CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Alfred C. Barnes 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BR121 .H56 1906 
 
 Communlon.of the Christi^^^^ 
 
 3 1924 029 192 890 
 
 olin 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029192890 
 
THE COMMUNION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN WITH GOD 
 
 DESCRIBED ON THE BASIS OF 
 LUTHER'S STATEMENTS 
 
 By WILHELM HERRMANN, Dr. Theol. 
 
 PBOFESSOK OF THEOLOGY IN THE nNIVERSITY OF MARBURG 
 
 SECOND EN ansa EDITION 
 
 Being the Translation by J. SANDYS STANYON, M.A. 
 
 EBVISED THEOTJGHODT, AND BNLAKGKD AND ALTEEBD IN 
 ACCOKDANCE WITH THE FOUETH GEEMAN EDITION OF 1903 
 
 By R. W. STEWART, B.D., B.Sc. 
 
 NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 
 
 1906 
 
Printed by Ballantynb <V Co. Limited 
 Tavistoclt Street, London 
 
REVISER'S NOTE 
 
 A MORE popular English edition of Dr. Herrmann's 
 chief work has long been desired, and this opportunity 
 is taken of making certain corrections in the original 
 translation, and also of incorporating into the English 
 version, in accordance with the author's frequently 
 expressed wish, the numerous additions and alterations 
 of the later German editions, amounting to nearly a 
 tenth part of the whole book. 
 
 The arrangement in chapters and paragraphs which 
 was made for the former edition has been entirely dis- 
 carded, and Dr. Herrmann's own new summary and 
 division, which appear in the fourth German edition, 
 have been followed exactly. 
 
 In issuing this edition of the work of one whose spoken 
 words were to me, as to all his students, an inspiration, 
 and whose influence has been so wide and deep in 
 this country as well as in Germany, I would associate 
 myself with the words of Mr. Stanyon in his introductory 
 note to the first edition : " This translation is an attempt 
 to place before English readers the work of one of the 
 most distinguished living theologians of Germany, and 
 the translator has felt honoured in being allowed thus 
 to acknowledge the deep debt of gratitude he owes to 
 the author." 
 
 R. W. S. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Apart from the substitution of this for the former 
 introduction, the numerous smaller alterations have 
 reference to the two most important objections that 
 have been urged against the conception of our faith here 
 defended. It is said to be impossible to experience the 
 Person of Jesus as the fact that can give to our confi- 
 dence in God the calm and strength of victory. From 
 the opposite side I am told that what helps us is not 
 the Person of Jesus, as we ourselves can lay hold of and 
 experience it as a fact. The power that saves us lies, 
 rather in narratives about Jesus — ^that is, in "facts 
 which require faith," and not in a fact of which we 
 ourselves are become witnesses. The two objections are 
 fundamentally at one in a legal conception of religion. 
 
 For my opponents on the left wing the Gospel of 
 Jesus is the rule of doctrine, by the acceptance of which 
 they wish to become or reckon that they are Christians. 
 They observe truly enough that through historical 
 inquiry the Person of Jesus becomes for us a problem, 
 not a reality which can decisively determine our exist- 
 ence. And so they draw the conclusion that there is 
 nothing left for us except that combination of amazing 
 ideas, Jesus' gospel. But when they conclude that 
 through the conventional possession or the determined 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 acceptance of these ideas a man is a Christian, they are 
 grievously mistaken. General ideas, the truth of which 
 is clear to us, may indeed be accepted by us, but they 
 do not transform us — and conversion has always been 
 reckoned the first effect of the dawn of Christianity in 
 the soul — they ai'e rather an expression of what we 
 already are. And general ideas, the truth of which is 
 not clear to us, because perhaps they go far beyond 
 anything comprehensible by us, for that very reason we 
 cannot appropriate so long as we remain what we are. 
 If we, nevertheless, make the attempt, and imagine that 
 it lies in our power, we do not make Christians of our- 
 selves, but something quite different. 
 
 My opponents on the right count it part of their 
 glory that with them the sum of doctrine is much more 
 comprehensive, and embraces at the least all that is 
 reported or taught about Jesus in the New Testament. 
 In this assertion, of course, the legal character of their 
 religion is still more sharply defined. And the most 
 strange thing in this is that they wish to make a law 
 for all who will become Christians the very doctrine of 
 that Apostle who contended so hotly for the recognition 
 of the fact that there is no law there that can make 
 alive. They evidently imagine that the sum of doctrine 
 constructed in this way by them ceases to be law when 
 it gets the name " gospel." 
 
 The fact that these two tendencies are dominant in 
 our church would be cause for despair were it the case 
 that they really lived only by the stimulus of the 
 dogmas they profess. They live, however, also by the 
 mysterious force of the tradition to which, as a matter 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 of fact, they are linked, and which, even in their abuse 
 of it, they mean to honour. For many of them, in spite 
 of everything, there does form itself out of the material 
 which the Biblical tradition offers them, the spiritual 
 picture of Jesus, which can become their one and all, 
 when they perceive in it the approach of God to their 
 soul, His judgment and His compassion. That must 
 comfort us when we see our church under the power of 
 the teachers of the law ; but it must not take away from 
 us the sense of our duty to oppose them. 
 
 They hold that they will sink in a bottomless quag- 
 mire if what they are to believe is no longer prescribed 
 to them. But if it can here be shown to them that the 
 basis of faith can only be what produces faith as the 
 inward experience of pure trust, one would think that 
 even on their minds there must force itself the truth 
 that faith can only be created by a personal Spirit 
 whose reality and power we ourselves experience. But 
 instead of paying heed to our proof that we can experi- 
 ence this personal Spirit and its power when we listen 
 to the sacred tradition of the Christian community, 
 they remain blind and deaf, and will not budge from 
 the position that this tradition can only become a 
 means of redemption to any one by his declaring him- 
 self ready to make up his mind to accept as true its 
 doctrines and narratives. Many are even quite willing 
 to point out to people particular portions of the tra- 
 dition which must be unconditionally " believed," if one 
 means to possess faith at all. These people often bear 
 indubitable marks of a true faith themselves, and yet 
 they have obviously no suspicion that by this demand 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 they are making themselves faith's executioners. Doubt- 
 less those of them who are in truth Christians have 
 another object than that which they formally give 
 expression to. They wish to see preserved the sacred- 
 ness of the Scriptural tradition. They do not notice 
 that they themselves are profaning it when they lay 
 upon others as a ceremonial law what is in truth a gift 
 of God's grace. Nor do they reflect that the Holy 
 Scriptures are truly reverenced when they are, first of all, 
 investigated in their historically determined reality ; and 
 when, in the second place, these books are used, just as 
 they offer themselves to us, so that in them we may 
 seek out the revelation of God. But this gives us all 
 the more reason to hope that the perception of this 
 truth will soon generally prevail. From every one who 
 wishes to adhere to her, the Christian community must 
 demand that he endeavours himself to win from the 
 Biblical tradition the vision of that Personal Life which 
 alone can fill him with perfect confidence. 
 
 The assent which our opponents demand to an 
 extract of Biblical doctrine is, first of all, morally 
 impossible ; and, secondly, a convenient substitution for 
 what is really necessary. But if we gain a clear insight 
 into what the Bible ought to be for every Christian, 
 namely, the means by which with his own vision he lays 
 hold of the Person of Jesus, then it is easy to see what 
 attitude towards the Christian community must be 
 taken up by the theologian called to her service. He 
 must be ready to impart to her, without any deduction, 
 the Scriptural tradition, and must possess the faculty 
 of showing the people how they can use this means to 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 reach that one end. But, on the other hand, if the 
 ecclesiastical authorities should be in the habit of de- 
 manding from such a man that he shall "believe" a 
 sum of doctrine prescribed by them, be it ever so small, 
 then they would become guilty of a tyranny which 
 ultimately they themselves must feel to be useless and 
 barbarous. Perhaps there are not many who will 
 venture to cherish the hope that it is in these 
 ecclesiastical circles that a revulsion might occur which 
 would overcome their fast-rooted perversity. But the 
 whole cori'uption of the Christian faith through the use 
 of tradition as a ceremonial law will be rooted out if in 
 the Christian democracy there awakes the consciousness 
 that God can reveal Himself only to those who desire 
 to be sincere, and that, therefore, the state of moral self- 
 consciousness into which we are brought by the com- 
 pulsion of a stronger personal life is also the beginning 
 'of a faith which has a truly religious character. 
 
 W. HERRMANN. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Reviser's Note v 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 § 1. The present situation of Protestant Christianity , 1 
 
 § 2, The difficulty of the position is overcome by the 
 
 piety of those not under bondage to law . . 6 
 
 § 3. The exposition of what personal Christianity is is 
 
 the common task of all parties in the Church . 8 
 
 § 4. The impossibility of uniformity of doctrine in 
 
 Christianity . .10 
 
 § 5. The feature of unity in the New Testament and in 
 the Christian community generally is the com- 
 munion with God that is mediated through Jesus 
 Christ 14 
 
 § 6. The true objectivity of Christian knowledge . . 16 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Relation of the Christian Religion to 
 Mysticism and to the Forms of Religious 
 Observance involved in Mysticism 
 
 § 1. The uneommunicable element in all religion . . 19 
 § 2. The Catholic choice of this incommunicable ele- 
 ment as the common essence of religion . 21 
 § 3. Mysticism and its significance for Catholicism 22 
 
xiv COxVTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 § 4. A want of clearness in the Protestant attitude to 
 
 mysticism 25 
 
 § 5. The enduring significance of mysticism for the 
 
 Christian life .27 
 
 § 6. Why, -within the Christian community, the way of 
 
 mysticism must be abandoned .... 29 
 § 7, The unsatisfying element in the doctrine of the 
 
 two natures in Christ is correlated to mysticism . 32 
 § 8. We get free from mysticism and scholasticism when 
 
 we get beyond the legal conception of religion . 37 
 § 9. We part company with the older Protestantism . 40 
 § 10. The difficulty and practicability of our undertaking 44 
 § 11. The longing of the Christian for an objective 
 
 reality to support his faith is made effective in 
 
 Luther's Christianity 48 
 
 § 12. The elements of Luther's theology which belong to 
 
 the past ; 51 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Establishment of our Communion with 
 God through the Revelation op God 
 
 § 1. The conception of revelation as communicated 
 knowledge about God and the piety founded on 
 this notion 57 
 
 § 2. Revelation as a fact inside our own experience, but 
 distinct from ourselves, convincing us of God's 
 working upon us 59 
 
 § 3. The Person of Jesus as the only revelation con- 
 vincing one who perceives the necessity of uncon- 
 ditional obedience gj 
 
 § 4. The Person of Jesus is the most important element 
 
 in the sphere of reality which we can reflect upon 64 
 
 § 5. It is not through a historical judgment that the 
 Person of Jesus becomes a fact we ourselves 
 establish g» 
 
CONTENTS XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § 6. The personality of Jesus, by its own power, makes 
 it possible for us. to grasp it as an element of our 
 own sphere of reality 71 
 
 § 7. The peculiarity of the Christian religion is rooted 
 in the consciousness of this fact in our own 
 experience 78 
 
 § 8 . The saving fact is the personal life of Jesus when 
 
 it is grasped by us as a reality . . . .80 
 
 § 9. The simplest features of the portrait of Jesus which 
 
 is to be got from the tradition . . , ,84 
 
 § 10. The claim of Jesus to be the Redeemer and the 
 
 proof of its truth . . ... . . ,93 
 
 § 11. The Person of Jesus as the revelation of God . . 97 
 
 § 12. The objective grounds of our certainty that God 
 
 communes with us 101 
 
 § 13. The subjectivity of an arbitrary profession of faith 105 
 
 § 14. The power of the Person of Jesus over our heart is 
 
 the vital principle of our religion . . . 108 
 
 § 15. The mystic, traditional, and rationalistic objections 111 
 
 § 16. The impossibility of giving expression to the new 
 life in communion with God in representations 
 that are devoid of self-contradiction . . .116 
 
 § 17. The Christianity of children , . , . .117 
 
 § 18. Adult Christianity 119 
 
 § 19. The easy Christianity that renounces self-knowledge 
 and reflection and accepts the conceptions of 
 others . . . ... . . ... 124 
 
 § 20. The possibility of a confession of the Divinity of 
 
 Christ 126 
 
 § 21, Defects in the old Protestant doctrine of the work 
 
 of Christ and the way of salvation . , . 129 
 
 § 22. The value of the doctrine of the substitutionary 
 
 penal sufEerings of Jesus 135 
 
 § 23. Luther's criticism of the thought of a substitu- 
 tionary satisfaction 137 
 
 § 24. The receiving of forgiveness through Jesus . 140 
 
 b 
 
xvi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 § 25. The true idea of the Deity of Christ and Christo 
 
 logical dogma 142 
 
 § 26. Luther's attitude to Christological dogma . . 146 
 § 27. The connection of Luther's peculiar idea of the 
 
 Deity of Christ with his view of redemption and 
 
 with the Christian knowledge of God . . . 172 
 § 28. The advancement of Christian piety by means of 
 
 Luther's thought 179 
 
 § 29. Communion with God and Christ through the 
 
 imagination 184 
 
 § 30. The mediation of true communion with God by 
 
 means of the Christian community . . . 189 
 § 31, The difference between this Christian religion and 
 
 mysticism ........ 195 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Exekcise op ouk Commukion with God in 
 Religious Faith and Moral Action 
 
 § 1, Turning to God is wrongly supposed to begin in 
 
 prayer 202 
 
 § 2. The form of the personal life in which a communion 
 
 with God can take place 205 
 
 § 3. Our turning to God begins in the use of His act of 
 
 beneficence, that is, in faith 212 
 
 § 4. Faith is not experienced by the renewed man as a 
 
 work of his own 214 
 
 § 5. Luther rises superior to this error .... 216 
 § 6. The reappearance of the Catholic idea in Protestant 
 
 ■' Christianity 221 
 
 § 7. We get free from it by personal forces . • . . 224 
 § 8. The relapse into the old view accounted for by the 
 
 force of criticism inherent in faith, especially 
 
 in regard to miracles 230 
 
 § 9. Worldly religion hardens the orthodox notion of 
 
 *^i*^ '. • 3 J : ? ( , - 236 
 
CONTENTS xvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § 10. True faith in itself communion with God and not 
 
 merely a preliminary condition for communion . 241 
 
 § 11. Submission to God only in pure trust . . . 243 
 
 § 12. The place of forgiveness of sins in the life of faith 246 
 
 § 13. Repentance as an element in the life of faith . . 253 
 
 § 14. The element of contemplation in faith . . . 256 
 
 § 15. Faith fleeing the world 258 
 
 § 16. Luther's idea of the freedom of a Christian man . 265 
 
 § 17. Christian humility 267 
 
 § 18. The fear of God 270 
 
 § 19. Love to God or to Christ 272 
 
 § 20. The historical and the exalted Christ in the life of 
 
 faith 281 
 
 § 21. Communion with God as an experience and as an 
 
 act 296 
 
 § 22, Moral activity in communion with God . . . 298 
 
 § 23. Faith as the power to will the good .... 300 
 
 § 24. Faith as the impulse to will the good . . . 306 
 
 § 25. Luther is defective as regards this point . . . 310 
 § 26. The inner connection between love to God and love 
 
 to our neighbour 313 
 
 § 27. The foundation of a Christian system of ethics . 317 
 § 28. Eternal life in bearing the cross and in one's 
 
 moral calling 320 
 
 § 29. The consequences of this further development of 
 
 Luther's ideas 328 
 
 . 331 
 
 . 337 
 
 . 338 
 
 . 342 
 
 . 349 
 
 . 353 
 
 § 30. The prayer of faith .... 
 § 31. Prayer and willing resignation . 
 § 32. Prayer for earthly blessings 
 
 § 33. The new birth 
 
 § 34. Baptism and the new birth 
 
 § 35. Science and the thoughts of faith . 
 
