fulfilment of the duties of our calling, and give us
over to a fundamentally non-ethical existence, an existence in
which care of the health, or rather of the disease, is made our
weightiest task ; that, therefore, one should rather be content
to exist and to work according to our circumstances, and as
long as possible rest satisfied with the health of the good will,
as it proceeds from a well-ordered soul.

But although every one who diligently prosecutes the work
of his calling may regard it as his task to have as far as
possible no time to be sick, yet, on the other hand, the history
of the leadings of human life teaches us — what, it is true, Plato
and the heathen ethics could not truly recognise — that though
men are unwilling, yet the Lord's will often bids that we shall
have time for it, since it is He who throws us on the sicJc-bed.
But the purpose of time is that we are to ripen for eternity in
the course of it, for our heavenly calling, to which the earthly
one serves as a mere temporal husk. Therefore it is an error
to think that time is Only given us for earthly labour and
enjoyment, and that all else is but loss of time. Labour and
enjoyment both do not suffice for the ripening and growth of
the soul. Time is also given us for suffering, is also given us
to grow weary in it ; in short, to feel aright how empty it is
in itself, and so to conceive a longing for that which truly and
permanently can fill it. It is also given that we may learn
in it to wait and tarry in patience. Time is also given us
that we may learn to know its slow course on the sick-bed,
while without, men are spending the hours in lively activity
and fleeting enjoyment, and complaining that the time
passes so quickly. But "amid the slow course of time,"
chained to the sick-bed, we are to get time to consider some-
thing that we do not in every-day activity take time to con-
sider, namely, our heavenly calling. Sickness, which at once
tears us away from our earthly life of work and enjoyment,
and transports us into an existence separated from the world's
business, a so to say monastic existence, is to subserve the
healing and growth of the soul, that we may ripen in such
quiet for eternal life, and prepare for our death: for every
sickness is a precursor of death, and in every more serious
sickness we are to anticipate the hour of death. Precisely on
the sick-bed we become aware that health is only a relative

HEALTH AND SICKNESS. 369

good, and that one must be able to dispense with it, as with
all else besides that belongs to earthly happiness, simply
because the destiny of our life is not for this earth. A chronic
malady, too, that does not indeed make us unfit to fulfil our
earthly calling, but yet either robs us of, or at least embitters,
so many an hour of work, so many an hour of recreation, is
intended to be " a thorn in the flesh," which is to advance us
in the life of our heavenly calling, and to enable us to experi-
ence how in our weakness God's strength is mighty and fulfils
its work, a salutary counterpoise against the temptations as
well of sensuality as of pride. Precisely like external poverty,
bodily sickness is also ordained on account of sin, although one
must by no means from the sickness of the individual, or from
his earthly need, without more ado, conclude his special sinful-
ness (compare John ix. 3). The chief thing is that we make
the right use of our sicknesses, which must be individualized
for each person, according to his internal state. The chief
tiling is that we follow Christ even under this pressure, this
humiliation, as He is not only our Saviour, our true physician,
but has also left us an example of the true freedom of the
spirit, and the hidden communion of love with the Father,
even under the severest bodily sufferings. "Let us only
think on the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ," Luther used
to say, amid his own bodily sufferings, as those of others ;
" then we may well keep silence and become patient."

When believing Christians make the right use of sick-
nesses, there is also formed a Christian asceticism, and there-
with connected mysticism. As long as there is sickness on
earth, it is provided that asceticism and mysticism shall not
die out.1 In the sick one there is formed an asceticism, a
continuous exercise of the art voluntarily to bear sufferings and
deprivations, such as every sickness brings with it, an exercise
in renunciation, in obedience, in patience ; in short, an acquaint-
ance with suffering. And along with this there is likewise
developed a Christian mysticism, an internal world-hidden com-
munion with God and with the invisible, heavenly world, an
internal union with the Lord and mystical love in the inter-
course of prayer with Him. But this mystical communion

1 Windel, Die padagorjische Bedeulung der Krankheit (Beitrilge aus der
Seelsorgefur die Seetsorge, 2 Heft, S. 35).

2 A

370 LITE AND DEATH.

of life and suffering with Christ is no doubt conditioned by
the humble self-knowledge, the humble consideration, whether
the sickness be a chastisement or a trial. And what a call,
what opportunity for self-knowledge is given us in sickness !
Tn sickness we anticipate death. We are stripped of all
that is external. Not only riches, rank, condition, honour
with men, but partly also our spiritual abilities and talents
are then suspended, as it were laid aside like garments, which
we must lay off till afterwards, perhaps for ever. The man
himself comes to light in sickness — and how ? As a rule,
to our humiliation. But then it is also confirmed that " God
giveth grace to the humble " (Jas. iv. 6), that they feel them-
selves accepted by God as His children, that the inner life
is developed to a higher grade of perfection, that in quietness
a growth in the peace of the soul occurs, in right understand-
ing of the most simple elementary truths, which now receive
the impress of novelty, in the knowledge of the one thing
needful, the proper purpose of life, which consists not in
earthly good fortune, of our heavenly calling, of the love of
Christ and the blessings of the cross, especially also of the
Scriptures and the Church hymns — a knowledge as against
which all theory is so weak and shadowy, a mere figure ; for
the knowledge that the sufferer gains, rests upon a very
wonderful, mysterious experience.

Life and Deatli.
§155.

The condition of all the goods that we can appropriate
within the present existence is life. The preservation and
prolongation of life must therefore not be desirable to us for
its own sake, but for the sake of the spiritual contents of
which it is the bearer. Therefore self-defence, when our life
is assailed, may become a duty ; but for the same reason
it may also become a duty to sacrifice our life, when the
higher problem of life requires it, as in martyrdom, or where
the duties of the calling involve it, as with the warrior, the
physician, or the clergyman, or where the individual interest

LIFE AND DEATH. 371

of love requires that one man endangers his life for another;
for " greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends " (John xv. 13; compare 1 John
iii. 16). False dependence on life expresses itself as fear of
death, a fear that can only be thoroughly overcome from the
standpoint of Christianity. For even granting that a heathen,
with contempt of death, sacrifices his life for duty, yet there
moves within him, despite the contempt of death, an unsub-
dued fear of death, a secret thorn, a secret despair, simply
because this earthly life is the only real existence for him,
while the future is veiled in darkness. The heathen fear of
death and despair often seeks to deaden itself by a theatrical,
splendid departure from the stage of this life, as, for instance,
in many warriors, while they still, at the moment of death,
cling to this life, that they must leave, and grasp at the
external honour that strikes the eye, in which they fain
would prolong their life after death. Christian love of life
consists in this, that one lives it after its true worth, namely,
as a preparation and outer court to the future life. A Chris-
tian, therefore, lives his life here below as one who is familiar
with thoughts of death, and at every hour is ready for the
coming of the Lord ; he lives in the hope and view of the
other world.

The Christian view of the worth of this life forms a con-
trast, as well to the heathen view, which regards the present
life as carrying its object in itself, and without connection
with the future, as also to the ascetic view, which regards
indeed the present life as a preparation for the future, but
overlooks at the same time that the former also has itself a
relative value, a proportionately self-dependent importance,
and pessimistically regards all and everything in it as mere
vanity. The heathen view often emerges in Christendom
again, and that in the contention that the important thing is,
to live a healthy and capable life amid these earthly relations,
but to let the future life approach when it is time, without
occupying oneself with it beforehand, or taking thought about
it. The expectation of the future life is thus to be in no
way an effective power in the present, but at the most an
idea or presumption slumbering, without meaning or effect, in
the soul, and of which at the proper time one will find how

372 LIFE AND DEATH.

much truth it contains or does not contain. In other words,
one should lay aside the future existence, and not by think-
ing over it squander his time, which can be better applied
to so many problems meeting us in the present. But against
this confusion it must be maintained that it is quite im-
possible to live the earthly life in spirit and in truth, if it
be not beforehand put in the right relation to its final object,
not in the right way laid out teleologically (with a view to
the end). Where this relation to the final object of the
whole existence is wanting, the necessary consequence is a
false estimation as well of the goods as also of the evils of
life. When, again, one lives his life in Christian communion
with God, and therefore also in the communion of the Ee-
deemer, risen again in the midst of His Church, and in the
lively hope springing therefrom, then a soul first gets light
upon this earthly life, its goods and evils ; while, when this
light is lacking, one will ever be pursuing shadows, in which
one thinks to seek the true essence, or fleeing from them. But
when we thus express the requirement that even amidst the
present life the future is to be lived, the acknowledgment is
in no way excluded thereby that the present life also possesses
a relatively self-dependent import . and a proportionate value
in itself. That this is so appears, indeed, from this, that a
definite earthly calling, which we are to fulfil, is committed
to us by God. And who could declare the wish illegitimate,
that it might be given us to carry on our earthly calling to
a certain termination ? Yea, to live his earthly life on all
sides as fully as possible, is a wish that in itself cannot be
called illegitimate. Every single circle of the creation has
its peculiar glory, which we wish thoroughly to understand
and to assimilate. We only once live on this earth. Only
once can we do the earthly day's work, and what is not done
under this sun, before the night approaches, remains undone.
Only once can we live the life of love here below, amid
these bonds of communion by which we are encompassed.
And although the life of love in heaven is the perfect life,
yet our life on earth has its special glory, its peculiar bless-
ing from the Lord, its peculiar refraction of light from above.
Who, for instance, would call that lament of Antigone in
Sophocles in itself unwarranted, that she should descend into

LIFE AND DEATH. 373

the kingdom of shadows without having experienced what
nuptial bliss, what maternal joy is ? So the wish that is
uttered in all men's hearts has its justification, that they
might not leave this earth ere they have seen and experi-
enced upon it what was their special desire and longing, be
it the execution, the crowning of the labour of their calling,
or perhaps the fulfilment of some longing, born of love, as the
patriarch Jacob, who had bewailed his son Joseph as dead, on
seeing him again, fell on his neck, and said, " Now let me
die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive "
(Gen. xlvi. 30); or one or other great change in human
society, the first morning rays of a new and better time
(compare Luke ii. 25-38). And ever anew the lament of
those who live longer is heard, that it was not given to the
departed generation to live to see this or that. Heathenish
and unwarranted is such a lament, such a wish, only when
the whole heart is absorbed in it, when we cannot sacrifice
our wish to the counsel and will of the Lord.

§ 156.

It also belongs to a whole and full life on earth that one
live through all the ages of man, from childhood to old age ,
that one live through each of the seasons of human life in
their special glory. It is a natural, a genuine human wish
to become old, to live long on earth. But we dare never
forget that this life, despite its relative self-worth, is yet at
bottom only a means and a previous step for a hereafter,
that our last and proper goal is by no means happiness on
this earth, but bliss in heaven. From this point of view it
must be regarded as a grace to become old, because a longer
space of time is thereby granted to us to ripen for eternity.
Meanwhile one must beware of attaching to old age hopes
of earthly good fortune, so to say, chiliastic hopes of undis-
turbed rest and happiness, as if such must needs be fulfilled ;
but chiefly see in old age, and what befalls us during it, the
last preparation for the heavenly kingdom. The Christian
Church expects indeed in its old age a happy, golden time
on earth, the millennial reign (Eev. xx.), a time of peace, in
a harmonious unity of heavenly and earthly goods, although

374 LIFE AND DEATH.

that time of peace is again to be banished by the power of
death. One might, then, be tempted to ask whether something
corresponding may not occur in the life of the individual
Christian, whether a Christian, to whom it is given to live a
full human life on earth, should not also get his millennial
kingdom on this earth, his golden age, that is, a time of peace
in old age, " when Satan is bound," when external adversity
and enmity have ceased, when the passions in his breast are
stilled, when one lives out one's days in peace with God and
man, in internal and external harmony, rich in heavenly and
earthly blessings. Experience teaches, however, that this
comparison between the Church and the individual Christian
admits of only being very imperfectly carried out; that
although there are individuals to whom it is given, in this
sense, in the evening of life to receive their millennial
kingdom, yet such are always but rare exceptions. To the
most it evidently is not given. And even to those fortunates
the thousand years mean but a few days. Then come " Gog
and Magog" (Eev. xx. 8), the messengers of death. So then
salvation and the heavenly kingdom — and this applies to
every single soul — is the only all-important thing. More
reliable than the view and prospect mentioned, and in a much
higher measure applicable to actual life, is another manner of
looking at things, namely, the idea that very often at the end
of the earthly life something befalls a Christian, whereby — as
it may be designated — the last touch is laid on him,1 to
prepare him for what is in store (a long and ' sore sickness,
loss of goods, on which he all his life set a high value,
disregard and misconception, and so on) ; wherefore we so
often hear the customary saying, That, too, I had still to ex-
perience ! So, then, even in old age and to the last, we need
to be weaned.

A long life on earth brings us a more manifold experience
of the inconstancy of human things, of the illusions of life,
teaches us more thoroughly to value the one and permanent,
the ever present, the sun that never sets. It is the possession
of this one thing which, with all that outwardly differences
the one from the other, is inwardly to be the common fruit
of life in old age.