 § 36. Our attitude among the theological parties of the 
 
 present day 356 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 § 1. The Present Situation of Protestant 
 
 The work in which for the last fifteen years this book 
 has had its share has not been in vain. He to-day who 
 is willing to see, can find the way which, even in a world 
 altered by science, leads those who seek God to Christ. 
 
 Of course, with all our eiForts, we cannot make it clear 
 to all Christians how profoundly our whole existence, 
 down even to that arrangement of our habits of thought 
 which is fixed by mere caprice, has been altered, not so 
 much through the results of science as through the 
 method which, in point of fact, it follows, and which is, 
 in point of fact, unassailable. There will be many Chris- 
 tians for a long time yet on whose consciousness this 
 has not dawned. 
 
 But the task for the Church and for theology which 
 grows out of this change is now facing us in fullest 
 distinctness. The Church must endeavour to satisfy 
 the spiritual wants of the thousands who are able to 
 move so freely in the traditional forms of Christianity 
 that they can find in them the means of expression for 
 their own religious conviction. But this does not imply 
 that these Christians, who are not compelled by their 
 course in life to clear up their mental attitude to what is 
 real in the world, are to be made lords over the Church. 
 
 A 
 
2 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 The leaders of the Church must not avail themselves of 
 these docile masses in order to close the Church to 
 others who are so controlled in their life that they are 
 simply obeying the truth, when they regard the things 
 of this world in a different manner. One may call those 
 happy who do not see themselves forced out of the 
 traditional forms of Christianity by the duty of sin- 
 cerity. But the Church does not make itself indifferent 
 to them ; if she does she will become a sect ; that is to 
 say, she will sever herself from the historical movement 
 of humanity. She ought to stand at their service. It 
 is just these men who are in ciying need of help if they 
 are rightly to use the precious inheritance that is theirs 
 and not make it an instrument of their ruin. 
 
 First of all, they need to be preserved from making 
 the Biblical tradition a law for themselves or others, by 
 the fulfilment of which they may inherit or appropriate 
 salvation. For thus they block the way to God for 
 themselves and hinder others from finding it. But they 
 are not preserved from this depravity simply by the 
 fact that the sacred tradition has been made uncertain 
 for them. For that only means for each Christian to 
 whom it happens, an addition to his burdens. He sees 
 therein only a new task God sets him. And it will not 
 occur to him to lay this burden upon others who have, 
 perhaps, no time to solve such a question, being taken 
 up with other duties.* It is by the right use of the 
 
 * [The meaning ia a little difficult to follow ; it is this : People 
 beginning to have doubts themselves are all the more vehement in 
 demanding simple acceptance of the narratives from others. They 
 think thus to keep the others out of the difficulties they feel 
 themselves. — Tr.] 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 Biblical tradition that a Christian grows out of its 
 misuse. 
 
 The Church must also aid the Christian democracy to 
 see to it that the Bible holds its place. When the percep- 
 tion grows within the Protestant Church that the Bible 
 is given us in order that in the stress of life and stilled 
 in prayer we may listen to its words, if haply we may 
 catch in it the voice of God speaking to our own hearts, 
 then surely must perish the sacrilege that makes a law 
 out of this gift of God's grace. Of course we have in 
 view the fact that in our Church such a deliberate pro- 
 fanation of the holy place gives itself out for " positive 
 Christianity." But in the midst of the darkness, guarded 
 as it is by ecclesiastical authorities and by the State, 
 God sends light into many a heart, so that, in fear of 
 the judge of the conscience and in joy in the Creator 
 and Father, it escapes from all the vulgar [^arts by 
 which the world and its potentates dress up their 
 Christianity. Among us as well as among Catholics 
 this profound injury to the Church, this reduction of 
 the holy Scriptures to a rule of doctrine, is limited in its 
 practical working by the power of the Spirit that is met 
 with in the holy Scriptures. One who comes under the 
 grasp of the spiritual character of Jesus wins a right 
 appreciation of the doctrines about the Person of Jesus, 
 so that he can find in even them that one thing great and 
 precious to him above all else in the world, the power of 
 this personal spirit over men who are yearning to become 
 conscious of God. When a Christian has seen shining 
 through the thoughts of others the fact that Christ has 
 united them to God, these thoughts are no longer 
 
4 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 strange to him. He, therefore, cannot lay them upon 
 himself as a rule of doctrine warring against his own 
 thinking. For he now sees in their essential character- 
 istics, the expression of what he himself has experienced. 
 And the rest of what is there he puts calmly aside 
 until it shall please God that it too shall appear as 
 originating in Him. 
 
 This is the religious way to overcome the delusion 
 that we ought to constitute the means of God's revela- 
 tion a rule of doctrine, and that the observance of such 
 precepts, a thing which always makes us sink into 
 insincerity, can unite us with God. But Protestant 
 Christians would be much more quickly set free from 
 that most influential of Roman Catholic ideas, if among 
 us the Church had some help to give to the millions 
 who have become conscious of their inward dissatis- 
 faction with many Biblical representations. Through 
 their mental attitude these people feel themselves shut 
 out from a Church that regards and demands as the 
 beginning of Christianity the assent to the teaching 
 and narratives of the Bible. Short-sighted critics may 
 hold that for this reason the Romish Church is better 
 suited than the Protestant to the spiritual needs of 
 modems. For she declares herself content with the man 
 who, even if he does not share her doctrines at least does 
 not contradict them. In the Protestant Church, on the 
 other hand, the demand is made that the Scriptural 
 doctrines shall be echoed as personal. conviction. The 
 lesser seriousness of the Romish requirement will thus 
 make it possible for many to rest in the Church of Rome 
 who could not remain with the Protestant communion. 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 But it is those spiritually asleep who, in this manner, 
 remain inside the Church. We will, therefore, be glad 
 that for such people attachment to the Church is made 
 harder among us than among Catholics. Yet it is a 
 pity, too, that it is not made easier for the sincere. 
 How shall they make a start with talk of " facts which 
 demand faith," when by these facts are meant the 
 miracles reported in the Holy Scriptures, or, indeed, 
 anything that is an event of the past and not some- 
 thing that can be experienced here and now ? They 
 must feel repelled by a Church that through multitudes 
 of its ministers spreads among the people the belief that 
 a man does not become a Christian by reverently 
 reflecting on what is undeniably real, but by being 
 ready to obey a general invitation to declare as true 
 things which are doubtfully apprehended, or, in any 
 case, ai-e not grasped as real by himself. Further, how- 
 ever, in the majority of those who are thus injured and 
 left unsuccoured by the Church, there isi developed an 
 extraordinary want of comprehension for the Biblical 
 tradition. They count it a meaningless thing, because 
 they are tormented with it in a meaningless way. 
 When, therefore, earaest Christians see how the multi- 
 tude regards the Bible without reverence or piety, they 
 imagine they must be up in defence of their holy thing 
 and thus they become compliant tools of those very 
 guardians of it who, by their violence, have done it 
 most harm. 
 
6 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 § 2. The Difficulty of the Position is Overcome by the 
 Piety of those not under Bondage to Law. 
 
 There is only one way out of this vicious circle of 
 destruction. From the leaders of the Church, who are 
 thrown into dismay and confusion by this tremendous 
 apostasy, nothing is to be looked for but an even greater 
 dependence upon State support. They feel reassured 
 when the State gives the salary and title of professor 
 to some theologians who take up a " positive attitude," 
 that is, to some men who ignore as much as they do them- 
 selves the existence of such a thing as science and the 
 spiritual requirements that science creates. But in such 
 a matter force does nor count. Help can be expected 
 only from a reawakening within the minds of those 
 who have lapsed from the Church of an intelligent 
 reverence for a Bible which has been degraded in the 
 Church to a rule of doctrine. 
 
 Now this will happen in so far as they observe that the 
 Bible itself, instead of making an inhuman demand 
 on us, offers us an incomparable gift. When it 
 becomes clear to them that the Bible introduces us to 
 a marvellously vivid personal life that compels us to 
 self-examination, that shakes us up, that humbles us, 
 and yet that also fills us with comfort, joy, and courage, 
 then they will look away beyond all that has hitherto 
 been strange and repellent in this tradition to the 
 redeeming vision of God that they see dawning there. 
 They learn, too, to understand at last how good such 
 hindrances have been for them, for thus they have been 
 preserved from the abomination of making the Bible a 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 law of doctrine. And they even learn at last to think 
 with heartfelt pity of the leaders of the Church, who by 
 their high-handed action make the Bible a stumbling- 
 block on which many fall never to rise. 
 
 When, however, those who are thus set free by Christ 
 begin the work of self-conquest, they are blessed by 
 continually finding in parts of the Christian tradition 
 that had been previously repellent to them more 
 that is now able to enrich and rejoice their souls. Per- 
 haps, to take an example, they may never succeed in 
 sharing the apostle Paul's conception of the Person of 
 Christ. But it will certainly be given them to rejoice 
 in the fact that such thoughts did rise in a Christian 
 soul. They see there the effect of the one saving fact 
 that they themselves, just as much as the apostle Paul, 
 have before their eyes, namely, the personal life of 
 Jesus. This joy in the Christian tradition will spread 
 among our people the more hearts are made to glow 
 with the glorious knowledge that true religion, the 
 blessed life of the spirit, is given to us only when we 
 are willing to obey the simplest demand of the moral 
 law, namely, to know ourselves. We must let our- 
 selves be ready to take to heart in its weightiest 
 characteristics that which is undeniably real, and gladly 
 despise the suggestion that for God's sake we are to 
 adopt the thoughts of other men. The right depen- 
 dence on the Christian tradition must not, in the way 
 the Church has up till now desired, draw its strength 
 from want of moral insight or purity, but must result 
 from moral earnestness alone. One may hope that this 
 knowledge will prevail among the people, for the books 
 
8 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 in which this view is upheld are becoming more 
 numerous and are widely read ; and further, even by 
 "positive" theologians the convictions for which we 
 contend are now occasionally treated as the funda- 
 mental ideas of a really Christian religion.* 
 
 The new day of Protestant Christianity can dawn 
 only in hearts that have perceived that truly religious 
 faith recognises no other law than the moral law of 
 sincerity and love. The day will break when these 
 people will joyfully make, in quite another sense, the 
 old demand of the legal party, that nothing of the 
 treasure of the Church's tradition shall be lost ; and 
 when, with faith free and infinitely various in its indi- 
 vidual forms, they take up the unavoidable duty of 
 bringing together into one truly Christian community 
 all who are working for the same good. 
 
 § 3. 7%e Exposition of what Personal Christianity is is 
 the common Task of all Parties in the Church. 
 
 The unity of Protestant theology in a common peaceful 
 task far removed from the noise of ecclesiastical party 
 
 * Compare the reference to this fact ty Gottschick "Die Entstehung 
 der Losung der Unkirchlichkeit der Theologie " in the " Zeitaohrift 
 fur Theol. u. Kirche," 1903, p. 94. Gottschick expresses his delight 
 that Cremer, in his attack on Harnack, has laid chief stress on the 
 point that the legal aspect of religion must he done away with and 
 the Person of Jesus recognised as the tasis of faith. Without any 
 doubt Harnack too has been delighted to notice this perception on 
 Cremer's part. For Cremer will doubtless now exercise his influence 
 to secure that throughout the Christian Church it shall be reckoned 
 as what it really is, namely, sin, to talk of "facts which demand 
 faith," even though we are not of ourselves able to lay hold of them 
 as facts. Otherwise he would be serving that false legality which, 
 like us, he hates. 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 strife will at last be attained if we devote our atten- 
 tion to that which is usually expressly conceded by 
 the one opponent to the other. Our opponents do 
 not deny our personal Christianity. Well, then, let the 
 endeavour be made on both sides to describe what we 
 understand by personal Christianity. Christians are 
 fully agreed as to its general meaning. It is a com- 
 munion of the soul with the living God through the 
 mediation of Christ. Herein is really included all that 
 belongs to the characteristic life of Christendom — revela- 
 tion and faith, conversion and the comfort of forgiveness, 
 the joy of faith and the service of love, lonely com- 
 munion with God, and life in Christian fellowship. All 
 this is then only truly Christian when it is experienced 
 as communion with the living God through the mediae 
 tion of Christ. When we believe in a man's personal 
 Christianity we are convinced that he stands in that 
 relation towards God in which all this takes place. 
 The reformers never doubted that Christianity in this 
 sense might exist, and continue to exist, even amid the 
 perverted teaching of the Romish Church. Of course, 
 they maintained that two of the Romish ideas destroyed 
 the very basis of Christianity. Besides the idea of the 
 meritoriousness of good works, the notion seemed 
 equally obnoxious to them that the Sacraments had a 
 saving efficacy, not the outcome of a religious com- 
 prehension of God's promise as expressed in their 
 dispensation. But although they knew the Christianity 
 that was under the guidance of Rome reckoned on its 
 own merits and ascribed to the Sacraments magical 
 effects, for instance, baptismal regeneration, yet they 
 
10 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 held that even there true Christian life was to be found, 
 the inward strength of which made all these hurtful 
 doctrines mere external additions. And so it is among 
 ourselves. I hold the theological teaching of Frank, 
 Lipsius and Luthardt to be wrong; I believe I see 
 clearly how such teaching hinders the man who sur- 
 renders himself to it from coming to Christ and through 
 Him to God ; I think I know why this is the case. 
 But I hold these teachers themselves to be Christians, 
 to whom I owe many a good word of faith. Still, I 
 cannot help observing that they sometimes lapse into a 
 theology in which little that is Christian is to be dis- 
 covered. The fact is, that as theologians they are 
 products of their age ; as Chi-istians, they are created by 
 God in quite another fashion. By the strength of that 
 which has come to them through no medium of doctrine, 
 they are enabled to move as Christians even loaded 
 with the fetters of their " systems." 
 
 This faith in the power of a personal Christianity 
 that is awakened by God is indispensable to us who are 
 Protestants. We must believe that personal Christianity 
 can arise in spite of wrong teaching, and can remain 
 alive amid obsolete ecclesiastical forms. If this be the 
 case, then Protestant theology is bound to set forth 
 and expound precisely this personal Christianity in 
 which we believe all Christians to be at one. 
 
 § 4. TAe Impossibility of Uniformity of Doctrine in 
 
 Christianity. 
 Again, the need for treatment of this subject is seen 
 still further when we remember that there must be 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 different teaching among Christians, and this not only 
 on matters where we may feel it necessary to make some 
 distasteful compromise with tradition, but also where 
 the question may concern the expression of our inmost 
 faith. The doctrine which really springs from faith 
 has necessarily an infinite variety of forms. The 
 Christian seeks to express in it the reality amid which 
 his faith lives. But since that reality is infinite, there- 
 fore the doctrine in which one Christian seeks to 
 express what his faith sees, cannot be laid down as the 
 limit for other believers. Different men see differently, 
 and therefore, since they ought to be truthful, they 
 must express themselves differently. All attempts at 
 union through uniformity of a compendium of doctrine, 
 large or small, are futile, even when men succeed in 
 building up such a structure as outlasts a millennium. 
 Pei-sonal, living Christianity will always follow its own 
 free course in unfolding its thoughts ; it is inaccessible 
 to that spirit of legalism which controls the world. We 
 may see this fact illustrated in every sermon that comes 
 truly from the preacher''s heart. That heart, deeply 
 moved by the Spirit of God, thinks very little of any 
 doctrinal theory or of any theological system mled by 
 such, but reveres the free testimony of the faith of 
 other men. In the outpourings of such a heart, there- 
 fore, the old faith, on which the characteristically new 
 is climbing, will certainly be expressed in some measure ; 
 but the man, being really taught of God, will bring 
 forth out of his treasure, along with the old, some new 
 things also, which are by no means to be understood as 
 the mere logical consequences of the old. 
 
12 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 In the origination of particular doctrines, there have 
 been many contributory thoughts all springing from 
 the Spirit of God. But the idea of dogma as a uniform 
 doctrinal theory is contrary to the working of the 
 Holy Spirit. A uniform doctrinal theory seeks to 
 dominate the thinking of the Christian community, and 
 it demands that its own logical implications shall be 
 developed in the thoughts of the Christian. But the 
 Holy Spirit creates men of faith. 
 
 The actual composition of the New Testament clearly 
 shows this. If Christians seek unity by means of 
 unalterable doctrine, then they must give up the 
 authority of the New Testament. For in the New 
 Testament there is no unalterable doctrine which em- 
 braces the whole scheme of Christian thought. If in 
 spite of this the effort be made, with the New Testa- 
 ment as guide, to construct a system which shall 
 guarantee the unity of the Church, then the wonderful 
 variety of the forms of thought contained in those 
 Scriptures will be found to be an imperfection. Such a 
 feeling is unavoidable if we attempt at once to teach 
 according to Scripture, and, at the same time, to have 
 unalterable doctrine as a condition of the unity of 
 fellowship. He who wishes to teach according to 
 Scripture needs rather to make up his mind that the 
 ideal of doctrines which shall be unalterable, and equally 
 binding upon all, is a false one. Were it a true ideal, 
 then we should have to get beyond the Christianity of 
 the New Testament. But we must rather intrench 
 ourselves within it. It is no imperfection, it is rather 
 most fitting that the Epistles of the New Testament 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 are letters written in view of special circumstances, and 
 not contributions to a doctrinal system which shall be 
 valid to all eternity. 
 
 Of course, unity in doctrine seems indispensable. 
 What would a Church be without a confession? If, 
 therefore, the New Testament does not furnish a 
 definitely framed system of religious thought, such 
 perhaps does lie hidden underneath the manifold 
 utterances of faith contained in the Scriptures ? In that 
 case it would be the business of the theology which 
 desires to construct a uniform doctrine for the Christian 
 Church, to quarry out this hidden system from Holy 
 Scripture. In this way certainly a sort of average 
 combination of Biblical ways of thinking could be 
 obtained, but it would be quite unserviceable when we 
 had got it. For such an average combination of 
 thoughts, so arranged, has never existed organically in 
 the experience of a believing man. If we should try to 
 follow such a combination, we should be setting up 
 a law which might seem easy to fulfil, but we should 
 not advance a step towards the kind of thinking which 
 is found in Scriptural writers. What really unites 
 Christians one with another and with the witness of the 
 New Testament is not the complete identity of our 
 thoughts, but the likeness of our ways of thinking, and 
 the unity of the revelation by which that likeness is 
 caused. Illustration of both of these points is to be seen 
 everywhere in the New Testament. There is, on the 
 one hand, the same Jesus and the same conception of 
 God as His Father which is inseparable from Him, and, 
 on the other, the same personal life redeemed by the 
 
14 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 God who is thus manifest, or, in other words, the same 
 faith. Every Christian who reads the New Testament 
 for his edification will find these two things in it, and 
 take them as the proper nourishment for his soul. 
 
 § 5. The Featvre of Unity in the New Testament and im 
 
 the Christian Commwnity generally is the Commwnion 
 
 with God that is Mediated through Jesus Christ. 
 
 We hold a man to be really a Christian when we 
 believe we have ample evidence that God has revealed 
 Himself to him in Jesus Christ, and that now the man's 
 inner life is taking on a new character through his 
 communion with the God who is thus manifest. But 
 if this is certain, then it is the first business of theology 
 to set forth and expound the communion of the 
 Christian with God which is mediated through Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 For, in the first place, in this way alone can the 
 Christian be guided by the New Testament as the 
 principle of Protestantism demands, while, on the other 
 hand, the notion that it is possible for the Christian to 
 know and hold all the various doctrines uttered in the 
 New Testament is, to put it plainly, a monstrous 
 fiction. No Christian does so, and none can. To state 
 all these doctrines correctly is the business of historical 
 inquiry ; it is an arduous task, and one that is never 
 accomplished with certainty. Such an inquiry is not 
 within the power of every Christian. The manifold 
 nature of the doctrines uttered in the Scriptures cor- 
 responds indeed to the real nature of the life of faith, 
 but it forbids a Christian to appropriate to himself 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 equally all the processes of thought recorded by those 
 writers. The authority of the New Testament, which 
 gives the needed and safe guidance to every Christian, 
 has for its sphere something quite difiFerent from fixity 
 of doctrine, namely, the communion of the Christian 
 with God which is mediated through Jesus Christ. 
 Whenever the authority of the New Testament is 
 extended so as to belong to its doctrines, that authority 
 is diminished. Into the place of the New Testament 
 there inevitably step those theological products which 
 offer a unity of doctrine not found within its pages. 
 If, however, we have learned to fix our eyes on that 
 which God's revelation produces in the inner life of a 
 Christian, then, in our reading of Scripture, we shall 
 constantly meet with an authority by which we shall be 
 safely led and wonderfully uplifted. 
 
 Second, in the vision of the communion of the 
 Christian with God, we see wherein Christians are 
 truly at one. In the inner life of faith all is ruled 
 by the one God and the one Christ. Of course, in the 
 exposition of such a life the development of particular 
 doctrines must be set forth ; but unities of doctrine 
 beyond these limits are not legitimate, because not 
 vital to faith. They are worthless dreams which arouse 
 useless strife, and hinder the imity of the Christian 
 Church. To fix doctrines that are thus severed from 
 the stem of real life, and to frame them into a system, 
 is the last thing the Christian Church should undertake, 
 and ihe more important the matter worked up in this 
 way is, the more harmful it is. But if, on the other 
 hand, we keep our attention fixed on what God is 
 
16 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 producing in the Christian's inner life, then the mani- 
 foldness of the thoughts which spring from faith will 
 not confuse us, but give us cause for joy. For we can 
 then understand that the manifoldness is both necessary 
 and valuable. Hence we must cease attempting to bind 
 together into one system thoughts of faith coming from 
 various sources, and to make the unity of the Church 
 depend on any product of the kind. No confession ever 
 arose thus which believers could unanimously and 
 heartily accept. The Church's confession of faith 
 ought to be the confession of real faith. But this 
 is only possible where faith itself, or the personal life 
 of the Christian, the life redeemed by God, becomes 
 clearly conscious of itself. Whatever faith conscious 
 of itself says concerning itself, its origin and the forms 
 of its own life, that alone is the real confession of faith. 
 In this confession Christians understand each other if 
 the faith which God has wrought is alive within them 
 at all. On these grounds, for a Church which desires to 
 be really a fellowship of believers, there can be no theo- 
 logical task more important than that of setting forth 
 that inner life of faith, or that communion with God in 
 which we really find ourselves at one. 
 
 § 6. The True Objectivity of Christian Knowledge. 
 
 Of course, many persons fear that if we set the problem 
 in this way, we are going to resolve Christianity entirely 
 into subjective experiences. Their conviction is certainly 
 right that the inner life of the Christian faith is extin- 
 guished if we lose the Christian knowledge in which 
 we lay hold of a certain objective reality, which is 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 our support. It remains to be seen whether, as we pro- 
 ceed, our exposition will disarm this suspicion ; but the 
 error of subjectivity by no means necessarily follows from 
 the problem as now stated. This certainly does follow : 
 that the knowledge of the objective Christian realities 
 is the only nourishment on which faith is fed. It is not 
 possible to prove to an unbeliever the truth of these 
 things. That knowledge is inseparable from faith ; and 
 no one can gain an insight into its truth who is not 
 sensible to the peculiar problems of the personal life 
 that asserts itself in the sphere of moral thought. But 
 just because this Christian knowledge is grasped in its 
 truth only by those who occupy already the standpoint 
 of faith, it is all the more needful to describe quite 
 clearly the inner life of faith, wherein that Christian 
 knowledge has its place. If we wish to settle our 
 differences concerning doctrine, then, above all things, 
 we must know what we mean by the inner life of faith, 
 or, in other words, how we represent the communion of 
 the Christian with God. Every theological discussion 
 which does not sound these depths is in danger of that 
 very calamity of subjectivity which others prophesy for 
 us. The true objectivity of Christian knowledge, its 
 truth for believers, must be lost unless it is protected by 
 clear views concerning the life of faith. 
 
 The path on which we here enter is the only possible 
 way to agreement concerning Christian doctrine. 
 Nevertheless, the objection was put forward against 
 this treatise, when it first appeared, that it did not 
 help men to a mutual understanding. It was said that 
 I did an injustice to those who were against me by 
 
 B 
 
18 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 caricaturing their views. I earned this reproach by pre- 
 facing my own exposition with a sketch of our opponents' 
 conception of the communion of the Christian with 
 God. Such an undertaking is, however, worse than 
 useless. For the slightest mistake in such a description 
 is sure to arouse the suspicion of a desire to put one's 
 opponent in the wrong by imputing to him what is 
 not true. It is better, therefore, simply to set forth 
 how the life which a Christian leads with God presents 
 itself to the writer, and then to wait and see what 
 positive arguments others can bring against that 
 exposition. By this means, we may hope that the 
 errors on either side will be clearly brought to light, 
 and confuted in a Christian spirit. Strife over doctrines 
 is not very profitable, until we are thoroughly agreed 
 as to how they arise out of the organic life of faith. 
 Until then, no one who takes part in the discussion can 
 rightly understand either his opponent or himself. We 
 do need positive expositions of that inner life which we 
 know to be a Christian reality. Amid these expositions, 
 the deepest antagonisms will inevitably come to light. 
 Nevertheless, there remains with the truly pious man a 
 consciousness of that unity which will gradually trans- 
 form these antagonisms, let us hope, replacing them by 
 individual expressions of an unspeakably precious 
 common possession. Let us proceed, then, to treat of 
 that inner life of religion which is common to us all. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EBLATION OF THE CHEISTIAN EELIGION TO 
 
 MYSTICISM AND TO THE FOEMS OF EBLIGIODS 
 
 OBSEBVANCE INVOLVED IN MYSTICISM 
 
 I 1. The Incommunicable Element in all Religion. 
 We are all at one in the conviction that the inner life 
 of religion is a secret in the soul, and cannot be handed 
 over from one to another. No human being can so help 
 another by the information he may give him that the 
 latter shall be put in possession of what is best in re- 
 ligion. Each individual must experience it for himself 
 as a gift from above. Every man to whom religion is 
 something more than a store of knowledge or a burden 
 of commandments, experiences at times a certain stirring 
 of feeling within him, amid which alone he is able to 
 gain due profit from all that is of religious significance. 
 The man who is acquainted with these movings within 
 knows also that he needs neither special reflection nor 
 instruction to explain them. He has, on the contrary, 
 so strong a sense of being possessed, as it were, that he 
 must say, " This is God." At such a time God makes 
 Himself felt, and sets the man in that inward condition 
 which is blessedness. In this frame of mind the words, 
 " God is present," are the simple expression of a simple 
 
20 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 experience. Of course, even with the most pious of 
 men such a state could not last always, nor could it 
 relieve every inward pain. Nevertheless, traces of the 
 experience remain in the soul which has passed through 
 it, and keep alive the desire for its peace. Now in this 
 longing, or this affinity for that which edifies one re- 
 ligiously, in short, the impulse to order the inwai'd and 
 outward conditions of life so that the experience of the 
 nearness of God may fill these more and more, lies the 
 continuity of the religious life. But the sacred moments 
 when we experience God's immediate presence are not 
 the mOTe high-water mark to which the religious life 
 attains. Without that experience of God all the rest 
 is so empty and vain that it does not deserve the name 
 of religion. Such experiences constitute the incom- 
 municable essence of all religion. He who does not 
 understand and warmly sympathise with the many wit- 
 nesses to such a frame of mind cannot be a Christian. 
 In this experience Christians find themselves at one with 
 all devout men of every name. 
 