1 Hirscher, Christliclie Moral, I. 294.

LIFE AND DEATH. 375

Goethe says : " To live long is to survive very much :
beloved, hated, indifferent men, kingdoms, capitals, yea, woods
and trees that we when young sowed and planted. We sur-
vive ourselves, and quite thankfully acknowledge if only some
of the gifts of body and spirit still are left to us. We rest
content with all this that is passing away, if only the
eternal remains every moment present to us, we suffer not
from perishing time." l We can appropriate this utterance to
ourselves, if we, instead of the cold and indefinite " eternal,"
place the kingdom of God, in the Christian meaning of the
word. It is this that at every stage of life should be present
to us, and which then gives us the victory over decay. It
is this for which we are ripening, whither we are growing,
often amid oppressions and deprivations of many a kind; it
is this on account of which we grow old on earth.

§157.

Although it may be regarded as a great blessing to attain
a great age, yet the Lord's own example shows us that
the worth of life does not depend on the length of it, and
that in a life of short duration an infinite fulness of life
may be compressed. And although it is further a great
blessing to leave behind a full and rich earthly life, yet a
life that is poor in earthly and temporal experiences may still
contain the highest riches, " the better part," if a man — be
he as old as Simeon, or called away in his youth — can say
at the close of his life, " Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation."
That is, at the exit from this life, the all-important thing is,
what treasure we have gained in this life, that we can take
over with us into that kingdom. For in that kingdom all
are stripped of all strange ornament, and each one is only
himself, and only brings that with him which in the most
proper and inmost sense is his own. But our proper self
and our inalienable treasure are not our earthly experiences
as such ; for how many experiences, with their joys and pains,
may pass through a human heart, without the heart itself
being thereby really transformed and changed, because but

1 Goethe, Briefe an die Grafin Auguste zu Stolberg, verwittwete Grqfin von
Bernstorff, S. 185.

376 LIFE AND DEATH.

a varied succession of moods passed through the heart, with-
out any of them yielding a fruit ! Very many can write
long " Life-reminiscences," rich in outward experiences, with-
out having the least to communicate of a sacred history of
their own heart. Nor is our true self and our inalienable
treasure, genius and talent, nor yet our knowledge. Know-
ledge and fancy are ever but something external, and behind
them lurks the kernel of our being, as indeed much of our
knowledge may also in time be lost. The kernel of our
being is the will, and the treasure in question in that kingdom
is the contents of the will, which in the course of the pre-
sent life we have appropriated and wrought out. Thus, when
we quit this life, all depends on the answer to this question,
On what hast thou set thy will ? If thou hast set thy will
on God's kingdom, thou now attainest thy home, in which
the hidden treasure of thy heart shall become manifest. But
if thou hast set thy will on this world, on the earthly, thou
comest into an order of things in which thou wilt feel thy-
self strange, and thy will must be in an internal desert,
hungering and thirsting after the earthly things in which it
here sought its food. And if thy knowledge and acquirement
were even that of a genius such as Bacon of Verulam, but at
the same time thy will worldly, thou wilt only feel the more
deeply the sharp contradiction between thy knowledge and
thyself. The chief thing, then, remains not to die till our
will be dead to this world, dead to the requirement of earthly
happiness, so that it is placed under the obedience of Christ,
" Not my will, but Thine be done !" not to die till our will
be firmly naturalized in the kingdom that cannot be moved.
And therefore the chief requirement that life makes of us is
to use the time of this life as a time of grace. " Lay not
up to yourselves treasures on earth ; but lay up to yourselves
treasures in heaven " (Matt. vi. 1 9).

§ 158.

A peculiar manifestation of false dependence on life, as
seen especially in many old people, is that one will by no
means quit life, not simply because he loves it and has
pleasure in it, but only because he will not break with the

LIFE AND DEATH. 377

power of habit. We certainly cannot find it in itself ille-
gitimate when Goethe's Egmont, in the strength of his man-
hood, laments that he is to part from " the friendly habit "
of existence and of working, a word that he utters in fresh
and fiery love to life, in his joy in the fulness of earthly
existence, still inspired by a great idea which he now has
to leave behind unfulfilled. But this sweet habit of ex-
istence often becomes all - predominant in old people, and
often, too, void of every higher idea. They, as it were, grow
ever more together with this earth, as also the care for their
worthy person, namely, their bodily earthly person, becomes
the point of view to which all is subordinated ; they grow
together with their external surroundings, their household
goods and furniture. And as they in their continued uni-
form course have struck deep, far-reaching roots in this earthly
soil on which they stand, they can often protract their life in
a well-nigh dreadful way. Every change, every removal is
hateful to them, and they have a horror of death, that great
total change.

§ 159.

False dependence on life has its counterpart in weariness
of life and dislike of life (taedium vitae), which springs from
various, partly physical, partly moral causes. In the Middle
Ages this weariness of life was designated as acedia (a/erfSeia),
a state of soul that often occurred in monasteries, that is, in
such as gave themselves to a one-sidedly contemplative life,
without having the power or the calling for it, and who were
filled with a disgust of all things, even of existence, while
even the highest religious thoughts became empty and
meaningless to them. " Akedia " originally means freedom
from care, but afterwards received an entirely different
meaning. Akin, namely, to freedom from care is carelessness
and negligent indifference ; and thus Akedia denotes a state
in which all has become indifferent to a man, nothing can
interest him more, all feelings are blunted and extinguished,
all ideas, even the highest, have become inefficacious. Akedia
is thus carelessness in the sense of entire lack of interest,
weariness in the highest degree, which can only make itself
felt as a most unhappy state, since man is made to have

378 LIFE AND DEATH.

interests, and an empty existence becomes the most oppressive
of all burdens. It is a special form of hypochondria ; and
although the name belongs to the Middle Ages, yet the thing
occurs even in our day, and is known to many as a passing
mood. Who has never felt something of what the Danish
poet describes in these words ? —

" The deeds that I myself once praised,

"What from of old was done by Thee,
What Thou, 0 God, to me hast shown,

To-day I scarcely can it see !
I see men only like the trees

Pass in array before my eye ;
The labours of Thy hand like dreams

In cloudy distance from me fly."

But Akedia, like all hypochondria, which we can designate
in general as a disharmony of the spiritual and bodily
organism, we must regard as something non-ethical, something
sinful that is to be fought against. Although hypochondria
is a dislike of life, yet it may likewise be referred to a false
dependence on or attachment to life, in so far as the hypochon-
driac, in perverted fashion clinging to his own ego, and as it
were ensnared in himself, holds fast his unsatisfied claim on life.
Akedia must — apart from dietetic means, which in many cases
are to be applied — be fought, above all things, by regular
work, in which the individual can forget himself, as also bj
living together with men, by intercourse with nature, in which
last respect Goethe so aptly says that the pleasure we find
in life depends on the regular return to external things, on
the alternation of day and night, the change of the seasons,
of blossom and fruit ; that the equipoise in our own existence
depends on living together with this quiet regularity of nature,
on our surrender to it. The fact that that weariness of life
chiefly appeared in monasteries serves as a warning against a
one-sidedly contemplative and introverted life-tendency, as the
same also reminds us that this earthly life is not appointed
for exclusive occupation with religion, the one thing, but for
the union of the One and the manifold, of the heavenly and
the earthly, and that the heavenly loses its power for us if
we arbitrarily set aside the earthly calling. But while weari-
ness and disgust of life mainly spring from an unfruitfully
contemplative tendency, and a leisurely occupation with the

LIFE AND DEATH. 379

one thing, yet it may also proceed from the contrary, and
that in the form of becoming blasd, of spiritual withering,
namely, from living and moving exclusively in multiplicity,
in an excess of enjoyments, as is the case with many people
of the world, to whom religion alone, that is, the return to
the One, would bring healing.

When weariness of life and the feeling of the intolerable-
ness of life has culminated, it may lead, as experience teaches,
to suicide. Suicide may be caused either by predominant
hypochondria, even without a special occasion ; or by a man
falling into despair on account of his passions, that he has
vainly sought to fight against, so that his very existence
becomes an intolerable burden to him ; or by despair on
account of misdeeds done (Judas Iscariot) ; or by hopeless
love ; or by any other great adversity, e.g., the loss of honour,
fortune, and so on. The suicide, too, is at bottom affected by
a false dependence on life ; for although he will cast life
from him as an oppressive burden, he at the same time retains
an unsatisfied claim on earthly happiness, which he will by
no means sacrifice. He will not suffer, will not bear and
want, will not attain in this way to true redemption. The
great sin committed in suicide consists in this, that the man
at once tears himself loose from all his duties, especially
from obedience to God, who has placed him in this order of
things, in which he should fulfil the will of God not only by
acting, but also bearing and expiating ; in this, that he by his
own power bursts open the gate of death, and presses uncalled
into the world beyond. Only on the Christian standpoint,
only when the truths of Christianity, that there is a living
God, a kingdom of God, a future life, are presupposed as true
and certain, can suicide be recognised as deserving condem-
nation. Wherever these presuppositions are awanting, no
ground whatever is found for declaring suicide absolutely
to be rejected. It has been well said, from the standpoint of
heathen ethics, that man has duties to other men, to the
community to which he belongs, to the fatherland, and dare
not therefore withdraw himself from the fulfilment of these
duties by quitting the body. But when a man is now unfit
to work, and can only further suffer, is only, as it is then said,
a burden to himself and others, why shall he not quit the

380 LIFE AND DEATH.

scene ? supposing, namely, that there is no kingdom of God into
which we are to enter through many tribulations, and there is
no world beyond for which he also by the will of God is to
grow ripe in patient endurance. If this life is all, and an
enormous suffering, be it in body or soul, the last of it, and
thereafter nothing whatever — why, then, should the man not
be free, without any one being entitled to complain, to shorten
at his own pleasure the last act of the tragedy ? Hamlet
has entirely hit the right mark when he says :

" 0 that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! "

And in his famous monologue :

" To die, to sleep ;

To sleep : perchance to dream : ay, there's the rub
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause : there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life ;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will. "

— SHAKESPEARE'S Hamlet, in. 1.

As these presuppositions were wanting in heathenism, or
else only existed most imperfectly, as especially in the period
of the decay of the Eoman Empire belief in immortality
had vanished from the multitude, all moral and religious
consciousness was undermined, suicide must also have appeared
a thing allowable. In painful diseases it was very customary
in old Rome to take one's own life, for which many even
sought and obtained special permission from the state. The
Stoics advanced the doctrine, that when life became burden-
some to one, it might be viewed as a room which one leaves
because it is filled with suffocating smoke ; but likewise urged
the rule that it must be done with respect and dignity.
The philosophic Emperor Marcus Aurelius gave the counsel
to quit life voluntarily, if one could not maintain oneself at
a certain moral elevation. One may speak of a suicide

LIFE AND DEATH. 381

noble from a heathen standpoint in Cato, who quitted the
body because he would not survive the Eepublic. For as
heathenism knows no kingdom of God embracing present
and future, and not subject to change like the kingdoms of
the world, as the earthly fatherland was to heathen the highest
among, all social goods, it is explicable that a high-minded
Eoman, who saw the destruction of the fatherland before his
eyes, would exist no longer. The matter is different on the
standpoint of Christianity. Here it becomes our problem, if
it be God's will, to survive all our earthly goods and hopes,
and patiently to suffer, if one had to suffer like Job. It is
just this suffering and patience for which the suicide finds
no courage, wherefore in his folly he flees from one evil, to
meet another far greater still. If suicide has become so
frequent in our days, the reason for this is that unbelief,
forgetfulness of God, has become so frequent, and that in the
midst of Christendom so many live on with a heathen way
of thinking. In what measure the earnestness of Christianity
is thrust back is shown by this, that quite usually suicide is
judged as a deed of irresponsible madness, without considering
all the preceding sins, for which the man certainly was
responsible ; as it is shown also in the moral laxity which
population and state manifest in the burial of suicides.

A casuistic question has often been brought up within
the Church, whether it is permitted to a Christian to escape
by suicide from a sinful temptation ? During the Diocletian
persecution cases occurred in which Christian women, to
escape unchaste deeds of violence, destroyed themselves.
Some of them were even admitted into the number of the
saints, and Chrysostom praised their virtue. Augustine,
again, with reason, disallowed their course of conduct, as
chastity does not dwell in the body, but in the heart, and
the heart could be preserved pure even when the body had
to suffer indignity.1

§ 160.

A morbid longing for death may also occur where there
can be no question of weariness of life in the sense above

1 Compare, however, Rothe's remarks in the opposite sense, Christl. Elliik, III.
201 ff.

382 LIFE AND DEATH.

discussed. In a one-sided, sentimental colour \ve meet it in
many souls which in a certain respect may be called beautiful
souls, but which shun work in coarse earthly matter, and
contact with the difficulties and adversities of this life. Also
they, from whom the groan may often be heard, Were I but
once dead ! suffer from a false dependence on life, which is
just expressed in this, that they will not work and suffer in
patience. On the other hand, there is also a genuine longing
for death, which it behoves us ethically to cultivate, and
which, united with a powerful life, and working in the pro-
blems of this earthly existence, is in its proper kernel and
essence a longing for the perfection that is simply never to
be found in this life, a consciousness of the imperfection,
fragmentariness, and perishableness in our present existence.
There are moods which we do not reckon among the mor-
bidly sentimental, in which a Christian feels disposed to say
with Claudius:

" For truly it is not worth the pains,
A long time here to be."