 But precisely on this account it is evident that we 
 have not yet described what is peculiarly characteristic 
 of Christian piety. Although we share these experiences 
 already described with other devout persons and 
 reverence their sacredness, yet [we must not let that 
 escape us which is peculiarly Christian. In what, how- 
 ever, does this consist? If we are convinced that without 
 an experience of the mysterious working of God upon 
 the soul no religion would be of any value whatsoever 
 we might easily infer that this very experience is 
 the essential thing in all religions, and therefore also in 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC PIETY 21 
 
 Christianity. And so we might regard those various 
 qualities which are peculiar to the various religions 
 simply as a means of preparation for that essential ex- 
 perience, or as a particular consequence of the same. 
 
 § 2. The Catholic Choice of this Incommtmicable 
 Element as the Common Essence of Religion. 
 
 This conception of the relation between the essential 
 and the particular in religions has played an important 
 part in history. It forms one of the most important 
 elements in Roman Catholicism. In the Roman Catholic 
 Church the supernatural power of a particular Christian 
 cultus and of particular Christian doctrines is insisted 
 upon with great force. And yet, wherever in Catholicism 
 religion has remained a living thing, it has always been 
 a life of just such experiences as we have found to be 
 essential in every devout life. Mere submission to the 
 laws of a cultus or of doctrine certainly cannot of 
 itself constitute religion. The kind of religion which 
 in Roman Catholicism is really bound up with such 
 submission is an inner life which is either indifferent to 
 what is specifically Christian, or at most but loosely 
 connected with it. The forms in which this inner life 
 finds expression have no prototypes in the New Testa- 
 ment. They were derived from the most significant 
 religious features of the dying civilisation of antiquity. 
 The most conspicuous features of the Roman Catholic 
 rule of life are obedience to the laws of cultus and of 
 doctrine on the one side, and Neo-platonic mysticism 
 on the other. The combination of these two features 
 makes it possible for Roman Catholic Christianity to 
 
22 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 assume many and varied forms. At different times 
 greater or less use of cultus and of doctrine has resulted 
 in a varied amount of preparation for the real experience 
 of religion. The link with the historical Christ which 
 both preserve has served in varying degree to modify 
 the religious experience without depriving it of its 
 mystical character. At the same time it has been 
 possible, where the approach to Christ has not been 
 entirely obstructed, that the impression He makes has 
 led on to another kind of religious experience which is 
 really Christian, and, therefore, not mystical. Then 
 there has been the long range of variations from the 
 sublimest forms of Neo-platonic mysticism at the one 
 extreme, down to that sort of acknowledgment of divine 
 power at the other, which is based only on the faint 
 emotion aroused by the mysteries of cultus, of dogma, 
 and of legends. But all the forms of piety which have 
 a place in this series have this featmre in common : they 
 are mystical. And it is in these alone that we may see 
 and study the kind of religion which is characteristic 
 of Roman Catholicism. 
 
 § 3. Mysticism and its Signijkanice for Catholicism. 
 The essence of mysticism lies herein : that its re- 
 ligious life exhausts itself in that long series of 
 experiences just described. When the influence of God 
 upon the soul is sought and found solely in an inward 
 experience of the individual, that is in an excitement of 
 the emotions taken, with no further question, as evidence 
 that the soul is possessed by God ; without, at the same 
 time, anything external to the soul being consciously 
 
ERRORS OF MYSTICISM 2S 
 
 and clearly perceived and firmly grasped, or the positive 
 contents of any soul-dominating idea giving rise to 
 thoughts that elevate the spiritual life, then that is the 
 piety of mysticism. 
 
 He who seeks in this wise that for the sake of which 
 he is ready to abandon all beside, has stepped beyond 
 the pale of truly Christian piety. For he leaves Christ 
 and Christ's Kingdom altogether behind him when he 
 enters that sphere of experience which seems to him to 
 be the highest. It is possible that an earnest and intimate 
 attachment to Christ and a powerful impulse towards 
 love of our fellow men may co-exist with this. But 
 although this is abundantly seen, even in the great 
 mystics of the Roman Catholic Chui-ch, yet it is none 
 the less clear that whenever the religious feeling in them 
 soars to its highest flights, then they are torn loose from 
 Christ and float away into a sphere where they meet the 
 non-Christian mystics of all ages. " How can we expect 
 adherence to historical reality when all the powers of the 
 imagination are let loose and regarded as the organ of 
 union with the Deity ? The mystics within the Church 
 sought to guard themselves against passionate, unre- 
 strained and pantheistic piety, but they often forgot 
 themselves, to say the least, when they rose to their 
 highest exhortations. These always lacked their full 
 momentum so long as they took any notice of whatever 
 was outside of God and the soul." * Their yearning 
 after God Himself could never endure the trammels of 
 the historical. Thus, Roman Catholicism degrades 
 everything that is connected with positive Christianity 
 
 * Harnack, "Textbook of the History of Dogma," vol. lii. p. 382. 
 
24 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 into a mere means of preparation for the highest plane 
 of the religious life. On that plane itself, and in those 
 moments when enjoyment of the highest is vouchsafed, 
 the soul knows itself to be loosed from all external 
 things. 
 
 If such a freedom of the soul in God be regarded as 
 the blessed goal, then any command to hold fast by what 
 is historical cannot count on certain obedience. For the 
 fact that everything historical sinks into insignificance 
 when God is really found, may so dominate the feeling 
 of the individual that he may become totally indifferent 
 to the dogma that formulates the meaning of the his- 
 torical in Christianity. Certainly, on the other hand, 
 the prospect of reaching such a goal may lighten the 
 burdens imposed by the prescription of incomprehensible 
 doctrines. If we know that when we reach the highest 
 plane of religious experience we shall obtain religious 
 freedom in all its fulness, we may perhaps afford to 
 endure as a means of preparation for this, a dogma 
 which demands the renunciation of that freedom. And 
 then besides, since the highest joys in mysticism, as in 
 aU religion, are something utterly miraculous, the in- 
 comprehensibility of the means of preparation, of the 
 dogma and the history worked up into it, will seem 
 exactly suited to the case. It was on this wise, we know, 
 that Thomas Aquinas justified the irrationality of 
 dogma ; and so, in a certain degree, made it rational. 
 The conversion of the historical in Christianity into an 
 incomprehensible mystery thus suits well the mystic 
 conception of religion. Each of the two features cer- 
 tainly puts a strain upon the other ; but this very strain 
 
CATHOLIC MYSTICISM 25 
 
 serves in iRoman Catholic piety as a propelling force. 
 Devout submission to dogma and to the greatest absurdi- 
 ties of cultus may produce in really pious persons a state 
 of mind in which the soul counts itself free from all 
 external bonds, not excluding even the historical revela- 
 tion of God in Christ. The masses, of course, get no 
 further than these means of preparation, and, therefore, 
 never arrive at a real personal experience of religion. 
 They remain, however, in a sort of union with the others, 
 who are truly religiously alive ; for even these latter 
 think that in their devotion to the incomprehensible they 
 gain a mysterious strength that lifts them up to God. 
 
 § 4. j4 Want of Clearness im the Protestant Attitude 
 to Mysticism. 
 
 We can understand how Roman Catholics, who have 
 discovered the paths of mysticism and are conscious of 
 their freedom and independence, should exult somewhat 
 over us who are Protestants. For we are not at liberty 
 to seek freedom from positive religion in the way which 
 they have taken ; and yet we seem to be not a little 
 burdened with things which we cannot comprehend. If 
 Catholics regard our kind of Christianity as a half-way 
 religion, their judgment is somewhat confirmed by the 
 fact that, while, on the one hand, we are impelled 
 towards mysticism by the same motives as they, we are, 
 on the other hand, held back by the fundamental 
 doctrines of our Church. And so long as we preserve 
 what is in reality Roman Catholic dogma in a somewhat 
 modified form, and regard the historical in Christianity 
 only as something incomprehensible, instead of seeking 
 
26 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 in it the revelation of God which actually convinces us, 
 ours will continue to be a half-way religion. Protestant 
 Christians who do not sincerely undertake that search 
 never gain the courage calmly to pass by things which, 
 belonging though they do to the most ancient tradition 
 regarding Christ and to the primitive form of 
 Christianity, yet as a matter of fact do not act on 
 people to-day as the awe-inspiring revelation of God. 
 They take these things to heart as a law and imagine, 
 like the Catholics, that the accomplishment of this 
 " religious duty " or of this " faith " will help them. So 
 long as this fundamental trait of Roman Christianity, 
 the spirit of law, which seeks salvation in the sup- 
 pression of a man's own faculty of knowledge, fetters 
 souls among us Protestants too, the truly pious, who 
 have the intuition that in God the soul becomes free 
 and independent will take refuge in mysticism, despite 
 all obstacles. A. Lasson, a Protestant expounder of 
 mysticism, declares plainly that mysticism is necessary 
 in Christianity, because without it there is nothing left 
 but submission to doctrines imposed by external 
 authority. I suspect that this view is secretly cherished 
 by many theologians. On the other hand, however, it 
 is not quite forgotten that a consistent mysticism is 
 fraught with danger to positive Christianity. Hence 
 men speak of a "sound" mysticism which is to be 
 carefully preserved. But when we ask : " What is 
 sound mysticism ? " we are told it is the conviction that 
 we stand in actual communion with God. This con- 
 viction, however, is no speciality of mysticism, for without 
 it there can be no religion at all. This desire to retain 
 
MYSTICISM AMONG PROTESTANTS 27 
 
 mysticism in Protestant Christianity is not yet explained 
 by the wish to exalt that which is common to all 
 religion. For mysticism is not that which is common 
 to all religion, but a particular species of religion, 
 namely, a piety which feels that which is historical in 
 positive religions to be burdensome, and so rejects it. 
 When we find that Protestant theologians who count 
 themselves strictly orthodox so frequently desire at the 
 same time to retain mysticism, we must conclude that 
 they view mysticism as a saving counterpoise over against 
 the historical. While they feel the historical to be 
 indispensable, it is nevertheless a burden to them. 
 This is exactly the attitude of which the classical 
 examples are the mendicant orders of the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries. In them we can see a practical 
 illustration of the antithesis just described between the 
 irksomeness of the historical and the freedom of 
 mysticism. The greatness of these men consists in the 
 energy with which, as theologians and churchmen, they 
 worked out the consequences of that antithesis. If 
 Protestant theologians to-day think that they cannot 
 part company with mysticism, then they really admit 
 that they cannot free themselves from Roman Catho- 
 licism. For in Roman Catholicism mysticism is the 
 essential life of religion. 
 
 § 5. The Enduring Significcmce of Mystkismfor the 
 
 Christian Life. 
 A man like R. Rothe could name nothing better 
 than the writings of the mystics as an aid to devotion 
 
28 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 alongside of the Holy Scriptures.* If this advice be 
 right, then it might be supposed that the religious life 
 manifested in mysticism has peculiar strength and 
 purity. Mysticism is undoubtedly a religious pheno- 
 menon of high perfection. It is indeed a remarkable 
 thing that in Rothe's judgment the Protestant Christian 
 seeking religious culture must be referred to Roman 
 Catholicism for examples of piety. Yet we find it 
 explicable when we study the aspirations of mysticism 
 towards its goal, as described for example in the happy 
 exposition of S. Denifle. t No one who reads Denifle's 
 description can deny that such mysticism is good 
 Catholicism or that in its utterances we may see a rich 
 conception of religious life combined with a strength 
 and simplicity of language which must go to the heart 
 of every pious man. It would be a bad sign if a 
 Protestant could not use this book as an aid to 
 devotion. A form of religion of such high perfection 
 must powerfully affect every devout soul. Although 
 we believe that our religion is of quite another sort, yet 
 we must admit that we have not reached by a long way 
 the perfection of culture which Roman Catholicism 
 possesses in mysticism. But this is the only justification 
 for Rothe's opinion. The mysticism which he com- 
 mends is indeed of great value to us, yet not because 
 it is an element in all religion, but because it is an 
 admirably perfect expression of a particular kind of 
 religion. The speculations of Roman Catholic mysticism 
 are of ancient date, and yet few of these are peculiar to 
 
 • " Theologisohe Ethik." Second edition, vol. iii. p. 490. 
 
 ■j- " Tho Spiritual Life, or Flowers gathered from the Gardens of 
 the German Mystics and ' Friends of God ' of the 14th Century " 
 Third edition, 1880. 
 
WRITINGS OF THE MYSTICS 29 
 
 itself. Nearly all belong to Neo-platonism. But its 
 faculty of making the personal life the object of obser- 
 vation and description exalts it to a height never yet 
 attained by Protestantism. To the mystics of the 
 fourteenth century the soul was a miracle which they 
 could see with their eyes ; and they never grew weary 
 of gazing on its riches. They searched out and they 
 set forth all the wealth of the inner life, so far as 
 Roman Catholic piety could produce it. For this 
 reason they are classical witnesses to the Roman 
 Catholic type of Christianity, and as such they have a 
 lasting message for Christian life. But there is all the 
 more reason that we should be clear as to whether we 
 ought to take the same path. 
 
 The mysticism of all ages is intensely attractive, 
 because in mysticism the universal aim of all genuine 
 religion is clearly grasped. In religion man seeks not 
 simply God's gifts, but God Himself. What God 
 can give without giving Himself does not comfort 
 the soul; the soul never rests until it has pierced 
 through all that is not God ; a soul is free when it has 
 risen above all that is not God. Every devout man 
 knows the justice of these propositions. The theolo- 
 gian knows how often their truth has been forgotten in 
 the search after worthy aids to religion. 
 
 § 6. TT^A^, withm the Christicm Commimity, the way 
 of Mysticism must he Ahandcmed. 
 
 But if mysticism is genuine religion, when it soars 
 thus above all aids that it may reach God Himself, the 
 question still remains whether it seeks God as a 
 
30 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Christian ought to seek Him, and whether the God 
 whom mystics believe they find is the living God of our 
 faith. The mystic seeks God in his own inner life. 
 Nor is this altogether wrong. For we have not found 
 God until He rules in our inner life. But the mystic 
 infers from this that everything which affects us from 
 without, not only cultus, doctrine, but also our con- 
 ception of the person of Jesus Himself, are all of them 
 serviceable only as means to produce in us that frame of 
 mind in which God comes inwardly near us. When this 
 condition has been attained, then we may perceive the 
 secret voice of God, which we may hear and know to be 
 divine, but cannot repeat in words of ours. In such 
 moments all that is from without recedes ; when God 
 speaks all else must be silent. The mystics knew well 
 how to describe the freedom felt in the devout soul that 
 is conscious it has passed through this incomparable 
 experience. It is the joyful breathing of a soul that 
 knows it bears the highest good within its own 
 inviolable self. The mystic is lifted above all that 
 fetters men and brings unrest, for he knows he has 
 found God. But for this very reason he has left Christ 
 behind. According to mysticism, Christ leads the man 
 who becomes His disciple up to the threshold of 
 blessedness. But then the mystic steps across that 
 threshold, and, at the highest point of his inner life, he 
 has no longer to do with Christ but with God, for when 
 a man really finds God, he finds himself alone with Him. 
 When we observe this outcome in mysticism, we may 
 be tempted to count it merely one of its casual, non- 
 essential side-growths. To do so, however, would be a 
 
MYSTICISM FORSAKES CHRIST SI 
 
 mistake. The piety of the Roman Catholic is essen- 
 tially such that, at the highest point to which it 
 leads, Christ must vanish from the soul along with all 
 else that is external. The Roman Catholic conception 
 of Christ is of such a character that its content 
 cannot possibly remain with a devout man in the act 
 of communion with God. That is the reason above 
 all others why Christian people must turn away from 
 the path of Roman Catholic piety, which leads its 
 eager spirits into mysticism. 
 
 Roman Catholic piety is unable to preserve a faith in 
 the revelation of God in Christ which can definitely 
 mould religious practice. For it is not in this or that 
 emotion, concerning which all that can be said is that 
 in the emotion God is touching the soul, that we perceive 
 the Redeemer who came to us in history. God would 
 be in such a case only a hidden, inscrutable power, and 
 by no means that Will of Christ which we understand 
 and trust in. If such were our relation to God and to 
 Christ, then the Christian doctrines concerning God 
 and Christ would exercise only a very slight influence 
 on our religious practice, however zealously we might 
 hold them. For it is not what we are taught concern- 
 ing God that actually reveals Him, and enables us to 
 recognise Him. We have God just in so far as He 
 Himself comes near to us. Now if I have to say that 
 for me this happens in a stirring of the soul in which 
 the vision of a personal power that spiritually domi- 
 nates and liberates me is entirely blotted out, then this 
 process is for me the form of God's appearance ; and it 
 is this that brings me all that I can grasp of God. But 
 
32 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 then, the revelation of God in histoi-y loses all its 
 worth. The only use left for that revelation would be to 
 instruct us and prepare each one for his individual experi- 
 ence of God's presence. And such mere preparatory 
 matters it would be not merely permissible but a duty to 
 forget as soon as the great end itself had been attained. 
 
 § 7. The Unsatisfying Element im, the Doctrine of the 
 two Natures in Christ is Correlated to Mysticism. 
 
 Corresponding to this, on the other hand, is the con- 
 ception of Christ which obtains in the Roman Catholic 
 Church. There the dogma of the two natures in 
 Christ, and the doctrine of the redeeming work of the 
 God-man, set forth what must be presupposed if the 
 union of the sinner with God is to be made possible. 
 Again, in the picture of the man Jesus, the Catholic 
 Christian sees the Way which is to lead him to God. 
 All this is right, for it is only because we know Christ 
 that we can have, with full clearness and certainty, a God 
 who by His holiness holds the sinner afar off, and yet 
 also reconciles the sinner to Himself in granting him for- 
 giveness by His own act. It is true also that we can 
 only come to God by following Jesus, and by earnestly 
 seeking to be truthful and upright like Jesus. 
 
 But this is not enough. Christ is more to the 
 Christian. We do not merely come through Christ to 
 God. It is truer to say that we find in God Himself 
 nothing but Christ. All these beclouded represen- 
 tations of an Infinite Being in whom we cannot recog- 
 nise the features of the inner life of Jesus, seek to 
 describe, not the Living God of revelation, but only a 
 
VAGUENESS OF MYSTICISM 83 
 
 being of whom nothing more can be said than that 
 He is not the world. Now that is precisely all that 
 mysticism has ever been able to say of its God. Plainly, 
 the representation of the world is the only thing that 
 moves the soul while it thinks thus of God. Only 
 disappointment can ensue to the soul whose yearning 
 for God in such case keeps on insisting that God must 
 be something utterly different from the world. If such 
 a soul will dwell for a while with the God thus 
 reached, the fact must inevitably come to the surface 
 that its whole consciousness is occupied with the world 
 now as it was before, for evidently it has grasped no 
 other positive idea. Mysticism passes so commonly into 
 pantheism for this very reason, and, indeed, especially 
 in men of the highest religious' energy ; they refuse to 
 be satisfied with the mere longing after God, or to 
 remain on the way to Him, but determine to reach the 
 goal, and rest with God Himself. The thought that 
 sums up religious experience in such a manner 
 is necessarily pantheism. But the whole thing is un- 
 christian. 
 
 The Christian has a positive vision of God in the 
 personal life of Jesus Christ. This vision of God does 
 actually set us free from the world, because it leads us 
 to deny self, and is grasped and realised only in connec- 
 tion with this moral impulse. We are guided, however, 
 to this condition neither by the Church's dogmas 
 concerning Christ, nor yet by using Jesus' human life 
 as our example. We cannot enter fully into the same 
 relation to God which Jesus had ; that remains His 
 own secret. But we can enter into the relation to 
 
34 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 God into which the redemption of Christ brings us only 
 if, in our finding of God, we do not lose sight of Jesus. 
 It is just here that both the doctrine of the Church and 
 the use of the life of Jesus as an example prove insuffi- 
 cient. For the man who has nothing more of Christ than 
 these two things must leave Christ all behind when 
 once there awakes in him that genuine religious impulse 
 which will be satisfied with nothing but God alone. How 
 can he stay with Christ if he looks upon Him as only a 
 condition, a way and means whereby to come to God ? 
 He must break through everything (even though it be 
 adorned with the name of God like the Christ of eccle- 
 siastical dogma) which serves only as a means, and is 
 thus utterly different from the God whom we must find 
 in the highest flight that our religious life attains. 
 
 Here is the limit beyond which that conception of 
 Christ, which is embodied in the dogma and practice of 
 lloman Catholicism, does not rise ; the Christ thus 
 conceived cannot be tak-en in with the soul into the 
 inmost experiences of the religious life. When this 
 kind of Christianity attains its goal, although it is 
 borne forward by the most genuine religious impulse, 
 it is de-christianised. We must get past the old dogma of 
 the Deity of Christ to a higher conception of Christ, 
 one which does not compel us to leave Him outside 
 when we take religion, that is the communion of the 
 soul with God, in all earnestness and truth. 
 
 The objection may be raised that it is just the Church 
 dogma that gives us the representation of the exalted 
 Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. But in neither 
 does it give us any pledge that when the Christian is 
 
MYSTICISM IGNORES DOGMA 85 
 
 at the highest point of his inner life, and is conscious 
 that he is inwardly in the grasp of God, he will really 
 find Christ in God. The Christian who is religiously 
 alive will always treat the idea of the Ti-inity as we find 
 Augustine did. The reflective process which is neces- 
 sary to any clear grasp of the idea of the Trinity ceases 
 altogether in the moments of such religious exaltation. 
 Augustine wrote a work of fifteen books on the Trinity, 
 yet, when he stood with his mother at the window of 
 the house at Ostia, and sought to express the deepest 
 sense of being in the grasp of God, he spoke not of the 
 Trinity but of the one God, in whose presence the soul 
 is lifted above itself and above all words and signs. A 
 mystic who professes to hold the doctrine of the Trinity 
 knows that all that can be said about it belongs to those 
 words and signs which must shrink away back, along 
 with the whole world, when God makes His presence 
 felt. Dante thought, indeed, that in the moment of 
 most exalted vision in Paradise he beheld three empty 
 circles. This was a powerful expression for the thought 
 that religious exaltation comes to its climax in the 
 Ineffable. But it certainly does not prove that the 
 doctrine of the Trinity will enable us to hold fast to 
 the vision of Jesus in the midst of our actual communion 
 with God. For an empty circle and the personal life of 
 Christ are two things as different as can be. The con- 
 ception of the exalted Christ stands in a similar position 
 with the doctrine just treated. That conception, as it 
 stands, by no means guarantees that in our actual 
 religion we shall be sure to combine the idea of Christ 
 with that of God. It is possible, of course, that the 
 
36 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 conception may arise and be cherished in such a way 
 that this necessary characteristic just mentioned may be 
 preserved. But it may also be so understood as to 
 nourish only an empty play of fancy, and whenever this 
 is the case, earnest piety will surrender itself to mysti- 
 cism, and so press forward beyond such nonentities. 
 But this mysticism will, at the same time, lead the soul 
 beyond Christ. 
 
 The real facts of the case, then, are that ecclesiastical 
 dogma and the piety which culminates in mysticism are 
 bound up the one with the other, and that the Christian 
 Church can abide by neither. For she cannot allow her- 
 self to be placed permanently in a position where she 
 must be separated from Christ if she is to be lifted 
 into communion with God. The Christian cannot cut 
 himself loose from that history in which he has found 
 the revelation of God to himself. 
 
 If we take our stand thus within history, we may 
 expect as a matter of course that those who are inclined 
 to mysticism will think us narrow-minded. They can- 
 not imagine how a man who yearns after the eternal 
 can hold fast to history.* Our only answer now to this 
 shall be to ask them in turn how they ai'e sure they are 
 really aware of God Himself when they have those 
 emotions in which their whole nature seems to be exalted. 
 Our confidence in God needs other support than the 
 recollection of such purely emotional experiences can 
 give. We are Christians because, in the human Jesus, 
 
 * On this point compare my pamphlet "Wanmi bedarf unsere 
 Glaube geschichtlicher Thatsaoheu " ("Why does our faith require 
 historical facts ?"). Second edition. Halle. 1891, 
 
COMMUNION IS THROUGH CHRIST S7 
 
 we have met with a fact whose content is incomparably 
 richer than that of any feehngs which ari.se within our- 
 selves — a fact, moreover, which makes us so certain of 
 God that our conviction of being in communion with 
 Him can justify itself at the bar of reason and of con- 
 science. Perhaps we may count upon the agreement of 
 the majority of Protestant theologians with us in our 
 exposition of mysticism as the perfection of Roman 
 Catholic piety. In that case, they must be sensible of 
 the need for as clear an understanding of the diiFerent 
 nature of the Protestant's communion with God. Our 
 church fellowship with each other rests upon our belief 
 that, amid all other differences, the same divine power 
 is leading us all to the same goal. This goal is not, indeed, 
 the mystic's emotional experience, but it is nevertheless 
 most certainly the communion of the soul with God. 
 
 § 8. We gel free from Mystkism and Scholasticism when 
 we get beyoiid the Legal Conception of Religion. 
 It must be the chief object of our theological 
 discussions to guide us to a clear understanding of 
 what that communion ought to be. In the first place, 
 we must regard as revelation only that which brings 
 us into actual communion with God ; and we can 
 regard as the thoughts of our own faith only what 
 comes home to us as truth within the sphere of our 
 actual communion with God. Thus all that can be 
 the object of Christian doctrine is summed up in 
 religious experience, and first gains satisfactory definition 
 in that connection. But, on the other hand, we can 
 describe as religious experience only that turning toward 
 
88 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 God which takes place under the influence of the revela- 
 tion of God within us, and can be expressed in doctrines 
 of faith. 
 
 In observing this latter point we avoid the false path 
 of mysticism. We quite recognise, in common with 
 mysticism, that religious experience always culminates 
 in the ineffable ; but we maintain firmly also that the 
 whole of the spiritual life is supported by the spiritual 
 and definable power of the revelation of God, and, more- 
 over, that the whole of this life consists of such spiritual 
 processes as can be clearly expressed in the thoughts of 
 faith. We hold that the ineffable in religion can indeed 
 be experienced, but only in connection with that which 
 can be put into words. Apart from this the experience 
 would lack Christian definiteness and the conscious- 
 ness of being true. Thus we escape mysticism without 
 losing the truth it contains. 
 