What is herein expressed is the longing for the ideal, the
perfect, and the feeling of all that vanity under which spirit
and mind are consumed ; and such longing is the truer the
more one has become ripe within for the heavenly kingdom,
the more he, in a moral-religious sense, is at least approxi-
mately done with the life of earth. Yet such moods must
be modified by surrender to the will of the Lord. So we find
it in the apostle, who says, " I have a desire to. depart and to
be with Christ ; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more
needful for you " (Phil. i. 2 3 f.). Personally he is done with
life on this earth ; but for the sake of the Church he must
still remain, according to the will of the Lord. Here long-
ing for death and willingness to live coincide and become
one. When the same apostle declares, " To die is gain "
(Phil. i. 21), only those can say it after him who have be-
come fit and ripe for that kingdom. Even the nobler heathen,
who under the influence of a deeper philosophy, or also of
the mysteries, looked forward to a life beyond, had a con-
sciousness or a presentiment that death must be a gain, in
that they, as e.g. Plato, dying the longer the more to the
lower senses, had lived their life in the world of ideas.

LIFE AND DEATH. 383

That death is a gain Socrates also seems to hint in his dying
hour, in that he gave orders to sacrifice a cock to ^Esculapius,
the god of the healing art; for by this he seemed to hint
that the hour of death would be to him an hour of liberation
and of recovery, as after enduring a severe sickness. If we
look at the many illusions and dreams of this life, at the
fever-fancies of the many passions, at all the pressure, all
the burdens of this state, it may no doubt be viewed even
as a condition of sickness, from which we would fain be
healed. And after the Platonic view, the life of the wise
man is a continued process of healing, in which death denotes
the last crisis. But that death as the last crisis is a gain
can only be declared in the full and right meaning of the
word by a Christian. Only for the ripened soul of a Chris-
tian does it fully hold, what that verse of an old mystic
declares :

" If death is terrible, yet I imagine
That nothing is more bless'd than to be dead."

But in truth to have endured death, to have rightly passed
through it, means, however, that one has endured it in faith,
has died in Christ. In itself death has indeed its terror,
and that proceeds from this, that death is the wages of
sin ; and although it has lost its sting, and there is no more
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus (Kom. viii. 1),
yet bodily death remains the last form under which the
Christian is to die to this world and sacrifice his own will,
his natural self-love to the will of God. To endure and
" overcome " death, means to will to die after the will of the
Lord, and to die in justifying faith, in full confidence in the
saving grace of God in Christ.

As the hour of death is so uncertain, we must make sure
that the hour when it strikes do not find us unprepared. We
can also here apply that word, " Watch ye therefore ; for ye
know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at
midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning" (Mark
xiii. 35). It has often been asked whether it were desirable
to die with or without consciousness ? We must indeed
commit it entirely to the will of God concerning us, what
form our departure is to take at last. But the example of
Christ shows us what is the perfection, namely, to die with

384 CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT AND JOY IN LIFE.

full consciousness, in love to take farewell of men, and to
commit our spirit into the hands of the Father. It has also
been always regarded in Christendom as a great grace when
it was granted to a Christian, united with his nearest ones,
to enjoy the Lord's Supper in the hour of death, to be thereby
renewed in the grace of the Lord and Saviour, to whom he
is now to go, and at the same time to confirm his com-
munion of love with the survivors. Yet as to some the
grace is given to have a peaceful, cheerful departure, as if
irradiated with glory, and to leave their friends the memory
of an edifying end, there are others again, and among them
such as one may associate with the saints of God, to whom
death proves in no way easy, but difficult, for whom dying,
with its terrors and anguish, takes the form of a last trial
and a last temptation, and who in their last hour need
prayer, and earnestly cry, " Lead us not into temptation."
This we should consider, and therefore exercise this principle,
this resolution of faith, amid all changes of life and of fate
to hold fast to the word of God; yea, simply to hold fast
only to the in itself true and faithful word, whose truth and
reliability, whose blessing and grace is thoroughly independent
of our feeling and perception. To many, too, a swift and
unexpected death is allotted. Therefore we must at ail
times preserve faith in the heart. Have but faith in the
heart, — we say with Luther, — then thou wilt be saved, even
shouldst thou fall down the stair and find a sudden death.

Christian Contentment and Joy in Life.
§ 161.

From the hitherto unfolded conduct in regard to temporal
goods and evils proceeds Christian contentment and joy in life.
The heathen wisdom requires that the wise man be sufficient
to himself, maintain under all circumstances an immoveable
autarlcia (self-sufficiency), and so carry the source of content-
ment within himself. The contentment of a Christian, on the
other hand, consists in this, that amid all change of things,
God and God's kingdom is enough for him ; and that he can

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT AND JOY IN LIFE. 385

only satisfy himself so far as his life is rooted in God and
His kingdom. The Christian art of happiness, or, as we prefer
to designate the matter, the Christian direction to true and
abiding joy in life, we can comprehend in the following say-
ings : " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteous-
ness" (Matt. vi. 33); "My grace is sufficient for thee" (2
Cor. xii. 9); and "Be ye thankful" (CoL iii. 15 ; 1 Thess. v.
18).

The first rule — "Seek ye first the kingdom of God" —
embraces in it not only the requirement of love to God and
man, but likewise also designates the life-maxim, without
which we become involved in an internal contradiction, that
makes all repose of mind impossible. The second rule — " My
grace is sufficient for thee " — makes us conscious that as we
can be satisfied with nothing else but the highest, so that
highest shall also really satisfy us. If we now apply this
principle — to be satisfied with the grace of God— to actual life
and its manifold states, it says that every one shall be satisfied
with his own calling and his own position, and find his
joy therein ; that we are not to seek our joy in the extra-
ordinary and remote, but in what lies near us ; that we, as it
is said in Sibbern's excellent Gabrielis Letters, are to hold to
and refresh ourselves with what we can have everywhere, with
human life, with the life of nature round about us, for " there
is wonderful life's music enough ; one need only become still
and hearken." And then, to be satisfied with the grace of
God means also that we exercise ourselves in resignation,
familiarize ourselves with the consciousness that perfect happi-
ness in the present existence, where virtue ever remains sa
imperfect, is simply impossible, and the perfect good we only
possess in hope. But amid all resignation we are to learn an
unbounded thankfulness for the unspeakably mt.ny and mani-
fold things that God has given and gives us, " and all from
mere fatherly goodness and mercy, without any merit and
worthiness of ours." Sorrow, care, and discontent with life
have very often their foundation in unthankfulness, in a state
of mind that will only make claims, but not give thanks.
Thankfulness, again, is a quietly flowing fountain of joy, yea,
a guardian and helping angeL Many men would have been
preserved from the abyss of melancholy into which they sunk,

2 B

386 CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT AND JOY IN LIFE.

could they only have taken heart to thank God. The Fathers
of the Church, as well as Luther, often urge it with special
emphasis, that a dejection and sorrow entirely absorbing a man
is at bottom nothing but ungodliness, and proceeds from the
devil, for it arises from unbelief in the gospel of Christ, and
from unthankfulness for the grace of God revealed in Christ.

The tine and essential joy is joy in the Lord (Ps. v. 12 ;
Phil. iv. 4). We distinguish between peace and joy in the
communion of our God and Saviour. For peace is the inward
testimony to this, that reconciliation with God is accomplished
within us, that we have been reconciled with God, by faith
have found salvation and grace with Him. Joy, again, denotes
not only that the opposition is removed, the internal contra-
diction solved, but also that we are living and moving in the
new, blessed fulness of life. A man may have peace with
God without likewise rejoicing in God. Both Fenelon and
Mynster speak of a " bitter peace," a peace with which a deep,
unsatisfied longing, or else a painful remembrance is united.
" I have peace, but glad I am not ! " said that La Valiere, who
from a stormy, restless, worldly life, had at last fled to the
cloister, when she was asked how she now felt. When, again,
joy in God pervades the mind, it feels raised above all sadness
and sorrow ; then the man has the real feeling, not only of
his reconciliation with God, but of his life in God, yea, of the
free, unhindered outflow and extension of this life, a feeling
which may also, no doubt, be expressed in tears, because such
joy melts and dissolves so much in man that was hitherto dry
and hardened within him. To all who complain that they
cannot attain to joy, we cry again and again, Plunge your-
selves but more deeply into the peace of God, only learn
to thank more heartily, only fill your soul yet more with
admiring adoration of the love and glory of God, and you will
become joyful (compare General Part, page 363 f.).

In speaking of Christian joy of life, Luther's image conies
again before our eye. However numerous and severe the
temptations might be by which he was assailed, yet "joy in
the Lord remained his strength" (Neh. viii. 10) and the key-
note of his life, at all times breaking through and victorious.
And this inmost joyfulness was spread out on all sides over
his earthly existence. Arnid his world-historical labours and

CHKISTIAN CONTENTMENT AND JOY IN LIFE. 387

struggles, he could joke and play in the domestic circle with
his children ; and when we see him surrounded by his friends
at a joyful feast, we are vividly reminded of that old saying,
"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a
merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works" (Eccles. ix. 7).
This freshness and health of spirit, this undiminished, fall
human existence, came also to light in his love for the fine arts,
especially for music, in which he believed he perceived an antici-
pation, a prelude of the delight of the future life ; in fine, in his
genuinely childlike love of nature. Not only the view of the
starry heaven could inspire and elevate him, but also in his
garden he had a heartfelt joy in observing a beautiful apple
tree, or a rose that he moved in his hand, or a bird diligently
building its nest. True, we dare not forget that he was wont
on such occasions to add that all that would have been far
fairer still had not sin come in between ; and that joy in the
earthly, the praises of which, praises thoroughly legitimate,
are so often met with in him, must have also appeared to him
as a component part of what is appointed to fade, to wither,
and to fall off. Towards the end of his life, he one day said,
M The sun has too long shone upon me ; I am weary of the
world, and the world is weary of me ; I am like a guest that
is quitting the inn." But joy in the Lord is the sun that
breaks through all clouds. If we again direct our glance to
Calvin, we meet the earnestness of Christianity in a higher
degree than its joy, and especially we do not get the impres-
sion that the joy in the Lord which animated his heart also
glorified the earthly to him as to Luther. The remarkable
circumstance has rightly received prominence, that although
Calvin repeatedly made greater journeys, although he had
found his dwelling in the most beautiful and splendid environ-
ment on the Lake of Geneva, in the neighbourhood of the
Alps, yet not a single passage is found in his many letters in
which the beauties of nature are even mentioned. It is as if
nature for him were not there at all

388 STAGES OF HOLINESS.

STAGES AND STATES OF HOLINESS.

The Christian Development of Character.

§ 162.

In holiness there are not only stronger or weaker degrees,
but also different stages, that is, qualitative differences in the
development of life, which yet do not admit of being defined
by abstract conceptions. When discussing the stages of holi-
ness, men have from of old distinguished between beginners,
the progressive, and the perfect (incipientes, proficientes, per-
fecti). This distinction is, however, only relative and changing.
Especially the term perfect (ot reXetot), no doubt a biblical
term (Matt. xix. 21 ; 1 Cor. ii. 6 ; Heb. vi. 1), can only be
understood relatively ; for an absolute perfection is not reached
on this earth, and the Apostle Paul, who yet certainly belonged
to the number of the perfect, says of himself in his later life,
" Not as though I had already attained, either were already
perfect" (Phil. iii. 12). But the advancing also, in opposi-
tion to the beginners, can only be understood relatively; for
one may have advanced in one respect, while in another
among the beginners. Nevertheless, the division given has
its value, inasmuch as all life, and so too the Christian,
incontestably has a beginning, a progress, and a completion.
Only, in the application, let us not forget the relativeness and
moveableness of the conceptions.

The important thing here is, above all to have the right
standard for progress. This standard we have in the relation
which the freedom of man's will occupies to the law of God.
With beginners in the Christian life, freedom, or moral
volition, is reconciled with the law, that is, freedom and grace
are found in them in immediate unity, in that they have
obtained justification by faith, and now as God's children feel
themselves redeemed from the bondage of the law. In the
enthusiasm of first love, and in the joy at paradise regained,
the opposition between duty and love is done away for them.
The burden of Christ appears to be light to them, while they
do not yet know from experience, that in order to be able to

STAGES OF HOLINESS. 389

appropriate that word in its full meaning, serious trials must
first be undergone, in which His burden may appear heavy
enough to us, while it shall yet become manifest that if we
only receive it in the right way, that burden will soon become
light. They grow and increase in all quietness, but can only
be reckoned among the more advanced, in the stricter sense,
when they too are led into the trials of life, and endure in
them. Under these trials it becomes evident that their moral
volition and action has not yet nearly become conformed to
the divine will, that the old opposition between duty and
inclination, between could and should, is not yet overcome,
and that the main thing is to fight. Those who are really
making progress are thus the fighters. But the progress is
shown in the increasing dominion of the spirit over the flesh,
in that it becomes easier to us to overcome ourselves, also
to gain the victory over besetting sins, even over the special
weaknesses belonging to our peculiar disposition. And not
only is it shown in mortifying the flesh, but also in a more
powerful unfolding of the spirit, a greater fruitfulness, as well
in the exercise of the duties of our proper calling, as in the
fulfilment of all the duties of truth, righteousness, and love,
to which we are bound in daily intercourse with men. Pro-
gress, however, not only makes itself felt in the practical
direction, but in the contemplative and mystical as well. It
is a mark of progress that we do not in our Christian know-
ledge remain standing at the first elements, but "go on unto
perfection," that is, raise ourselves and make progress (Heb.
VL 1), so that " we may comprehend with all saints what is
the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; and know the
love of Christ which passeth knowledge " (Eph. iii. 1 8 f.), so
that we are in a position to "try the spirits, whether they are
of God" (1 John iv. 1), and no longer allow ourselves, what
so easily happens to unestablished minds, "to be tossed to and
fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine," but amid
the struggles of the present time also, stand firm and unmove-
able, faithful to the truth, and upright in love (Eph. iv. 14 f.).
And further, progress is recognisable in this, that we learn
ever better to strive and continue in prayer. Prayer is in any
case the fundamental condition of all progress.

The more we progress, the weaker and more unreliable we

390 STAGES OF HOLINESS.

feel within ourselves, because we find how little we can do
with our own power, but feel likewise an increased courage,
a greater confidence of victory, because Another and Greater
makes us strong (Eph. vi. 10; Phil. iv. 13). The ordinary
criterion by which we become aware that we are making pro-
gress, is quiet peace and glad courage for living. For the
dominion of the spirit over the flesh and worldly motions
makes the soul light and free, whereas the dominion of the
flesh and worldliness, combined with an arrest or retrogression
in the development, brings with it a troubled and depressed
frame of mind.

The perfect, in the strictest sense of the word, would be
those in whom freedom and grace were in quite unbroken
harmony, and the will of God was no more in any respect an
unfulfilled requirement, and who without any hesitation could
say, "Now I live not, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20).
To this stage, however, no one attains in this life, except
approximately. Even if there are those who in a definite
direction attain to perfection and mastery, e.g. in respect to
certain temptations, against which they no longer need to
struggle, yet there still remain imperfections even in them in
other directions.

§163.

We have above designated the relation in which our moral
volition (our freedom) stands to the divine law, as the measure
of our internal progress. It is essentially the same when we
say, the measure of our progress is the relation of our freedom
to happiness. Beginners are to be compared to the disciples
before they entered with the Lord into the passion. They,
too, still desire an earthly Messiah's kingdom, such a kingdom
of salvation as shall likewise be a kingdom of happiness. For
although we have long learned that in this point the first
disciples went astray, because they had not yet grasped the
meaning of the cross and suffering, yet we do not apply this
our better insight for our benefit, but continue for our own
part to hope for an earthly Messiah's kingdom. And even
though we seek our comfort in the cross of Christ, yet we
cherish at the same time a great dread of the cross in our
own life, and always retain a natural inclination to flee the

STATES OF HOLINESS. 391

cross. An inclination of this kind is found by nature in us,
all, and the choice is given us whether we, in following Christ,
will take to flight, or go forward in His footsteps and make
progress. But the Lord calls us to progress each time He is
pleased to lead us into the history of the passion, in which
salvation and happiness separate from each other ; in which
we have to endure a struggle with ourselves before we, in
willing obedience, can take the cross upon our shoulders.
And that an actual progress on the path of suffering is made
en our part is shown by this, that it becomes easier to us to
bear, to renounce, to want, — is shown by this, that we assume,
as regards temporal goods and evils, a greater indifference,
understanding this word in its religious and sacred meaning,
that we learn, without special effort, " to have them as though
we had them not." For this by no means applies merely to
temporal goods, but also to the evils of this life, to our suffer-
ings, which we are to regard and bear as though we bore them
not, since we know that they also are transient and have an
end, that all our trouble is temporal (of short duration) and
easy (2 Cor. iv. 17). Progress is shown in a greater intimacy
with the heavenly world, in which we more live our life, in a
hope, increasing from day to day, of the future kingdom, the
powers of which we already trace within us. The perfection
to be striven for we can also here again designate as the pro-
portionately greatest approximation to such a disposition of
mind, in which our hope of future glory is stedfast and alike
powerful under all troubles, combined as well with an interest
for the affairs of the present life as with the higher earnest-
ness that dies to what is temporal. Eothe says, "A great
step is taken when one has come to this, to regard his wishes,
even the dearest, as nothing, and has in all quietness laid them
in the grave."1 True, it holds of many of our wishes, that we
must absolutely, and in all quietness, bear them to the grave.
But it is so much the more needful that over the grave of our
wishes hope be planted.

§ 164.

As one may speak of stages of holiness, so, too, of states of
holiness, of standing, if also only temporarily standing forms
1 R. Rothe, Stille Stunden, S. 200.

392 STATES OF HOLINESS.

of the relation between the different factors of life. Although
the union of grace and freedom is in principle given in
regeneration, yet it must be gradually developed under a
continued mutual working of grace and freedom. In the
Christian life there are two states to be distinguished : on
the one hand, one where under the expressions of the life of
moral freedom, the blessing of the divine grace is perceptibly
revealed; on the other hand, one where grace, as it were,
retires and remains hidden, where the freedom of the Christian's
will, where the individual in a relative sense is left to himself ;
states whose deeper final object is that the man in them may
be trained to humility, in order that he may reach out after
grace, that he may become deeper and more firmly grounded
in it.1 This change of states, which is inseparable from life
in this temporal condition, is known to every Christian from
his own life. He will also have experienced that when grace
is hidden, and it would seem to us that we are left to our-
selves, sin soon asserts its power, along with the curse of guilt,
and that we are thereby summoned to a renewed struggle, in
order more deeply and fully to lay hold of grace.

Consequently two states may be distinguished in our inner
life : of refreshment on the one hand, on the other of inward
drought and abandonment ; on the one hand of peace, on the
other of temptation ; on the one hand of elevation, of joy, on
the other hand of obscuration and oppression, of unrest and
anxiety.

We must familiarize ourselves with the thought that we are
here in the land of changes, and that only under a constant
succession of light and darkness, of fulness and want, of sorrow
and joy, which both pass over this earth together, can we ripen
for the joy that does not cease. In hours of elevation we
should prepare ourselves for trials and struggles ; in hours of
the fulness of blessing, for lack and want, and should not
think, like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, that
we can build tabernacles on such a height. And, conversely,
we should in times of trial remember those blessed hours in
which God gave us a pledge of His grace, and expect their
return. We should ever consider, as Thomas a Kempis says,
that when God's grace comes to man, it makes him strong for

1 The Author's Dogmatics, § 205.

STATES OF HOLINESS. 393

everything, but when it departs from him he becomes weak
and poor again as before, and nothing is then left to him but
the deep feeling of his misery. Yet that must not deprive
him of courage, much less drive him to despair. Eather in a
patient spirit he is to prepare himself for all that the will of
God may appoint for him, and bear all that befalls him, for
the glory of Jesus Christ. For upon winter follows spring ;
and when night is gone, the light, cheerful day returns ; and
after stormy weather a clear sky (" Of intimate intercourse
with Jesus "). But amid all the change of things we should
hold to God's word, whose truth and grace is independent of
our changing moods and feelings ; should remain confident that
even in states of deepest abandonment God the Lord is with
us, although with veiled face, so to say, in strictest incognito,
to lead us through the darkness to the light (per crucem ad
lucetn).

By the contrast between states of peace and of temptation,
\ve mean first the so-called temptations in a stricter sense,
namely, those which assail the faith, and of these we have
already spoken. But there are also temptations in a wider
sense, which threaten the work of sanctification, yea, the
Christian life itself. True, it may be said of every temptation
that our sanctification is threatened by it, but there are states
of temptation and of sinfulness in which the work of sanctifi-
cation is not merely partially disturbed, but in the whole
organism of body and spirit a disharmony arises, in which the
powers of the new life have, as it were, departed from us, and
it lias the appearance as if the old man, combined with all
manner of demoniac powers, would reconquer his dominion.
There is a state of the soul when it is all peace and harmony,
when God's Spirit, and all good spirits, rule in us, when we
love God and men. But, again, there is also a state of soul
when egoism, with all that our nature contains of sinful and
demonaic, without ourselves being able to explain how, with
all its unrest, arises within us, a state of bitterness, fretful-
ness, and ill-humour; of an unfriendly, excitable, passionate
mood, when evil spirits find entrance to us to make the soul
bad, ugly, and contrary ; a state in which, in a certain measure,
the legend of the fair Melusine is reflected. This fabulous
Countess of Lusiguan, who was not only fair, but kind and

394 STATES OF HOLINESS.

mild, took from her spouse a solemn oath to leave her in her
chamber one day of the week unwatched, and not to see her.
But he, unable to control his curiosity, at last broke open the
door on the fatal day, and beheld the fair Melusine changed
into a dragon-like monster. So there may also be certain
states within us, recurring almost periodically, in which a
similar transformation occurs, or at least is about to occur, if
we do not earnestly ward it off; states in which we, as it
were, wear a dragon's skin, or appear in another unamiable,
ugly form, or at least are in danger of passing into such. In
such states one does well, like the fair Melusine, to shut one-
self up, and be seen by no one, till the evil hour is past, and
the good spirits again have gained the victory. Such evil
paroxysms are not overcome but by prayer and fasting (Matt.
xvii. 21), — for the body has also its part therein, — as well as
by patiently persevering labour and conflict.

The legend of the fair Melusine has been also applied to
the marriage relations (so the Norwegian poet Welhaven, in
his poem, Changed Love). But it finds a more comprehensive
application to the soul of man in general, namely, to its
internal mongrel frame, and its twofold, entirely opposite
states. That it chiefly presents a picture of the natural man
is not to be denied ; but it certainly admits also of application
to the regenerate, in whom the dominion of the old man is
broken indeed, but still, as experience teaches by numerous
examples, may even yet break forth in violent reaction. We
can set beside this what the parson says in Gabrieli's Letters
(" To and from home ") : " One has evil hours, hours of bad
humour, of excitability, of fretfulness, of bad manners. The
most fatal demons lodge in our soul, or at least would lodge
in it. One must know this, that is the main point. Some-
times I have said to them, Depart from me ! apagitote ! and
they departed. But at other times they did not. One must
then see that he surmounts such hours."

In practical life one can distinguish between states and
moods of active zeal, which, so far as the zeal is of the right
kind, are combined with clearness of spirit, watchful thought,
and prudence, and states of weariness, when we are lax, weak,
and weary, when we need the exhortation again to " lift up
the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees ; and mako

STATES OF HOLINESS. 395

straight paths for your feet " (Heb. xii. 1 2 f.). The state of
spiritual languor, if no powerful opposition be made against it,
passes into that of lukewarmness, " when we are neither cold
nor hot" (Eev. iii. 15), — a state in which it may always
be assumed that the deeper needs of spirit and heart have
been thrust aside, if they are not on the point of entire extinc-
tion. In this state a false self-satisfaction arises, a false
contentment with what one has become, so that an advance
does not seem requisite. To such self-satisfaction those may
especially be tempted who have already made real and remark-
able progress, and now rest, so to say, on their laurels. When
it has come to this with a man, the Saviour stands at the door
and knocks, but in very many cases His voice is not heard —
"Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need
of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miser-
able, and poor, and blind, and naked" — when we urgently need
to anoint our eyes with eye-salve, that we may see (Eev. iii.
16-20). Akin to this state of languor and lukewarmness is
spiritual slumber, and the state of drowsiness, when we go on
in a dream-like state of stupefaction, when the lamp of the
spirit is extinguished, as with those five foolish virgins in the
parable (Matt. xxv. 1 ff.). And such a state of slumber very
easily passes over into the state of spiritual death, which, how-
ever, can only be a seeming death, when that word is addressed
to our soul, " Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead "
(Eev. iii. 1). These states of sleep and of death often occur
in men whose Christianity has sunk down to an outward
Christianity of habit, where one has the forms of Christianity,
but without oil. These are all dangerous states, against which
we must watch and pray. No Christian life may fully escape
them, and only grace can again awaken us and bring us back
into the state of lively and joyful zeal.