 In observing the first point we avoid scholasticism. 
 Many people find it difficult to free themselves from this 
 Roman Catholic sort of theology, because they cannot 
 make up their minds to be content with what is actually 
 given them as divine revelation. Vanity and the fear of 
 men produce a constant tendency to regard as God's 
 revelation, and as real doctrines of faith, things which 
 we have simply taken from the confessions of other men. 
 This was the mistaken practice of Roman Catholic 
 theology, and it exercises a wide influence over the heart 
 of Christendom, even where men have not so much 
 as heard the names of the schoolmen. The practice is 
 not altered by transforming particular doctrines, nor by 
 choosing apostles instead of popes as the men whose 
 
THE BONDAGE TO AUTHORITY 89 
 
 confessions we appropriate. It endures so long as 
 people appropriate other men's expressions of their 
 redeemed life and fancy that by so doing they become 
 exactly like those other men. Whenever men deal thus 
 with other men's professions of faith, even if those 
 other men be the apostles themselves, they remain 
 essentially Roman Catholics. Our aim should rather 
 be to become such freemen as they were with whose pro- 
 fessions we vainly deck ourselves. God alone can set 
 the captives free. Theology should show us the way to 
 Him. All the more, then, must she refuse to forge the 
 fetters which human vanity so willingly binds about 
 itself. On the contrary she should rather teach us to 
 throw away ihese sham jewels and riches, and to flee to 
 the revelation which can really help us out of our 
 poverty. The most important task of theology is to 
 open men's eyes, and lead them to see, that nothing can 
 be revelation to them except what actually lifts them 
 into communion with God. 
 
 But one great hindrance on this true way of salvation 
 is just that system of the thoughts of various men 
 which theology has constructed after the fashion of the 
 schoolmen. Such a system is dangerous to begin with, 
 because it claims to represent complete knowledge where 
 none of us can possibly know as a living thing more 
 than part. And it becomes a sore temptation when it 
 presses on us with the claim that it can help us if only 
 we will surrender ourselves to its rule. We reject this 
 counterfeit wealth of theology, which becomes an 
 intolerable burden upon the earnest seeker after sal- 
 vation by treating the two branches of Christian 
 
40 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 doctrine, namely, the setting forth of the revelation 
 and the evolution of the doctrines of faith only 
 in their divinely ordered and vital connection with 
 the essence of religion, the communion of the Chris- 
 tian with God. By this breach from scholasticism, we 
 gain for theology the opposite result from that 
 which our breaking loose from mysticism brings about 
 for the inner life of the Christian. There is less theo- 
 logy ; there is a richer life within. Our rejection of the 
 practice of Roman Catholicism suggests the true course 
 for the accomplishment of our task. Our object is to 
 set forth the real communion of the Christian with God. 
 The Christian is lifted into that communion when God 
 turns to ^him and enters into communion with him ; 
 and then, as he becomes conscious of the new reality into 
 which he has come, his life in fellowship with God unfolds 
 itself in the thoughts of faith concerning that reality. 
 
 § 9. We part Company with the Older Protestantism. 
 Here, however, we come into conflict also with the 
 aims and the methods that came to be followed 
 in the older Protestant orthodoxy. The older 
 theologians believed their great task was to pre- 
 sent in their logical connection those thoughts in 
 which the classic witnesses to Christianity had ex- 
 pressed their faith. We go further back. For we 
 desire to show how those thoughts arise in the course 
 of communion with God in the Christian soul that has 
 been set free to enter into this experience. Thus we 
 exhibit these thoughts, not as something handed down 
 by tradition but as something in vital growth at the 
 
IMPOTENCE OF DOGMA 41 
 
 present moment, as, in short, thoughts of faith. The 
 problem of theology, as it was then conceived, was 
 manifestly insufficient, because it left quite untouched a 
 question of the greatest practical importance. Here is 
 the question : when that compendium of faith which is 
 supposed to be necessary has been gathered from the 
 Holy Scriptures, and has been logically arranged, and 
 so set forth objectively, how is a man to make this his 
 own subjective property ? No one has been able to 
 solve this problem. In spite of the long discussions on 
 the point in treatises on the so-called Plan of Salva- 
 tion, the question remains unanswered. In fact, it was 
 left with God, as a secret beyond our comprehension, to 
 explain how the individual was to make that salvation 
 his own which had been objectively set forth in theo- 
 -logical doctrines. 
 
 It seemed best that it should so remain. For was 
 there not danger in going further, and seeking to show, 
 by a study of the processes of one's own consciousness, 
 how salvation could be appropriated ? Salvation had, 
 of course, to be presented in a formal doctrine, which 
 claimed to have formulated the doctrines of faith as 
 found in Holy Scripture. But the attempt to discover 
 the processes within the soul whereby this matter 
 became the possession of the individual, always led to 
 an undesirable emphasis on the human activity as com- 
 pared with the objectively presented salvation. Man 
 was to appropriate the salvation which was set before 
 him in the doctrines of faith. But how could he do so 
 when these doctrines were the expression of a life that 
 he lacked. If any one tried, nevertheless, to show that a 
 
42 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 man could make such thoughts his own, it was evident 
 that the unredeemed man had to be credited with the 
 power to transplant himself into the new spiritual life. 
 But what sort of a redemption is it in which man saves 
 himself ? Such was the inevitable end of the attempt, 
 under the conditions of the older theology, to under- 
 stand the processes within the soul by which the indi- 
 vidual appropriates salvation, or becomes redeemed ; 
 the result always was that the very idea of redemption 
 was in danger of being lost. 
 
 We are not in this peril. We will have nothing to 
 do with the idea that the doctrines of faith systemati- 
 cally formulated either do or can offer salvation to men. 
 It is, in fact, a mockery of the unredeemed man to 
 offer him as his salvation a sura of doctrines or thoughts 
 of which he is obliged to say that they are not his 
 thoughts and cannot be so. The thoughts of others 
 who are redeemed cannot redeem me. If I am to be 
 saved, everything depends on my being transplanted into 
 that inner condition of mind in which such thoughts 
 begin to be generated in myself, and this happens only 
 when God lifts me into communion with Himself. 
 There we stand amid that truth which is absolutely 
 closed to the unredeemed man. 
 
 Then, too, it becomes possible for us to recognise in 
 the doctrines or thoughts set forth in Holy Scripture 
 the free movements of that same spiritual life which 
 has now begun in us also. Of course we do not recog- 
 nise these in every idea that stands in the Bible, but 
 this need not rob us of our peace. For the doctrines 
 and thoughts of Scripture are not a lesson that we have 
 
REDEMPTION AND REVELATION 43 
 
 to prepare as if for school. If they are taken in that 
 sense, then they belong to that " world " which the 
 redeemed has to overcome. For him such external 
 laws are to be done away. He finds in his com- 
 munion with the God who alone bestows and directs 
 life another law binding him far more forcibly. If 
 the Christian has been really lifted into communion 
 with God, then his duty is to enjoy the new life thus 
 given him. To this he is assisted by the witness of all 
 the redeemed and free life within the church of God, 
 and that witness he finds in Scripture as nowhere 
 else. A man learns how to see this glory of the sacred 
 Scripture when there has begun in him the same life 
 whose rise and whose perfection are there incomparably 
 described. Before that, the Bible is to him a book 
 with seven seals ; after that, he sees in it a means of 
 the revelation of the grace and of the judgment of 
 God. Before that, the thought that he is to treat the 
 Bible otherwise than a;S he treats all other literature, is 
 to him intolerable, or, at least, utterly strange. After- 
 wards not all the systematic investigation of the Holy 
 Scriptures which has been developed into historical 
 criticism will ever get him away from this position. 
 For then he regards it as an actual miracle in history 
 standing there before his eyes that, in the Scriptures, 
 he finds for the new personal life that has begun in 
 himself, and which must begin in every man in the 
 same way, a new world which is its home. In what 
 becomes clear to him there as revelation of God he 
 feels himself in the grip of the law to which he must 
 keep faithful. 
 
44 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 § 10. The Difficulty and PracticaMlity of oivr 
 Utidertalcmg. 
 
 Thus our task is quite different from that of the 
 older theology, so far as that theology remains on 
 Roman Catholic lines. We have not to show how 
 the unredeemed man is to become possessor of the 
 ideas of the redeemed. But we are to show how he 
 finds God and how he becomes thereby a new man, 
 to whom these ideas remain no longer foreign. We 
 are to bring into clear view a process which the 
 older theology has always suffered to remain veiled. 
 But the objection may be raised at once that any 
 such attempt will fall directly into the worst error of 
 myticism. For surely what Luther says about being 
 a cnild of God holds good of the inner life of religion 
 in every case. Luther says, " If thou truly feelest this 
 in thy heart, it will be so gi-eat a thing to thee that thou 
 wilt rather keep silence than say aught of it." * We 
 must recognise the full importance of this objection. 
 The health of our religious life does indeed suffer injury 
 if we attempt to tear away the last veil which hides it. 
 Moreover, such an attempt never succeeds, for where 
 religion is truly alive it is at bottom an ineffable 
 mystery. 
 
 But it is not our intention at all to express what is 
 unutterable. Mysticism has sought to do that ; for our 
 part we will not try. Indeed, we afBrni, on the contrary, 
 that one group of the doctrines of faith expresses this 
 very consciousness that the Christian life contains 
 * Erlangen edition, vol. xi. p. 194. 
 
REVELATION AND REALITY 45 
 
 depths which cannot be fathomed. Nevertheless, there 
 is something we can say concerning the way in which 
 man enters into communion with God. For this ex- 
 perience depends on the working of objective forces 
 which, while they remain without significance for other 
 men, are yet for the Christian the expression of the 
 fact that God is acting on him, and of the way that 
 this happens. Our exposition is concerned with the 
 connection of the religious life with the objective reality 
 around which we find ourselves. In aiming thus at 
 something objective we are at one with the orthodox 
 Protestant theology. But the objective reality of which 
 we are thinking is something quite diiferent from the 
 thoughts of faith which are formulated in the common 
 doctrine. These thoughts have no power to generate 
 the communion of the Christian with God; they are 
 only the expression of that sense of new life which comes 
 with such communion. But everything depends on being 
 able clearly to grasp the objective reality which, by its 
 sheer bulk, produces in the Christian the certainty that 
 he is not without God in the world. And how the 
 Christian sees this reality, and experiences its power, 
 can be described without either ignoring or injuring 
 the mystery of the inner life. 
 
 When we reject thetheology whosedogmas are regarded 
 by the Roman Catholic Church as the necessary counter- 
 poise to mysticism, those who cling to such theology are 
 apt to suppose that we are sure to fall into the same 
 mistake as the mysticism which breaks away from all 
 church limits. But we have no intention whatever of 
 resolving Christianity into mere subjective feeling. In 
 
4S COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 ouv view the subjective vitality of Christianity ought to 
 show itself in the energy with which it lays holds of and 
 values what is objective, namely, in the first place, the 
 power that can awaken and establish faith, and, in the 
 second place, those thoughts and utterances in which 
 faith makes itself known to believers. This is just the 
 fault we have to find with mysticism, that it disregards 
 the link between the inner life of the Christian and its 
 real foundation, and also that it allows feelings which 
 have no distinct character to push aside thoughts con- 
 cerning faith as if they were unessential. The riches of 
 the Christian life of feeling are not to be had without 
 building on that foundation, nor without intimate re- 
 lationship to those thoughts. If these be wanting, the 
 most powerful emotions cannot enrich a man's life. 
 They neither give him anything new nor do they lead 
 him out from himself ; they leave him to experience and 
 to enjoy only what he has already possessed in his 
 previous condition. But the man who is a Christian 
 always strives to rise above himself; he must always 
 be looking for things to come. Mere emotion cannot 
 raise us into a new life, for mere emotion leaves us 
 alone with ourselves and with what we have already 
 attained, and nothing more. So we shall find that 
 the new state of feeling into which the Christian 
 has entered always clings to something richer than 
 itself, which it distinguishes from its own nature : 
 that is, it needs an objective reality. Greater and 
 higher than all religious emotion within the Christian 
 there rises and towers religious thought, which 
 points, away past all that Ave have already felt 
 
THE OLD METHOD AND THE NEW 47 
 
 and expei'ienced, to a boundless wealth that lies 
 beyond. 
 
 Thus, while we insist on freedom from mysticism, we 
 are in agi-eement with the old theological procedure on 
 the following points : 
 
 (1) The subjective experiences of the Christian re- 
 ligion cannot be severed from the objective power which 
 leads us into those experiences. 
 
 (S) The subjective experience of the Christian religion 
 cannot be severed from the thoughts which Christian 
 doctrine seeks to formulate as the contents of faith. 
 That experience does not end in mere feeling, but comes 
 to its perfection in those thoughts. 
 
 (3) These thoughts are much more than mere expres- 
 sions of what we have already felt and enjoyed, for 
 they express also what has been promised to us of God, 
 who has taken possession of us and awakened our faith 
 within us. 
 
 But we depart also from the old procedure in laying 
 down the following propositions : 
 
 (1) The objective power which is the enduring basis 
 of the religious experiences of a Christian is not any 
 sum of thoughts concerning faith, however obtained, but 
 is the man Jesus. 
 
 (3) The thoughts concerning faith arise within that 
 communion with God into which the personal power of 
 Jesus lifts us. 
 
 (3) It is not the possession of any prescribed sum of 
 such thoughts, recorded though they may be in Holy 
 
48 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Scripture, that makes a man a Christian, but the faculty 
 of producing such thoughts, and of cherishing them as 
 the truth grasped by his own consciousness. 
 