Akin to this contrast is the contrast between the state of
good works and the state of temptation.1 By the state of
good works we understand a mood and constitution of the
soul, in which we practise good in freely flowing productivity,
labour in our calling as those that do the work of our heavenly
Father, penetrated by the consciousness that is mirrored in
these words, " Must I not be about my Father's business ? M

1 Schmid, Christliche Sittenlehre, S. 575.

396 STATES OF HOLINESS.

(Luke ii. 49); when labour comes easy to us, while we remain
on the path that the Father has assigned us, and will be
nothing else than simply what we should be according to
God's will and guidance. By the state of temptation, again,
we understand one in which not only outward and inward
hindrances or restrictions are opposed to our work, whereby
we are tempted to become heartless and despondent, but the
world also entices and allures us by its pleasure. How many
a noble artist, how many an active craftsman, is torn away
from the state and the order of good works by temptations
that allure him to unworthy dissipations or sinful enjoyments,
when, if he would return to the practice of good works, and
into the right order, it is not done without earnest conflicts ,'
But how often are they temptations of a more spiritual kind
also, by which that state of good works is interrupted, namely,
when the world allures us by false ideals to become untrue to
ourselves, to our own ideal, and to pursue the phantasms of
the world, as if we could thereby become something better
than that to which we might attain in the way that God has
assigned us, and within the limits prescribed to us by Him !
By its applause, its wreaths, it will tempt us to conform to
the time-spirit, to serve two masters, to make compromises,
false agreements, and so on. Many of us know well from
personal experience such periods in our life, when the tempta-
tion approached us to deviate from the path marked out for
us, and instead of rightly caring for and tending the plantation
that our heavenly Father had entrusted to us, rather artificially
to call into life other supposed better plantations at our own
hand. In such assaults, however, the important thing is not
to fall into temptation, but to remember that word of the
Lord, "Get thee behind me, Satan; for it is written, Thou
shalt \vorship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve " (Matt. iv. 10); it is important to recur to the quiet
exercise of the labours of our calling, and with this return to
make at the same time a new advance.

As we may speak of changing states in the life of a
Christian, so also of changing times. There are good and bad
times, in which connection we may think, with reference to
what has been previously discussed, on the time of good
spirits on the one hand, on the other on that of impure, bad

STATES OF HOLINESS. 39 T

spirits. There are rich and poor, fruitful and unfruitful times.
There are times of new, reviving experiences, and of new
problems, whether these problems come to us from within, or
are set us from without ; and again times of uniformity, when
life goes its usual smooth course in the daily circuit of repeti-
tions. There are times of expectation, whether in reference
to external or internal occurrences ; and there are times of
fulfilment. But amid all change of times we are to hold fast
to the One thing that is high above all time, and independent
of it. In times of uniform repetition, we are not to weary in
daily labour, and likewise to consider this, that in such times
that parable of the Lord is often quite imperceptibly fulfilled,
" So is the kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into
the ground ; and should sleep and rise night and day, and the
seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how " (Mark
iv. 26 f.). There often proceeds a quiet growth in secret in
the unconscious, the nocturnal domain of our existence, a
growth that will become manifest at the right time. During
times of expectation we are to learn to wait upon the Lord,
which applies especially to times of inward poverty, need, and
pressure, of which we must so often say, " Bad times pas&
slowly ; " but this tarrying, this waiting on the Lord, is to be
no idle sitting still. One must during it work and pray as
well as may be, do his daily task of duty as well as he can.

The change of states and times here depicted runs through
the whole temporal life. It is peculiar to this that all elements
of life emerge in their distinction, that life, so to say, is severed
into its parts, each one of which must be lived through for
itself. This is typically and divinely represented to us in
Christ, and in His whole temporal development during His
course on earth. We see in Him a change of states, so that
now His divinity, as in the transfiguration on the mount, is
that which chiefly reveals itself; now again His humanity, as
in Gethsemane, and in His desertion by God on the cross,
where His human nature is, as it were, isolated and left to
itself. This alternation first ceases after the resurrection. In
all His appearances during the forty days after the resurrec-
tion, He stands before our view in the peace of eternity, in
which there is no change.

398 THE CHRISTIAN DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER.

§ 165.

Amid all the growth and struggle of sanctification, amid
its various states, as well as amid the many divine leadings
of our life, with their sunny and their rainy days, their lots
and fates, the Christian character is developed and ripens.
But as the development of Christian character is not a mere
process of nature, but a development in the sphere of moral
freedom, where God and man are the two chief factors, there
emerges the problem, at every moment of the history of our
development, to prove " what is that good, and acceptable, and
perfect will of God " concerning us (Eom. xii. 2). To know
God's good and acceptable will is not only to know the will
of God in general as this is revealed to us in the law and in
the gospel, but to know what is His will concerning us and
with us, as well in particular, special cases, as also in our
personal course of life as a w7hole. We must therefore strive
to preserve the most lively and tender susceptibility for the
voices of God or His utterances, as well in our inward life as
in the external events and allotments which befall ourselves,
that we may never and nowhere fail to hear the call of our
Lord, and neither lose nor miss our God-willed development.
But this attention becomes especially necessary at the turning-
points of our life, when an epoch of our education is closed,
and the Lord will lead us over to a new epoch. Turning-
points and crises in the development of character may proceed
at times purely from within, but very frequently they occur
in connection with changes of the external situation of life
We are placed in a new situation, be it that in our time
something new emerges, to which we must internally take a
position, e.g., a new knowledge presented to us, which may
be of decisive influence in the shaping of our future ; be it
that we enter on a relation to men who in one or other
respect are called to be God's messengers to us ; be it that we
have to make a new choice in respect of the way we are to
adhere to in our activity, that the business is to cross the
Rubicon, to utter a jacta est alea (the die is cast) ; be it that
in our external position a sudden change occurs, whereby we
are led into the school of suffering ; be it that a happiness is
offered to us, a life-relationship, a connection that may prove

THE CHRISTIAN DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER. 399

a blessing to us. Here the great thing is not to misa " the
acceptable time, the day of salvation " (2 Cor, vi. 2), not to
ignore God's good and acceptable will with us. If we may
compare smaller with greater, the people of Israel may afford
an abiding type (warning example) what it is to miss the
acceptable time. The appearance of Christ in the midst of
the people was to them the decisive turning-point, the time
of their visitation (Luke xix. 42-44). But they regarded
Him not, in the humble form of a servant ; and even in the
days when Jerusalem was destroyed, they continued to expect
their Messiah, after the true Messiah Himself had passed
before them. The same thing recurs in many forms in the
life of men, of this and that individual Christian, namely,
that at the decisive turning-point they fail to lay hold of
what should have been laid hold of, shut their eyes on the
new view which even now ought to appear to them, ignore
the men who are the Lord's veiled messengers to them,
despise Christ in His instruments and in His individual
utterances precisely for them, even granting that they in a
general way hold Him in honour. In consequence of every
such failure, there occurs a pause, a stoppage in personal
development. The pulse of the inner life stops, and time
now exercises its power upon it, so that it begins to age and
die. For the divine intention was that a new evolution
should occur ; and only by growing and progressing can we
conquer the power of ageing time. Ever anew we meet with
Christians who bear the evident marks of a lost development,
the marks of arrest, of stagnation, — Christians whose life is
only the feeble echo of something that has been, a mere
repetition of the past ; for grace has passed them with a new
element of life, but which they have not received into them-
selves,— an element which should have brought them a new
present, a spiritual rejuvenescence. Others recognise, indeed,
that in the situation there is something new, whereby the
Lord is speaking to them ; but in haste and thoughtlessness
they mistake His sign, and the new way that they adopt, the
chosen new activity, the use that they make of their new
knowledge, is the very opposite of that to which the Lord
would lead them. Thus the Lord, perhaps, awakens a gifted
•Christian preacher to revive dead religiousness, dead churchli-

400 THE CHRISTIAN DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER.

ness in the people, to build the Church of Christ anew, so
that he may help again to fill the existing church forms with
spirit and life. But instead of following this call, he quits
the National Church as a Babel, and founds a sect in which
all manner of fanaticisms get free play. The development of
his character is lost in egoism, in pride and internal contra-
dictions. Or let us go back to the history of the Eeformation.
It then occurred through Luther's powerful reforming appear-
ance, who with internal necessity, as by the power of circum-
stances, was brought to break with the Church of Eome, that
the Lord caused a new light to arise on the spirit of Erasmus.
But instead of following the call from above, and joining
Luther, whom he at least had begun to understand and
acknowledge, Erasmus missed this important turning-point of
his life, and came at last to contest the work of the Eeforma-
tion. And Erasmus, again, may remind us of Gamaliel in the
days of the apostles, who likewise missed the turning-point
of his life, in retreating into that self-conceived counsel of
prudent waiting, and thenceforth remained passive instead of
actively, with personal faith and confession, joining himself to
the cause of Christ.

Yet, as long as a man exists in time, so long as he has
still a history, there still remains for the development of his
character the possibility of new turning-points, which recur
after certain intervals in the life of individuals as of nations.
It very often happens that the divine grace brings back a
man by many deviations to the way that is. God's. We
experience to our shame more than once that the right that
we should have grasped lay quite near us, while we with
great efforts sought it in the distance, and pursued a phantasm
about which we made much ado. And in many cases we are
like the children of Israel, who needed forty years, on account
of their sins, to reach the land of promise and blessing, while
the road can be travelled in forty days. Therefore, in the
course of the development of character, grace affords us
renewed times of repentance and conversion, in which we
should become conscious of our failures and wanderings, turn
from them, and be renewed in the inner man. But even
because such times of repentance form the necessary condition
that what has been neglected and lost may be made good

THE CHRISTIAN DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER. 401

again, it is of great importance that we pay heed to the
divine chastisements in our life, for they, too, are often
overlooked and misunderstood. In what befalls us, in our
adversities, the opposition that we meet with among people,
the failure of the blessing of our industry, we can often by
right attention recognise a reflection of our own sins and
errors; while the Lord by all this will lead us to self-
knowledge and consideration, will summon us to renewed
self - examination. Even the resounding applause of the
world may sometimes seem to us like a chastisement from
the Lord, like an irony of the divine government, by which
it will convince us of the contradiction between our efforts
and what the kingdom of God requires of us. " So it is come
to this with thee, that these people celebrate thee, that they
count thee among their own ? " But many misunderstand
under every form the chastisement of their God, and only the
more exert their power forcibly to obtain the object they
have in view.

But in all circumstances it is important to "redeem the
time" (Eph. v. 16). And most men who, in an hour of clear
reflection, look back upon their life, will acknowledge that
much has been neglected, not only in the highest and holiest,
but also in humble earthly respects, because we did not use
the decisive moment when we had a choice given us, did not
regard what we should have grasped, yea, pushed it from us,
while we seized what we should have given up. Think, for
example, on the relation between man and wife, which may
become of importance for the whole life ;* or on the entrance
on a new position in life, which perhaps is decisive for our
whole career. Or think of a one-sided party spirit, in which
in some time of commotion in his life one gets himself
involved, but whose fetters he cannot afterwards shake off.
General rules cannot be laid down, for all this can only be
judged after individual circumstances. In fine, as regards the
highest and holiest relation of our soul, all is expressed in

1 Goethe said to Eckermann (Gesprache, III. 299) : "Lili was indeed the first
that I deeply and truly loved. I can also say that she was the last. I was
never so near my proper happiness as in that time of my love to Lili. The
hindrances that kept us apart were at bottom not insuperable, and yet she was
lost to me." Such things do not remain without results.

2c

402 THE CHRISTIAN DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER.

the cue word, "Watch and pray." Have oil always in youz
lamps, for "ye know neither the day nor the hoar in which
the Son of man will come " (Matt. xxv. 1 3). And He comes
to prove and to reveal our inmost being. But as in worldly
things it is true that there is often moie good fortune than
understanding, so it also holds in a Christian point of view,
that the Lord's guidance often makes good what we in our
folly have spoiled, and the most finished Christian characters
will acknowledge at the end of their life that grace has made
them what they are despite all that they missed and lost.
True, they must also be able to say with Paul, " His grace
bestowed on me was not in vain" (1 Cor. xv. 10).

§ 106.

As no Christian development of character is uninterruptedly
progressive, but every one includes in itself a constant alter-
nation of falling and rising again, so every Christian will
have moments in which he, although one in a higher, another
in a lower degree, regards himself among the fallen (lapsi).
Now, as a fall into sin by the regenerate man is ever a
relapse into the old worldly state, and thereby brings with it
a relative loss of grace, the question arises whether it is
conceivable and possible that a Christian character should
absolutely fall from the state of grace, from the state ot
righteousness and holiness, which would then be as an absolute
falling away from Christ, at the same time an absolute relapse
into the world and worldly state, whereby the begun and
relatively advanced development of character would entirely
retrograde and disappear (compare the Author's Dogmatics,
§ 235). That this is possible some have affirmed, but others
as decisively denied. Practically the matter ever takes this
position, that a Christian should " work out his own salvation
with fear and trembling, and forgetting what is behind, reach
forth to that which is before" (Phil. iii. 13). For even if
one in general holds and is persuaded that it must be possible
for a Christian character to attain to such a degree of
establishment in grace, that an absolute fall from Christ is
no more possible, which, however, does not exclude the
possibility of many, even great sins and retrogressions ; even

THE CHRISTIAN DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER. 403

when one must thus acknowledge a state of soul where the
inner necessity of good (beata necessitas boni) has gained such
a power that the personality no longer in an absolute sense
can stand to choose between Christ and the world, and that
here freedom of choice has ceased ; yet in the individual, in
each special case, it remains undefinable where this stage of
internal confirmation and ripeness is really entered on, and
nothing must be more earnestly dreaded and guarded against
than self-deception in this point. Practically the matter will
ever assume this shape, that we must constantly keep in
view that communion with Christ may be lost again by a
continued " grieving of the Holy Spirit of God " (Eph. iv. 3 0),
by thoughts, words, and actions that are unworthy of our
Christian standing, by a continued resistance of His Spirit;
that there is a sin unto death (1 John v. 16), which makes
itself known as falling away from Christ in thought, word,
or work, which, even if only temporarily, makes repentance
and faith impossible, and involves such a loss of the state
of grace as can only be replaced and restored by the most
earnest penitent struggles ; that this falling from Christ may
end with the sin that is not forgiven, the sin against the
Holy Spirit, where the man in enmity and hatred opposes
himself to inwardly attracting grace (resistentia malitiosa).
We must also keep alive the consciousness that communion
with Christ can be lost not only by positive resistance, but
also by continued indifference, lukewarmness, and neglect ; by
continued sins of weakness, against which one does not
strive ; a continued " quenching of the Spirit " (1 Thess. v.
19). The inner life may imperceptibly wither and die; that
communion may have already ceased while the man still
imagines that it exists. And as the only sure mark by which
to know that one is in the state of grace is nothing else than
incessant renewal in repentance and faith, by which he is
3ver led anew into earnest internal struggles, therefore a Chris-
tian, who can only judge himself so imperfectly, and so must
leave the judgment of the firmness of his Christian character
entirely to the Lord, will always combine with trust in God's
grace, watchfulness and prudence also. Even the Apostle
Paul, whom we are warranted to reckon among the perfect
(re'Xetot), says of himself, " I buffet my body, and bring it

404 ASCETICS.

into subjection, lest when I have preached to others I myself
should be rejected" (1 Cor. ix. 27). Now, though we must
certainly, from the character and all the Christian antecedents
of the apostle, regard it as something inconceivable that he
should ever actually fall from grace, yet we cannot but
recognise that the danger which he confesses to contend
against had also full reality and importance for him; from
which we are to learn that every Christian, however far
advanced he may be, to the last must press to the mark for
the prize of the heavenly calling " in trembling hope."

Now, if a Christian, although in full assurance of grace,
must yet, in the earnestness of holy anxiety, work and labour
that he may be saved, and amid the labour for his heavenly,
likewise accomplish the works of his earthly calling, to which
the Lord has called him, and trade with the pounds entrusted
to him, certainly he will also use the means of advancement
offered to him, will abstain from all that can hinder him, and
exercise the abilities that are of service to him in this. And
so we meet the conception of Christian ascetics.

Ascetics.
§ 167.

That we maintain the necessity of ascetics for the de-
velopment of the Christian character, that is, of such actions
as merely aim at " exercise " in virtue, and are mere means
that cannot themselves likewise count as ends ; this would
only contradict the fundamental doctrines and the spirit of
the Evangelical Church, if we were to attribute to ascetics a
greater importance than this, — to be a crutch that gradually
makes itself superfluous. On the basis of the Evangelical
Church, no one can regard it as his problem to train himself
to a character for whom ascetics were the keynote, and
termed the essential contents of life. For if I am to labour
lor my personal perfecting, I am to do so only while likewise
fulfilling the life-problem in human society set me by God, as
even Christ also, in the example left us, only in this wise
carried out His personal perfection, that He likewise finished

ASCETICS. 405

the work that the Father had given Him. If we yet main-
tain, and that from our evangelical standpoint, a relative
justification of ascetics, we establish this by means of the
already discussed Lutheran doctrine " of the third use of the
law " (tertius usus legis), according to which the regenerate one
is not in every respect freed from the law, but in certain
respects needs to be placed under a rule and discipline which
is arranged to correspond to the actual life-problem of his
individuality. And in thus asserting an element of law
within the gospel and the life devoted to the ideal, we yet
only set it forth as one that is destined more and more to
disappear. In voluntarily subjecting ourselves to a discipline,
we treat ourselves as children, as minors. Schleiermacher,
indeed, says in his Monologues : " Shame on thee, free spirit,
if one thing in thee should serve another : nothing in thee
should be means : one is worth as much as the other." To
this we reply that we also, who have found freedom in Christ,
are ashamed still to need such exercises as do not become the
perfect, for whom no element of life is a mere means, but ever
likewise an end in itself, with an infinite intrinsic value. But
so long as we do not yet belong to the perfect, so long as we
are still children (VIJTTLOI), we feel the inward compulsion to
treat ourselves as such.

§168.

The object of ascetics is dominion of the spirit over the
flesh, combating egoism as well in its finer, more spiritual
form, as in its sensuous and lower direction, combating all
self-exaltation and pride, as well as lust of the flesh and of
the eyes (1 John ii. 16). But this dominion of the spirit
over the flesh is again specialized for every individual by his
special development of character ; and to strive after dominion
of the spirit over flesh and world means for the individual as
much as the endeavour to make himself a perfect character
corresponding to his own individuality. Now, as the perfec-
tion of character consists in its purity, its energy, and its
harmony) ascetic actions can also be grouped essentially in
this threefold direction.

As purity of character depends on purity of sentiment, the

406 ASCETICS.

ascetic actions belonging to this will be chiefly the contem-
plative-mystical : study (quiet edifying consideration) of the
divine word, prayer, participation in public worship, and par-
taking of the Sacrament. These actions, which in their nature
must likewise be held as independent ends, as free effusions of
the believing mind, become in this connection lowered to means,
in that we prescribe to ourselves an order, a law, a regular
use, in order hereby to promote on all sides the dominion of
the spirit within us, to combat sin, and to cultivate the higher
life. As the indispensable condition for purity of character is
self-knowledge, and that in the spirit of Christ, we may desig-
nate this as the first and chief ascetic means that must be
exercised, in order that, in opposition to the pride of life, right
humility may be cultivated in connection with internal
obedience. While the perfect (perfecti) need to appoint no
definite hours for self-examination, because a spirit of self-
examination pervades their whole life, and special self-examina-
tion, when necessary, takes place of itself at the proper time,
it is necessary for the less advanced to observe definite hours
in which they prove themselves in the light of God's word.

Whether and how far in this respect it is advantageous to
keep a diary, is a question that cannot be answered generally,
but only with respect to the special individuality. Those
that keep a moral diary, seek therein a means to enable them
from time to time to take a review of their life. For by
nature we incline to forgetfulness, especially in regard to our
faults and mistakes, and experience shows that men deal with
nothing so regardlessly as with their recollections. The moral
diary should only help our memory, and by that means our
self-examination, in regard to our progress and retrogression
and the much that we still lack. At the close of the week
or of the month one then holds a review with the aid of these
records. Yet a danger is attached to this. While one in such
wise daily represents to himself the details of his behaviour,
and writes them down as in a confession that one makes
to himself, — e.g. To-day I gave N. N. an unfriendly answer,
because he visited me at an inconvenient hour ; to-day I was
lukewarm in prayer, and there was no propriety in my reading
in the Holy Scriptures ; or, to-day I succeeded in quenching
my anger ; to-day I gave a poor man ten shillings, and so on,

ASCETICS. 407

—in sinking into such details one is in danger, just as in the
Catholic confession to a priest, to forget or set aside the chief
thing, namely, the disposition, the deepest tendency of our
will. On the other hand, it must indeed be said that the
disposition should be proved in the details of life, and that it
is of little use to comfort oneself with one's disposition and
goodwill, if this is without power to realize itself. But even
granting that both sides are combined, the external and the
internal, that is, that actions as well as motives are examined,
a danger here threatens which indeed lies near all self-
examination, but for certain individualities is increased by
keeping a diary, because here one dwells more carefully on
detail. There are natures which in this daily occupation with
their own persons fall into a painful and anxious brooding on
themselves, which unfits for labour in the actual life-problems ;
into a self-torture, in which a secret vanity plays a part, in
that they incessantly, as it were, stand before the mirror, in
order internally to dress themselves and to blow away the
slightest particles of dust from their conscience ; into an
excessive compassion with themselves, and so also into an
excessive indignation and excitement about their faults, in
that they in unconscious pride require a perfection of them-
selves which at the present stage is simply impossible.
Something of this is often shown in diaries that were kept
by earnestly striving, morally eminent personalities. For
instance, we may mention the diaries of the Princess von
Gallitzin. They are among the most distinguished in this
kind, and testify to a really admirable self-knowledge, in
which she daily grew, while she unveiled herself before her-
self, and searched the most secret corners of her soul. On
reading these diaries, one must fully agree with her when she
says : " It is one thing to know men as Christian philosophy,
as a thinker like Pascal can teach us ; it is another to know
men as people of the world, like Helvetius, Machiavelli, and
others can teach us, without therefore leading us further in
wisdom ; but to know oneself is different from both." l Over
against such a self-knowledge one feels more vividly than
ever, that many quit life who are well known to all the world

1 Briefwechsel und Tagebucher der Furstin Amalie von Gallitzin. fteue Folgt
Die Einleitung von Schliiter, p. vriL

408 ASCETICS.

but entirely unknown to themselves. But however deep and
comprehensive her self-knowledge, however fine her knowledge
of the inmost movements of her soul, however touching the
pain, the compassion, that she feels for her own misery, with
however admirable strictness, yea, severity, she judges and
chastises herself, yet one cannot avoid the impression that she
is immoderate in her endeavour after personal perfection,
and that, rightly understood, she might need an ingredient
of the "moderate morality." Her friend Hamann is right
when he uses the expression concerning her that she had
been sick of the passion for greatness and goodness of heart,
and that the anger at her faults which at times boiled
up in her amounted at bottom to pride.1 Sometimes she
herself expressed a consciousness of this. She hears within
her a voice that speaks to her : " At bottom it is unbelief,
secret unbelief and pleasure-seeking, whence proceed all thy
efforts and cares to observe how the seed grows within thee." 2
After a confession through which she had fallen into hyper-
criticism, she says : " I feel that such doubts make me hypo-
chondriac ; so I will rather rely upon God"s mercy, endeavour
to become different, act, act, act, instead of brooding over the
past, constantly pray for light between the two rocks, anxiety
and levity, that I may bring through my conscience without
offence." 3 In these words she expresses the right standpoint.
Self-observation can only preserve its healthiness by remain-
ing inseparably combined with a healthy self-forgetfulness
amid the actual problems of life (" act, act ! "),- in the sub-
missive appropriation of the rich fulness of existence, and
above all combined with the diligent consideration of what
God has done for us, despite all our faults and weaknesses.
All compassion with ourselves, all displeasure with ourselves,
must ever lead us back again to the mercy of God. Every
review of a longer section of our life will make us aware that
none of us has in all respects kept what he has vowed, none
lias entirely fulfilled his calling, but that for our comfort and
to raise us up, God's wonderful favour and grace still winds
through our course of life, and that therefore as regards the

1 Briefwechsel und Tagebucher der Furstin Amalie von Gattitzin. Neue Folge.
Die EinUitung von Schluter, p. xvii.

» Ibid. p. 268. 3 Ibid. p. 8.

ASCETICS. 409

salvation of our souls, we should cast all care upon Him.
We may, with the parson in Gdbrieli's Letters, appropriate
that verse of the old poet : x

' ' The sun of my soul is the Lord ;
Its source, its life, its bliss is God ;
And therefore I may trust Him still :
'Tis His own field: He will it till."

Yes, my soul is God's own arable field (1 Cor. iii. 9). He
Himself will cultivate and tend it, will also finish the work
He has begun (Phil. i. 6), if only I myself place no
hindrances in His way, which no doubt may also take place
through my haste, impatience, and overstraining. While we
apply to ourselves also the Lord's parable above quoted, of the
seed imperceptibly germinating and growing, unknown to
man, the image of the kingdom of heaven, it requires of us
to look away from ourselves in a right and healthy way,
requires a genuinely Christian freedom from care (because,
that is, God cares). We may not every moment, so to say,
touch the seedling, and tear it from its soil to see how it is
growing. A good diary should, therefore, not only contain
self-observations, but also observations on whatever in word and
life we deeply meditated upon, whatever served to enlarge our
vdew and our heart, deeply moved our inner being, and gave it
new nourishment. To hit the right mean, to preserve the
right relation between self-contemplation and self-forgetfulness,
is the art. A perfect counterpart to the diaries of the Princess
von Gallitzin is furnished by Goethe's Autobiography, and
other records of his in which he takes a review of days and
years of his life. For with him what predominates is the
glance directed outwards, the appropriation of the fulness and
varied multiplicity of life. But herewith the ethical problems
undeniably retire into the background, before the problems
of culture, art, and science.