 § 11. The Longing of the Christian for an Objective 
 Reality to Support his Faith is made elective 
 in Luther''s Christianity. 
 Should an opponent appear now after all with the 
 objection that we are resolving Christianity into the 
 subjective, we can only suppose that for him Jesus is 
 not objective. Let such a man only ask himself 
 whether the person of Jesus in its unquestionable 
 reality is not a firmer support for his inner life than 
 any sum of prescribed doctrine which he may, indeed, 
 profess, but into which he cannot wholly fit his life, 
 for the simple reason that God has not made him a 
 parasite. That which determines oiu" attitude is just 
 the soul's craving after rest upon some undoubtedly 
 objective reality, the need of knowing that we have 
 submitted our religious life to some power which is 
 altogether beyond any control by will or act of ours. 
 It is a demand of God that comes home to us in this 
 craving, and it must be obeyed. But the work to which 
 God thus calls us does not mean that a break must be 
 made with the past of our Church. It is precisely the 
 vital instinct of Protestant Christianity that leads us to 
 reject all authorities that would turn religion into a 
 product of our own caprice; the Protestant instinct 
 impels us to find that God who will have religion to be 
 the product in our hearts of His will and of our own 
 free rational obedience. Thus Protestantism began in 
 
BACK TO LUTHER 49 
 
 Luther as something quite new, and yet embracing all 
 the best traditions of the old Church, and so it has 
 remained in all its subsequent course so far as that 
 course has not tended to defections and divisions. And 
 so we wish it to remain. 
 
 In our description of the new life which is created 
 in the Christian through the revelation of God, we shall 
 let Luther be our guide. This, of course, does not imply 
 that we shall here profess Luther's doctrine at every 
 point. He lived in different conditions from ours, and 
 therein he faithfully fulfilled his calling; but if we 
 slavishly copied him, we should be unlike him. 
 
 To give only one illustration : Luther lived in an age 
 when the authority of Holy Scripture as the Infallible 
 Word of God and the authority of the dogma of the 
 ancient Church enjoyed unquestioning recognition. 
 And Luther held these views, these mental possessions 
 of his time, more firmly than any other man. Hence 
 he showed his religious energy in the very way in which 
 he made use of these positions, then supposed to be 
 impregnable, in order to clear the way to God for him- 
 self and others.* Had he not done so, he would not 
 have been loyal to the faith which aims at the one 
 thing needful, namely, to find God. Now Luther's 
 theology arose from the combination of his new com- 
 prehension of Christianity with those Roman Catholic 
 assumptions. In reality they had nothing to do with 
 each other. He was not led to his new comprehension 
 of Christianity by i-egarding the sacred Scriptures as an 
 inspired law book, whose words we must follow without 
 
 • Of. Harnack, " Text-book of the History of Dogma," iil. 695. 
 
50 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 question even where we do not understand them. Luther 
 would never have gained that new comprehension simply 
 from the reading of the sacred Scriptures. He found it, 
 rather, amid the inward battles of a soul that could find 
 no rest in any means of grace, because it sought the 
 God of grace Himself, and amid such struggle he dis- 
 covered records in the sacred Scriptures of what it 
 is that can redeem a man. But he went on from the 
 comfort that he found in his agreement with the 
 Christianity of the New Testament, and came to place 
 reliance on an obedience to the Scripture as a sort of 
 law. In this, of course, he and his Roman Catholic 
 opponents were at one. In consequence of this he 
 imported into his doctrine much that he had neither 
 understood as God's revelation nor had come to possess 
 as the thoughts of his own faith. Similarly, Luther 
 shared the Roman Catholic position with regard to the 
 dogma of the older Church. He knew no more than 
 any other man of his time what had been the original 
 meaning of that dogma, and he believed firmly^ like 
 everybody else, that reverence was due to this sacred 
 relic of the past. But while it remained for others at 
 best a mysterious relic, Luther made of it a vessel for 
 carrying that conception of Christianity in which his 
 faith lived. So he had at once a far deeper relationship 
 to the old dogma, and a stronger sense of the para- 
 mount importance of his great cause. Dogma was 
 simply a dead weight to his opponents, but to him it 
 was alive again with religious significance, and became 
 an important element in the life of faith. He could 
 not doubt that he had thus entered again into the piety 
 
LUTHER'S MEDIEVALISM 51 
 
 of the fathers, and so it is correct to say that the dogma 
 of the older Church was among the sources of Luther's 
 power. But that comprehension of the Gospel which 
 made him a Protestant and a Reformer sprang in 
 reality as little from the dogma of the old Church as it 
 did &om his reverence for the inspired word of 
 Scripture as a sort of law. If, then, Luther is to 
 be our guide we must distinguish between Luther's 
 Christianity and Luther's theology ; for the latter 
 is built upon the assumptions of Roman Catholicism. 
 
 § 12. The Elements of Luther's Theology which 
 belong to the Past. 
 This distinction is imperative. That teaching of 
 Luther to which we will and can hold is his prophetic 
 word, in which he expresses what he has experienced, 
 the revelation of God as his own redemption. That 
 part of his teaching to which we could not hold, even if 
 we would, is no expression of his religious experience, 
 but it is his earnest effort, which cannot be too highly 
 praised, to find a right place and a real usefulness for 
 what at that date passed unquestioned amid the new 
 conception of Chi'istianity which he had gained. No 
 one can now maintain that part of Luther's teaching in 
 the same way as he maintained it. For what at that 
 time held good without even being questioned, and 
 could therefore be used as a reliable means of assistance, 
 stands no longer unquestioned. The chariot on which 
 Luther's Christianity made its entrance into the Church 
 has become feeble and broken. If it is nevertheless to 
 
52 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 be preserved, it certainly cannot serve any longer as 
 a safe means of conveyance, but is at best a highly 
 honoured burden. 
 
 The theologians who should refuse to make this 
 distinction, and who should demand that we teach 
 Luther's doctrine in its entirety, could not bring about 
 now in any complete sense a reverence for Holy Scrip- 
 ture as a law book. They certainly could not assume 
 that such reverence is an element in the spiritual life of 
 those who claim to be Christians. Luther could freely 
 assume and build upon many things which it must cost 
 those theologians great trouble even to try to hold 
 together. But no one nowadays has any confidence 
 that this is really possible. No one can still hold to the 
 idea that all words of Scripture being the word of God 
 are infallible expressions of the truth.* But without 
 this idea, any intention to reverence the word of 
 Scripture as if it were a law, even where one does not 
 view it as an expression of the truth, is an abnegation 
 of thought. Of this every one is sensible whose religion 
 has cost him any mental labour at all. Wherever such 
 an one attempts to copy the theology of Luther he 
 suffers a most painful discomfort, which is the very 
 opposite of what Luther got from his system. 
 
 The same is to be said of the other Roman Catholic 
 element in Luther's theology, namely, his reverence for 
 dogma. It is true that the same reverence for dogmas 
 is still among Protestants bound up in many ways with 
 the mistaken conception of the Scriptui-es as an infallible 
 
 Of. Dieokhoff, " Die Inspiration und Irrtumslosigkeit der heiligen 
 Sohrift, 1891," pp. 59-97. 
 
LUTHER ON SCRIPTURE AND DOGMA 53 
 
 law ; but it is no longer a sure, unassailable assumption, 
 as it was to Luther. We can no longer start from this 
 assumption, as Luther did, when we deal with a man 
 whom we seek to lead to Christianity. Nor, again, can 
 we still declare with Luther that we will not argue with 
 a man who does not admit the infallibility of the Scrip- 
 tures or does not accept the Nicene Creed. If we were 
 to do so, we should be not merely uncharitable, but 
 untruthful. We theologians are ourselves cast out 
 from the position of simple reverence for dogma be- 
 cause — and this is only putting the matter at its lowest 
 — we have set about investigating the sources of it. 
 Historical study of the growth of any human ideas 
 always tends to liberate men from subjection to those 
 ideas. And so, by the effect of such study, that which 
 held good without question for Luther and the men of 
 his time, in respect both of dogma and of the infalli- 
 bility of Scripture, has become problematical for us and 
 our contemporaries. Therefore, to interweave these two 
 elements with Christian preaching now would have 
 quite the contrary effect to that produced in Luther's 
 time ; what then brought certainty can now only 
 produce uneasiness if the same claim be made for it. 
 
 This must be admitted even by those theologians who 
 are confident that with special skill they can still show 
 valid grounds for reasserting the older Church dogma, 
 and for reverencing the Scriptures as a law. For in 
 any case our contemporaries are conscious that these 
 things no longer form a firm background whereon one 
 can reckon in Christian preaching. Conservative theo- 
 logians may regard this state of affairs as a terrible 
 
54 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 declension, in which, too, they themselves more or less 
 have a share ; but, in any case, they are called upon to 
 help their strayed and homeless fellow men to the right 
 way. And this they can do no longer by means of those 
 assumptions which Luther made, because, as a matter 
 of fact, the men whom they are to help, no longer accept 
 those assumptions. Of course, they can direct their 
 endeavours towards bringing men back again to the 
 acceptance of those assumptions, and that is indeed the 
 intention of many. But they will make no serious 
 attempt to do this, and simply for this reason : that 
 they are not firmly established themselves in the 
 position where they would fain see others. Now, is 
 the preaching of the Gospel to cease until such an 
 attempt succeeds, or shall it go forward in the form of 
 instruction based upon presuppositions, which, as a 
 matter of fact, are no longer present ? The first course 
 is impossible, and the second, while it is indeed pur- 
 sued, is of little use. There may always be men among 
 us who think they can maintain the Roman Catholic 
 position towards the sacred Scriptures as an infallible 
 law, and towards the older ecclesiastical dogma, and 
 nothing is gained l)y arguing whether or not it is 
 possible to hold that position in earnest ; for even such 
 men must, in any case, admit that no one can bring the 
 Gospel home to the men of our time as glad tidings, or 
 as a convincing word of God, if he speaks to them from 
 that standpoint. When such, then, is the case, we 
 must all be equally interested in the success of the 
 effort to free the Gospel from the connection in which 
 it appears in Luther's theology. 
 
LUTHER'S MESSAGE FOR TO-DAY 56 
 
 I believe that this is possible if we allow Luther's 
 system of theology to be set aside as a work 
 accomplished for his own age, and proceed to inquire 
 what was that communion with God into which he 
 knew himself delivered through Christ and redeemed. 
 Luther often spoke of this without using any of the 
 language of Roman Catholic theology. It may, perhaps, 
 help those who can no longer accept his theology 
 because they do not share its presuppositions, if we 
 describe those experiences which Luther had of the 
 Redeemer. And this is the more to be expected 
 because, in his testimony concerning the one thing 
 needful, Luther repudiates entirely the demand that, in 
 order to become a Christian, one must begin by clear 
 submission to some kind of prescribed doctrine. Luther 
 certainly regarded as self-evident certain views which 
 we cannot make oiu: own, or could accept only with 
 great difficulty. But he never demanded submission to 
 prescribed doctrines as an essential part of religious 
 experience. Instead of holding such a submission to be 
 a means of salvation, he pronounced it to be a sin. 
 Since he thought that the way to salvation in Christ 
 did not lie through any such performance, it is to be 
 hoped that his weighty testimony will help the upright 
 souls to-day, who, even for the hope of bliss, would not 
 stain their conscience by professing to have certain 
 ideas to which in reality they are strangers. We shall 
 therefore confine ourselves to those of Luther's writings 
 in which he is occupied far more with the positive 
 description of the Christian life than with polemical 
 consideration of limitations laid upon that life by the 
 
56 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Church. In these we shall find a Luther who is at one 
 with himself. Of Luther the theologian we cannot 
 say as much. How often, for example, his views 
 changed on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper ! But 
 whether we turn to his discourse of the year 1518 on 
 Repentance, or to the sermons of the last years of his 
 life, we find everywhere the same portrayal of the new 
 life awakened in him by God, in the strength of which 
 he could say of himself, " My spirit is too glad and too 
 great for me to be at heart an enemy to any man." * 
 Luther's witness to that which makes a Christian to be 
 a Christian is a treasure not yet suflBciently valued, and 
 it is incomparably more precious than his theology. 
 The latter has had its day. Only those who ai-e as simple- 
 hearted and as unconscious heirs of Roman Catholic 
 theology as Luther was could thoroughly enter into it ; 
 of such persons there cannot be many now. But, on 
 the other hand, it will quicken and help forward, and 
 perhaps bring deliverance to men in whom the 
 yearning for God is not dead, to see how Luther came 
 to that communion with God which gave him a joyful 
 heart and a dauntless courage. 
 
 * Erlangeu edition, xxir. 16. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF OUB COMMTJNION WITH GOD 
 THEO0GH THE REVELATION OF GOD 
 
 § 1. The Conception of Revelation as Comrmmicated 
 
 Knowledge about God, and the Piety founded 
 
 on this Notion. 
 
 We may speak of having communion with God only 
 
 when we are certain that God speaks clearly to us, and 
 
 also hears and considers our speech in His operations. 
 
 In order to commune with us, God makes Himself 
 known to us. The God of whose communion with men 
 the Sacred Scripture tells, does not, for His own 
 holiness' sake, suffer men to reach Him through any 
 efforts of their own. He will vouchsafe this in one 
 way alone, and that way He opens to us Himself. Now, 
 fi -ther, if it is impossible for a man to rise unaided 
 above all fightings and doubts into the realm of real 
 communion with God, it is equally certain that no 
 mere information of any kind concerning God could 
 thus raise a man, even although that information should 
 claim to be a divine revelation. We might indeed 
 form a conception of God on the ground of such 
 information. We might consent to acknowledge the 
 reality of that revelation, and we might therefore 
 believe our conception of God to be correct But in 
 
58 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that case we should still have to win for ourselves 
 the impression that the God thus revealed did actually 
 commune with us. If we had received only information 
 concerning God, it would still be left to us to obtain 
 the certainty of a real communion of God with oui'selves. 
 And no such endeavom- of ours could ever conquer 
 doubt, for it is just amid such endeavours that doubt does 
 always rise. Information concernimg God, therefore, 
 although it may claim to be of divine revelation, can 
 only bring that troubled piety which lives by no 
 delivering act of God, but by men's own exertions. 
 God has left us in no such miserable condition, and 
 Protestants, at least, may know this, if they will only 
 refuse to be led aside from the one thing needful 
 by common cries like the following: "You must 
 believe that God made the world; that men sprang 
 from a single pair ; that God's Son became a man ; that 
 God's demand for the punishment of the guilty has 
 been satisfied by the death of his Son; and finally 
 that all this happened for your sake." He who 
 determines so to believe, can only cause distress to his 
 soul. For in such doctrines, however true they may 
 be in themselves, we are not brought face to face with 
 that reality which gives faith its certainty ; they 
 simply tell us something, and we are then expected 
 by our own efforts to hold that information to be 
 true. 
 