The keeping of a diary becomes still more questionable for
individuals who, with the possibility in view that their con-
fessions may fall into the hands of others, do not possess the
strength to write down the full truth, and now in a bad sense
idealize themselves, yea, get carried away to self-deception and
hypocrisy. We will not dwell longer on such a danger, but
1 H. A. Brorson, born 1691, died 1764.

410 ASCETICS.

emphasize the fact that there are persouahtiey who apply this
means of self - examination with true blessing. So Franz
Baader, who wrote his diaries in his youth. These afford us
a glance into the first development of the aspiring youth, his
inner intellectual as well as ethical-religious conflicts, and are
composed with such a truth and depth of self-observation, that
they may be reckoned among the most excellent books of
edification., They are adapted to be helpful to the reader in
his self-examination, and give him at the same time the most
powerful impulse in the right way to engage in the manifesta-
tions of the world's life, to go deeply into God's revelations,
as well those that appear to us in nature as in the world of
spirit. In Lavater's Secret Diary of an Observer of Himself,
the reader will also find many features of his own history, and
likewise receive impulse to a life of faith working in love.

But whether one keep a diary or not, no one may forego
self-examination ; yet he must at the same time overcome both
the chief dangers previously mentioned, namely, that of super-
ficial levity on the one hand, that of anxiety on the other.
But we are to overcome levity by becoming absorbed in the
earnest requirement of holiness, by vividly realizing the con-
trast between ideal and reality. And we are to combat anxiety
by looking to the mercy of God, and by ever anew giving our-
selves to the problems of life, both accepting and faithfully
working at them. If, then, in this spirit, in truth and right-
eousness, we set about our self-examination, it is of great
importance to use also in this the contributions afforded us by
the judgments of others about us, whether these judgments
come from friends or from opponents and enemies. As the
latter see our faults with a sharp glance, and through a
magnifying-glass, that glass which they lend us may often
help us to see what without it we would not so easily observe.
They draw our attention to the caricature of our being, against
which we all have cause to be upon our guard, and combat it,
whether that caricature of us has already been partly realized,
or only exists as a possibility and a disposition. Even when
praise is bestowed on us by others with the best intention, we
may often be terrified to discover that we certainly have been
guilty of a great fault.

In fine, for our self-examination, we can even use the hints

ASCETICS. 411

that are given to us in our dreams. .For the longing and volition
that emerges in the dream shows us in every case what stirs
in the natural basis of our will ; and we may there at times
make not only surprising, but also warning discoveries.

§ 169.

As the energy of the character consists in its power to
translate sentiment into action, ascetic actions in this respect
will very specially acquire practical importance, while they do
not exclude but include the contemplative - mystical, pious
consideration and prayer. And as self-denial, which is
inseparable from self-control, is the indispensable condition for
an energetic acting in the spirit of Christ, we name self-denial
as the second chief ascetic means that is to be applied to cul-
tivate true chastity and true poverty, in contrast to the lust of
the flesh and the lust of the eyes. Self-denial and self-control
are not the same. The latter is only an element of the former,
and is only the right self-control when it is the handmaid of
self-denial. Self-control is the dominion of the will over our
nature, over inclination and temperament, and therewith like-
wise over all that is meant to be the will's organ, its minister-
ing instrument, bodily as well as spiritual. But self-control
in itself may still be in the service of egoism, — and how many
egoists are virtuosi in self-control ! — whereas the essence of
self-denial consists in killing egoism in its root (which is so
often urged by Fenelon, and that in the most beautiful way),
not merely this or that inclination, but making a sacrifice of
the whole natural man. Self-control in itself ever holds fast
to self, which is specially observable in stoicism, where the
ego is the proper centre of all thought and effort; in self-
denial, again, this is just what is sacrificed, while our will
entirely submits to the divine will, and the man himself dies
with Christ to live with Him. Self-denial, in its deepest root,
is obedience, is the practical strengthening (exertion) of humility,
and the actual death of pride, which is by no means implied
in self-control, which can fitly co-exist with pride and dis-
obedience. It is only self-denial that leads not only to out-
ward, bodily, but also to inward chastity, understanding by
chastity, in the widest sense, the subordination of the sensuous,

412 ASCETICS.

the natural, under the spirit or the divine, so that the natural
attains in us to no unsuitable self-dependence. It is self-
denial that also leads to true poverty, that is, the internal
independence of worldly things, of earthly possession and
honour, of all desire of the phenomenal. For he that denies
himself, and is thereby confirmed in the One unchangeable
thing, is not taken possession of by the worldly things, but
possesses them as if he possessed them not. On the other
hand, it may also indeed be said that, without self-control,
self-denial and obedience cannot be carried out. We can only
be God's servants when we are masters in the bodily and
spiritual organism entrusted to us.

It belongs to true self-control that the will be not only lord
over our bodily organs, but also over our world of tJwught,
which amounts to this : the will places the thinking life and
its utterances by prudence and watchfulness (self-discipline) in
the normal relation to the entire personal problem. To be
sunk in reflections that our will cannot break off when duty
calls to another task, or to be sunk in dreamy brooding over
dim ideas, or to let oneself be internally hunted about by the
accidental play of the association of ideas — all this is lack of
self-control, inasmuch as the will of the man is then ensnared
and entangled in his world of thought, instead of being the
free, self-controlling centre of it. So also we say that it
belongs to self-control that the will be lord over the world of
its fancy. If we would exercise ourselves in self-control,
there is nothing against which we must stand more upon our
guard than against the danger of becoming dependent on an
irregularly roving fancy. The same spiritual capacity which
in its union with the reason becomes the organ for what is
noblest, and without which no human will has ever done any-
thing great, becomes in its lawless state a destructive and
treacherous power. The lawless fancy is a juggler, a Maja,1
that shows us a magic mirror filled with illusions and untrue
pictures. Each of our desires only needs to look into this
mirror in order forthwith to increase to passion; and as desire
by nature has the mirror of fancy beside it, it will infallibly
ever continue to look into it, except it be withdrawn from it
by a higher moral power. Sensuous love and ambition see in
1 See Note, p. 101.

ASCETICS. 413

fancy their objects in a preternatural and magical light, that
makes them more and more irresistible. But antipathy, dis-
trust, enmity, and jealousy will also soon see their objects, by
the magic of the fancy, increase to preternatural magnitude ;
and passion increases along with the mirrored image hovering
before us. We have a great instance in Shakespeare's Othello,
whose jealousy is wound up to its frightful height by the activity
of the fancy, and the phantasms that this conjures up. But
daily life is also rich in examples. It is ever anew occurring
that men picture to themselves real, or even only imaginary
opponents quite differently and in far blacker colours than
they are in reality. And in many, the magic with which the
fancy dominates their will is also manifested in this, that they
cannot but constantly occupy themselves with persons for
whom they have an aversion, and incessantly " monologize," as
the Princess von Gallitzin somewhere expresses it, with these
absent ones; that they in fancy have frequent meetings and
contact with persons whom they as much as possible avoid in
actual life, and of whom they declare that they are entirely
indifferent to them. It will not be possible to write the secret
history of the human heart without writing along with it a
history of the activity of the fancy ; and every confessional will
have much to tell of this. But as it belongs to self-control to
keep oneself free and independent of all impure, not ethical,
irregularly roving fancies, so also from dim feelings, accidental
moods and humours, which are often connected with states of
the body, and arise from the unconscious, nocturnal domain of
our being. The will must also be lord in its world of feeling,
show itself as the idealizing power over it, and only yield to
those feelings and moods that may be yielded to. The first
thing, therefore, that is necessary, if we are to remain
independent of the deceptions of the fancy, of the change of
feelings and moods, is this, that we make for ourselves firm
principles, definite rules and purposes, and keep to them amid
all changes. But that such principles may become and
continue effectual, it is not only requisite that the will be
sanctified, but also the organs, bodily and spiritual, must be
cultivated in the service of holiness, that they may come,
even without special effort, to work of themselves in a normal
direction, may become fit and ready to serve the will. The

414 ASCETICS.

more perfectly our sanctification is carried out, the more will
principle and natural inclination coincide, the more will the
organs, with ease and without resistance, move in the same
direction as the will. On the other hand, the more imperfect
sanctification is, there is the more conflict between the will
and the organs, which last have then a tendency to anarchy,
and would go their own way. It becomes, then, the more
necessary for maintaining the dominion of the moral will,
that we prescribe to ourselves ascetic dietetics and gym-
nastics.

§ HO.

As a direction to the mode of life most serviceable for our
health, dietetic pursues the normal course of the activity of
bodily life, and along with that also the proper moderation,
the right relation between abstinence and enjoyment, exertion
and rest. But ascetic dietetic is at the same time bodily and
spiritual. It is to be a means of recovering the health of the
entire man, by bringing back the personal organism to its
right measure, equipoise, and order. Now, as the chief form
of sin in every human individual is twofold, namely, sensuality
and pride, such means especially must be applied as are best
adapted to quench sensuality and pride, or are adapted not
only to make the man sober and chaste, but also humble, and
thereby to bring him into a frame that forms the perfect con-
trast to that in which hearts, although in various degrees, are
made heavy with " surfeiting and drunkenness," sensual excess
and pride of life (Eom. xiii. 13). Fasting and prayer are the
two chief means that the Church from of old has commended
to believers, and which, in combination and rightly applied,
have also really approved themselves as the right means. The
degree and range of their application indeed, especially as
regards fasting, cannot be defined generally, but only according
to individual needs and circumstances. Yet all who need
ascetics at all will also need at certain times, and in a certain
degree, and will impose it on themselves, to abstain from
certain enjoyments, although allowable in themselves (Rorn.
xiii 14). Yet the application must ever be individually con-
ditioned, because the abstinence has only a moral import, so
far as it prepares the body to be a willing instrument of the

ASCETICS. 415

spirit; wherefore an extreme abstinence, and also bodily mortifi-
cations, by which the health is undermined, are absolutely to
be rejected. For this very reason, that the last end of bodily
ascetic is nothing else than that mentioned, because it only
aims to make the whole man healthy, ascetic dietetics must
make it an urgent duty to preserve the right limits. " Drink
no longer water," writes the apostle to Timothy, " but use a
little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities"
(1 Tim. v. 23). Because the health and vigour of the whole
man should be the chief aim, therefore the apostle here counsels
to limit the mortifying, deadening, by a vivifying, enlivening
ascetic. Overstrained abstinence and mortification also very
often effects the very opposite of what is intended. The
history of ascetics teaches us that by such overdone fasting,
the fancy is often excited to an amazing degree, and in its
airy domain affords the very things that one thought to have
buried by means of mortifications, a magical resurrection. In
this connection we will only refer to the fancies, the alluring
and terrifying visions with which Saint Antony (died 356)
was visited. Accordingly, it must be acknowledged that there
are many cases where a moderate satisfaction of the sensual
appetites is more promotive of morality than strict abstinence
(1 Cor. vii. 5), so far, namely, as the latter can only be carried
out amid continual internal unrest and constant assault of
impure spirits. Under these circumstances, the decision is to
be left to the conscience of the individual (namely, when the
divine word neither contains an express command nor prohibi-
tion), whether abstinence or satisfaction be on the whole that
which most benefits his ethical existence. In every case,
however, bodily dietetic must go hand in hand with spiritual,
without which the former can only be of little use. In a
spiritual point of view, it may also be needful for us to pre-
scribe to ourselves a certain abstinence. For although " to the
pure all things are pure " (Tit. i. 15), yet, in fact, but few are
pure, and much that is healthy to the healthy is not so to the
sick also. As regards both social entertainments and artistic
enjoyments, e.g. the drama, most yield themselves to impressions
that are only innoxious to a very confirmed morality, and live
in a spiritual security, as if they were at the height of liberty,
and were able to assure themselves that their sensuality, their

416 ASCETICS.

fancy, is thoroughly unassailable. But for us all, and in all
circumstances, it may hold as a rule that we must be very
critical regarding the ideas that we permit to enter our soul,
and with which we occupy ourselves, especially in the choice of
our reading, both as regards its quality and also its quantity.
As the quality of the bodily nourishment is not indifferent,
since what we partake of is changed into our flesh and blood,
and we must therefore distinguish the foods that are suitable
to us from those that are not, so we must also be most guarded
in respect to the thoughts and pictures which we receive within
us, the materials that we allow to pass into our flesh and blood,
and from which the soul fashions its inner, invisible body.
People who, e.g., only seek their spiritual food in the bad,
ephemeral literature of the day, and so only digest unhealthy
food, must, in a spiritual point of view, get unhealthy juices
and weakened internal organs. But so, too, the quantity is by
all means to be regarded. Even granting that one seeks his
food in spiritual materials that in their nature are well adapted
to afford good nourishment, that contain purifying as well as
strengthening, enlivening powers, yet one fails in his object if
one will assimilate too much at once, and receive more than
one can work up. One may read too much, whereby not only
the spiritual digestion suffers, but the power of production is
weakened. Especially in the enjoyment of works of art, it is
as with the enjoyment of an excellent wine, which, moderately
used, has a strengthening effect, but weakens when used im-
moderately. As the aesthetic periods of history prove, there is
also an aesthetic gluttony which must be guarded against, lest
the heart be laden thereby. And to the most of those who
are chiefly disposed to ideal occupations, it may be serviceable
at times to have a period of fasting, for purifying, strengthen-
ing, and regulating their spiritual organism.

Along with prayer and fasting, the old ascetics gave the
counsel to practise also death-thoughts, and to surround one-
self with symbols of death. We also commend such as a
counterpoise against a false worldly happiness, against all
avarice, covetousness, and greed of gain, as also against all
desire of the phenomenal (which is directed to nothing but
to see and hear some new thing, compare Acts xvii. 21).
Against this greediness it is wholesome to practise death-

ASCETICS. 417

thoughts, and to quicken and preserve the idea of the
perishableness of all belonging to the world :

' ' The glory of the earth all
Must turn to smoke and ashes ;
No rock, no bronze can stay.
And that which can delight us,
Which precious doth invite us,
Will as a light dream pass away.

We reckon year upon year,
But, ah ! meanwhile the dark hier
Is brought before our door.
And thereupon hence must we,
And, ere we can bethink us,
Bid earth farewell for evermore."

§ 171.

While the ascetic dietetic aims to lead back the organism
to its right measure, and to bring it into the right order, the
ascetic gymnastic aims to train the bodily as well as the
spiritual organism to strength, dexterity, and reliability. We
should exercise the bodily and mental abilities that are
necessary for our life. In this connection we may recall
to mind the old Greeks, who had so vivid a consciousness
of the importance of bodily exercises; while Rousseau's and
1'estalozzi's exhortations also deserve to be laid to heart,
to cultivate our bodily senses, which must certainly ever be
combined with the cultivation of the corresponding spiritual
senses, especially spiritual seeing and hearing. This cultiva-
tion of our organs is of benefit to us in the work of our
calling ; and, what is the chief thing in a personal point of
view, we are thereby exercised in self-control and self-
conquest. Exercise consists in repetition, and repetition
becomes our habit. We are to wean ourselves from our
abnormalities, and on the other hand accustom ourselves to
the normal, so that this becomes our second nature. We
then become hardened to bear what the unexercised cannot
bear, e.g., bodily and spiritual cold, change of weather, and
changing judgments of men : toil and exertion become easy
to us. The here appropriate exercises in self-control may be
partly merely formal and experimental, being arbitrarily laid
upon oneself, as, e.g., when one practises vigils or sleeping on

2 D

418 ASCETICS.

a hard bed, merely for the sake of self-control, and that one
may not be inconvenienced thereby when cases occur; or
when one imposes on himself the study of a subject in which
one feels no interest whatever, only to exercise his patience
and endurance ; partly they may be exercises that occur in
the fulfilment of the duties of our calling itself, and these are
without doubt the most fruitful and effective. We have
daily opportunity to exercise energy of will, to combat our
dissipations, and to sharpen our attention. Schleiermacher
was able to carry on an intellectual conversation, and at the
same time to see and hear all that occurred and was spoken
round about him, even at the farther side of the room. In
our joint life with others we have constant opportunity to
exercise ourselves in that discretion that complies with the
apostle's exhortation, " Let every man be swift to hear, slow
to speak" (Jas. i. 19), an exhortation that manifestly pre-
supposes that men mostly use their tongues too much, their
ears again too little ; as we also have opportunity to exercise
ourselves after Job's example, who says (xxxi. 1), "I have
made a covenant with mine eyes ; " or also to exercise our-
selves in maintaining repose of mind and internal equi-
poise, in combating our indispositions and accidental moods
(humours), in quenching our impatience, our pride, our
vanity, especially our anger, which, even when it is just,
must not fly up into rage and passion: wherefore an old
proverb recommends us to take the pot from the fire ere it
boil over. In innumerable situations we have opportunity to
exercise ourselves in resisting what would disturb inward
peace, every paroxysm of unrighteousness, or envy, or injured
vanity ; ever new occasion to shut up our trouble, our cares,
in our own breast, and to cast them on God, so as not to
weary man with them. Every one who would with real
fidelity fulfil his life-task, which also includes fidelity in
so-called trifles, will find rich, yea, abundantly rich oppor-
tunity for this. But if we would fulfil our task with all
fidelity, one chief exercise especially deserves to be com-
mended, namely, the practice and habit of getting time into
our power, to have no idle hours, but to use each of our daily
hours, and then also to pass with ease from one labour to
another, from one situation to another, everywhere and at

ASCETICS. 419

every moment to have presence of mind ; in a word, ' ve must
exercise ourselves to find the transition from a dissipated,
unfree existence, bound in time, into an existence free from
time. Now, while the expression was used above that we
ought so to exercise ourselves in self-control that this may
become a habit to us, we must certainly be convinced that
this is yet but an imperfect standpoint. For to habit, as
such, there still cleaves a character of outwardness, a lack of
entire inwardness, an element of mere legality — and there is
a legality not merely in external actions, but also in the
sentiment and the mind's movements — that is, something
legal, not yet overcome by and glorified in love. But by the
continued effort to internalize, our ascetic should do itself
away, and habit should become more than habit — should
bring it to this, that it becomes only the corresponding
exterior to the free inwardness of love. The daily and
hourly repetition should not become that of the necessity of
nature, although habit is a second nature produced by cultiva-
tion, but rather the self-renewal and self-rejuvenescence of
moral freedom in its peculiar love-derived conformity to law.
This is the standpoint to be striven after, is the standpoint of
the ideal ; and this stage once reached, ascetic is then super-
fluous.

As a special means that self-control should exercise, vows
have played a great part, yet so that great aberrations have
connected themselves with them. If one thought to find a
protection against temptation by making a special vow to
God, in order to bind himself yet more strongly thereby, it
must be remembered that, apart from this, we are already
bound to obey God, and that there is no duty whatever to
which we were not already bound ; that there is only one
vow that God requires of us, namely, our baptismal vow,
which we have made immediately to the Church indeed, but
which the Church has required of us as steward of the
mysteries of God, and which includes in itself the obligation
to obedience. No doubt it may be of use that we renew a
good purpose before the presence of God. But solemnly to
vow to God that to combat a particular sin or temptation, we
will apply this or that means, a means not at all expressly
prescribed in God's word, but prescribed by ourselves or

420 ASCETICS.

other men, — pedagogic, perhaps even merely experimental
means, e.g., a sacrifice that God does not require, an abstain-
ing from certain in themselves permitted enjoyments, — is a
folly, as our insight may possibly enlarge, and we may come
to be convinced that God's will with us is that we should
exercise ourselves in self-control in an entirely different way.
The whole doctrine of special vows to God, so far as they
should have an ascetic import, is to be reduced to this, that
in all our ascetic we constantly renew our baptismal vow,
and especially should remind ourselves how we have once for
all renounced the devil, all his works and all his ways, and
that we only apply this to the special case, the special
requirement. Then we will also feel ourselves called upon
to cleave to God in prayer, and to beseech Him to give us
strength to carry out our good purpose, and that He Himself
may enlighten us regarding the more special means and ways
in and by which we are to attain to improvement. So far as
men mutually oblige themselves by an oath reciprocally to
strengthen thCxr virtue, e.g., in temperance societies, this may
certainly have its practical importance. Only, Christians who
enter into such societies must then be conscious that for their
weakness' sake they are placing themselves on a non-
evangelical standpoint, a legal standpoint, which gradually
must become superfluous. The Catholic vows to God, that
under certain conditions (that is, provided God first be helpful
to us, or on our side in this or that matter) we will perform
opera super erogatoria, that is to say, more than our duty
requires, e.g., pilgrimages, gifts to churches and monasteries,
are, after the evangelical conception of duty, absolutely to be
rejected.

§ 172.

As the harmony of the character is conditioned by its
richness, and the indispensable condition of the latter is the
spiritual disposition to be able to move in more than one
direction, to open eye and sense to the manifold phenomena
of life, to embrace many various interests at the same time ;
we call the free mobility of the spirit the chief ascetic means
which, in connection with self-control, is the condition in
order that the sympathetic righteousness may be developed,

ASCETICS. 421

that does justice to every element of life. This free move-
ment, this width and many-sidedness of spirit, is entirely
awanting, or at least is mostly thrust aside, in the ascetics of
the cloister, in which the human is excluded from the Chris-
tian, and the aim of life is limited to the one thing needful,
with an entire withdrawal from the manifold. While ascetic
has constantly in sight tho death's head and the hour-glass,
the two symbols of mortality, with their reference to eternity,
all thought revolves exclusively round self-knowledge and
self-denial with self-control, to open the soul thereby for the
eternal, and to prepare the entrance to it. But all that con-
stitutes the richness of a character lies quite remote from
that old ascetic in its monotonous religiousness. The free
activity or elasticity of the spirit, of which we speak, allows
the man livingly to combine the manifold with the one, the
kingdom of humanity with the kingdom of God. In general,
we may say that the free activity of spirit forms the opposite
of the one-sidedness and narrowness by which the spirit is
hemmed in as by toll-bars, its glance as by blinkers, that
hinder both its free movement and its free view outward and
around. To master this limitation, which, although in various
degrees and in different directions, is innate in every man,
and to cultivate a sense of the richness of life, the following
means are to be employed : — above all the study of the Holy
Scriptures, which, read with open eyes and rightly understood,
show the highest universality ; then intercourse with nature,
the purifying and refreshing of the mind by products of art
(aesthetic education), the study of history and of national
life, also intercourse with men of various circles of society
and culture. We yet add this important means : to live
with one's time, to keep the eye open for all that is stirring
in the present, in a good sense to live with one's contemporaries,
to accompany them with one's sympathies and antipathies,
but ever with a lively interest. Indifference to their own
time, which, however bad aspects it may present, must yet
never be indifferent to us, since the kingdom of God is pass-
ing through it, and, taking shape, leads nien to a one-sided life
in the past and the future, and to a monastic existence, in
which much that is human is lost, in which even the highest,
most ideal interests assume a weak faded colour, because

422 ASCETICS.

they are not tinged, or, as it were, besprinkled from the stream
of the present, which with its immediate reality imparts to
them the freshness of life. Yet one must ever anew recall
to mind, that in cultivating the sense for the multiplicity of
life, the true and proper chief end is to be kept in view, if
this activity and many-sidedness of the spirit is really to
serve to promote the harmony of the character, and not rather
to effect the reverse. The manifold must ever be controlled
by the One and Highest. We here refer to a remark that
we made in a dietetic point of view, about that in which
the spirit seeks its food. And, finally, against a perverted,
worldly endeavour after a harmonious development, that say-
ing of the Lord must be recalled to mind, that it is better
to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than with
two eyes to be cast into hell (Matt, xviii. 9).

The question may be raised, How does the here recommended
fresh activity of spirit, which plays no part whatever with the
old ascetics, admit of being united with the self-denial that
requires us to die to the world and all desire for the phe-
nomenal, while we asserted it as requisite that the sense for
the phenomena of life be developed, that we should enter
into the multiplicity of the world's life, and have an interest
in its manifestations ? We answer, that it is only sin to
which we are to die, and to such a surrender to the phenomena
as has no understanding for their essence and kernel. Our
requirement harmonizes with self-denial, rightly understood,
which not only includes self-control, but also - healthy self-
forgetfulness, so that we go out of ourselves, and can cherish
a sense and sympathy for more than what immediately affects
our person, our personal circle of life and work. But from
this arises further the requirement, which the old ascetics
in their world-renunciation did not know, that we in that
healthy self-forgetfulness should not merely love human indi-
viduals, but should surrender ourselves sympathetically, in
lively compassion and warm participation, to the richness of
human life and of all existence.

ASCETICS. 423

§173.

Self -knowledge and self-denial, then, in connection with
self-control, to which we also add the free and fresh activity
of the spirit that unfolds itself in self-forgetfulness and sur-
render— these are what must be exercised, that humility and
obedience, chastity, true (internal) poverty and sympathetic
righteousness may be developed, and thereby love and evan-
gelical liberty may take shape within us, or become character.
But what must ever be kept in view is, that we strive towards
the standpoint and the stage of the Christian life where ascetic
is superfluous, where that which in ascetic only serves as
means, becomes a living element in love, is assumed into
and pervaded by this. Above all things this must be laboured
for, that experimental ascetic obtain only a passing fading
import, and that its crutches become superfluous. The best
school for the formation of our character is the sphere of
life and of sufferings into which the Lord Himself sends us.
Now, although the school of life is different for every one,
according to his special leadings in life, yet for all alike it
takes shape as life in the moral circles of the community,
namely, the family, the state, including the communities of
culture, and, in fine, the Church. Within these circles each
individual finds his special task, where exercise in virtue
coincides with the actual practice (or performance of the
task), and where the individual is to labour for his personal
perfection, while he likewise labours for the perfection of the
whole.

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D.Sc., Ph.D., University of Michi-
gan.

Schleiermacher and the Rejuven-
escence of Theology. By Professor
A. MARTIN, D.D., New College,
Edinburgh.

Newman and his Influence. By

C. SAROLEA, Ph.D., Litt. Doc., Uni-
versity of Edinburgh.

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