REVELATION AN INWARD FACT 59 
 
 § 2. Revelation as a Fact mside our own Experience, but 
 Distinct from Ourselves, Convincing' us of God's 
 
 Working' v/pon us. 
 But we leave all these fruitless endeavours at religious 
 self-help behind, when we entirely reject the idea 
 that we are to believe doctrines. Untroubled by these 
 suggestions we must put ourselves the one question : 
 "Whei'eby shall we know that a living God is 
 communing with us?" Then, when we come to see 
 and understand the reality which makes us certain of 
 this fact, we see also that the painful eifort which had 
 been demanded of us is taken away by God's own act. 
 For when the Christian has once experienced the fact 
 that God is striving to make Himself known to him, 
 and when he sees how God so strives, then he begins to 
 see also what is true in those aforesaid doctrines. 
 
 God makes Himself known to us, so that we may 
 recognise Him, through a fact, on the strength of which 
 we ajre able to believe on Him. No doctrine of any kind 
 can do more than tell us how we ought to represent 
 God to ourselves. No doctrine can bring it about that 
 there shall arise in our hearts the full certainty that God 
 actually exists for us; only a fact can inspire such 
 confidence within us. Now we Christians hold that we 
 know only one fact in the whole world which can over- 
 come every doubt of the reality of God, namely, the 
 appearance of Jesus in history, the story of which has been 
 preserved for us in the New Testament. Our certainty 
 of God may be kindled by many other experiences, but 
 has ultimately its firmest basis in the fact that within 
 
60 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 the realm of history to which we ourselves belong, we 
 encounter the man Jesus as an undoubted reality. 
 
 Of course, we may have heard about Jesus for a long 
 time without His becoming manifest to us in His power. 
 We can hardly put it that it is only in the vision of 
 the Person of Jesus that our eyes are first opened to the 
 invisible. Probably for all of us that revelation comes 
 from those in om- immediate circle, and we ought in our 
 turn to do a like service to others. But such men, in 
 whose earnestness and brotherly love we can trace ahidden 
 life with God, are fragments of God's revelation. The 
 whole revelation that God has ordained for us in our 
 historical situation is ours only when we can see that 
 the Person of Jesus surpasses all else that is great and 
 noble in humanity, and that behind those whose in- 
 fluence upon us is strongest, He is visible as their 
 life-giver and their Lord. The revelation of God that 
 we get from those of our most immediate circle is not 
 pushed aside or emptied of its value, but only deepened 
 and perfected as we become acquainted with Jesus 
 Himself. 
 
 The true Christian confession is that Jesus is the 
 Christ. Rightly understood, however, it means nothing 
 else than this : that through the man Jesus we are first 
 lifted into a true fellowship with God. If it be asked 
 what we are to understand by that, the reply is that 
 for those who truly seek God it should be wonderfully 
 simple. But it is often made difiicult by those thieves 
 amid Christendom (John x. i), who pretend to come into 
 fellowship with God by some other way than through 
 the man Jesus. The by-path most frequented is that 
 
«BY THE DOOR" OR "SOME OTHER WAY" 61 
 
 of doctrines concerning Jesus which give Him the 
 highest praise, and so form the most convenient means 
 of avoiding His Person. By this means the only way 
 of salvation is closed to persons without number. The 
 divinely simple fact that the man Jesus is the Christ 
 is made distasteful to them by the idea instilled into 
 them that they may come into possession of much 
 higher things, namely, a number of wonderful doctrines, 
 theses quae creditur,* by simply believing them. The 
 result is that even among us Protestants it has become 
 very difficult for the majority to regard the finding of 
 God as the highest good, or even to look upon it as a 
 wonderful gift from Him at all. Most men think 
 it of small importance that Jesus alone makes us certain 
 of a living God, for they imagine that of all the 
 doctrines in which they "believe" the doctrines of 
 the existence of God is the most elementary. 
 
 § 3, The Person qf Jesus as the aiily Revelation 
 
 Convvncmg One who Perceives the Necessity 
 
 of Unconditional Obedience. 
 
 From this there has arisen a bad practice now widely 
 
 spread among us. When the question is asked : " On 
 
 what depends our certainty of a Living God who works 
 
 in us?" it is quite a common practice to look 
 
 away from ourselves and our own particular position, 
 
 and to think of as many men as possible, who stand 
 
 at the greatest possible distance from us, such as the 
 
 savages of New Holland or the ancient Egyptians. 
 
 None of these, it is urged, have been utterly without 
 
 • " The faith which is commonly held."— Tr. 
 
62 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 the capacity for recognising God, as indeed the apostle 
 Paul testifies. We are also further reminded that 
 Israel had the knowledge of God and enjoyed com- 
 munion with Him before Christ came, and therefore it 
 it is finally concluded that what was possible to the 
 Jews must also be possible to us. Such arguments 
 are frequently set up in contradiction of our proposition 
 that for us Jesus is the revelation of God. And then 
 that proposition of ours looks like an exaggeration. 
 It seems as though, in order to reduce it to its right 
 proportions, we ought rather to say that we may have the 
 revelation of the being of God quite apart from Jesus, 
 but that Jesus makes some addition to that revelation, 
 as, for example, the knowledge that God has a Son and 
 constitutes one Being with Him. 
 
 Now to all this we may reply that we by no means 
 wish to assert, even for a moment, that the savages of 
 New Holland have no knowledge of God, no pulsations 
 of true religion, and therefore no communion with God. 
 But we do not know through what medium such know- 
 ledge and such communion reach them. We cannot 
 enter fully into the religious life even of a pious 
 Israelite, for the facts which worked upon them as 
 revelations of God have no longer this force for us. 
 Israel stood in communion with God as His people; 
 hence national feeling was an indispensable element 
 in Jewish piety; and just because the Israelite knew 
 what it meant to belong to Israel instead of to any 
 any other nation, he was able to grasp as revelations 
 of God those features in the course of Hebrew history 
 which he did so apprehend. Since we cannot feel as 
 
FAITH APART FROM CHRIST 63 
 
 Jews, the revelation which was given to Israel can 
 no longer satisfy our need. Our position is different ; 
 we stand in such historical relationships that Jesus 
 Christ alone can be grasped by us as the fact in which 
 God so reveals Himself to us that everything that hides 
 Him from us vanishes away. The knowledge of God 
 and the religion which have been and which ai"e possible 
 to men placed in other historical conditions are im- 
 possible to us. Indeed, there exists in our case a 
 hindrance to the religious life of which men were quite 
 ignorant in olden times, namely, that deepening of the 
 moral consciousness which has come about, and the 
 consequent moral need. We feel ourselves to be 
 separated from God, and consequently crippled in our 
 faith by things which troubled the ancients very little. 
 We cannot go back to our jSrst simple indifference to 
 moral demands after our conscience has once been 
 sensible of them. Above all, the knowledge that we 
 are bound to unconditional obedience can never die 
 away into sloth and inactivity after it has once dawned 
 upon us. So that when we are faced by something 
 that wants to force itself on us as a Power over our 
 entire life, the doubt arises in our minds whether 
 in it we really find something we can be conscientiously 
 willing to obey unconditionally. He who is morally 
 free wiU mock at a religion that is above morality just 
 as he pities one that is beneath it. Therefore, the 
 only God that can reveal Himself to us is one who 
 shows Himself to us in our moral struggle as the Power 
 to which our souls are really subject. This is what is 
 vouchsafed to us in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. 
 
64 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 He gives a fulness to our personal life which burst all 
 other moulds of religion and allows us to find rest only 
 in that communion with God into which He brings us. 
 
 § 4. The Person of Jesus is the most Important Element 
 in the Sphere of Reality which we can Reflect upon. 
 If we wish to come to God, we must not, above all 
 things, turn our back upon the actual relationships 
 in which we stand. The concrete reality amid which 
 we actually live must be the nourishment of our inner 
 life. When we take this reality to heart, then God 
 enters our life. For the earth is the Lord's. Dreams 
 which soar away from reality lead not to God but to 
 nothing. They are a form of original sin, a form 
 of untruth in which we spin a web of emptiness about 
 ourselves, and so cut ourselves oflF from true life. 
 
 That is the right in the efforts that have cost honest 
 thinkers so much toil, as they have tried to discover 
 for human reason the activity of the Creator in the 
 reality of nature. Those attempts belong, however, to 
 a period of Christian life that has now been outlived. 
 We do not apprehend ourselves as what we really are 
 when we conceive ourselves as part of nature, for we 
 have become conscious that our realm of life is human 
 society and its history. Nature alone cannot show 
 us all the reality in which we stand. She belongs to 
 that reality, being herself a means to the existence 
 of society ; but it is in this society itself, this historical 
 life, of which nature is thus a subordinate part and 
 means, that we first reach the true reality, of which we 
 must become conscious if our inner life is to have any 
 
GOD IN HISTORY 65 
 
 content at all. For this reason we can no longer hope 
 to find God by seeking Him in nature. God is hidden 
 from us in nature because we do not find our whole 
 selves there, we do not find there the full riches of that 
 reality, which crowds in upon our consciousness. It is 
 only out of life in history that God can come to meet 
 us. In proportion as what is essential in our historical 
 environment becomes an element of our consciousness 
 we are led into the presence of those facts which can 
 reveal God to us. If our souls do not awake to a clear 
 consciousness of these facts, if we simply endure our 
 relationship to other men, instead of living it, then the 
 personality Jgrithin us to which God desires to reveal 
 Himself remains dormant, and we do not see the facts 
 through which alone God can reveal Himself to us. 
 
 In that historical environment which ought to give 
 our personal life its fulness, there is no fact more 
 important for each individual than Jesus Christ. To 
 overlook Him is to deceive ourselves as to the best 
 treasure which our own life possesses. For He is pre- 
 cisely that fact which can make us certain, as no other 
 fact can, that God communes with us. This assertion 
 will no doubt give to many the impression of a manifest 
 exaggeration. All who are accustomed to follow the 
 orthodox method of teaching will esteem it such, but so, 
 too, will those who think along rationalistic lines. The 
 former think they find the support of their religious life 
 in doctrines concerning God and Christ which are 
 vouched for by others ; the latter wish to found their 
 inward peace neither upon authorities nor upon past 
 events in history, but upon that eternal truth which 
 
66 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 they grasp in their own thinking here and now. Both 
 classes must find a stumbling-block in our proposition 
 that the person of Jesus is the fact by which God com- 
 munes with us. Both are inclined to imagine that the 
 communion with God with us is an inward experience 
 into which external facts do not intrude. The objections 
 they raise against our proposition are, ^rst, that the 
 person of Jesus is a fact vouched for by authorities, 
 and, secondly, that it is a thing of the past. They hold 
 that the first objection forbids us to say that, strictly 
 speaking, Jesus Himself is an element of the reality in 
 which we stand ; they hold that such can be said only 
 of the tradition concerning Jesus. They contend that 
 the second objection above forbids us to say that God 
 communes with us by this fact, i.e., the person of Jesus, 
 because this fact is a thing of the past, whereas God's 
 communion with us must be a thing of the present. 
 This latter contention has been specially emphasised 
 by Luthardt ; * but is evident that it will also be raised 
 by every devout rationalist and mystic, 
 
 § 5. It is not through a Historical Judgment that the 
 
 Person oj Jesus becomes a Fact we Ourselves Establish. 
 
 The former contention has the greater weight. Men 
 
 must indeed be powerfully moved by the supposition 
 
 that Jesus Himself cannot be held to be an undeniable 
 
 element in our actual environment, and that it is only 
 
 the story of Jesus, as vouched for by others, that can be 
 
 * See my treatise on " The Certainty of Faith and the Freedom of 
 Theology." Second edition, 1889, p. 75. Luthardt says, against the 
 inclusion of the past in the present religious experience, " How can 
 ■what is preterite be what is present 1 " 
 
GOSPEL NARRATIVES 67 
 
 called such an element. Many within the Christian 
 fellowship find this supposition to be a very slave-chain, 
 and for many outside that fellowship it is a drag hold- 
 ing them back from entering. But are the chains 
 as adamantine as they seem ? If not, then we, too, can 
 overcame a serious hindrance which the faith of the 
 Reformers reached beyond, but from which they could 
 not get free. 
 
 It is true that we should have no certain knowledge 
 of Jesus if the New Testament did not tell us about 
 him. Narratives by others contribute in all cases not a 
 little to the picture we form for ourselves of historical 
 reality. If tradition of some sort did not show us what 
 others have experienced of human life we should lack 
 the most valuable of the interchanges of spiritual posses- 
 sions. But given this exchange, then the narrative 
 which comes to us, either by word of mouth or in 
 writing, is not the only fact which we incorporate into 
 our picture of historical reality ; the content of those 
 narratives may also become a fact for us. This happens 
 only when we can ourselves establish its reality, and we 
 may do this in various ways. 
 
 The most elementary form of doing so consists in 
 extending the confidence we place in the trustworthiness 
 of the narrator to that which he narrates. This con- 
 stantly happens in our daily life, whenever we base our 
 plans of action upon information given by others. We 
 are guided by the content of their report just as by, a 
 reality we have grasped for ourselves. But it does not 
 occur to us to offer ourselves as witnesses that things 
 are really as they are said to be. Hence we can remain 
 
68 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 in this attitude only so long as we are concerned with 
 matters of minor importance. But as soon as the 
 contents of the information affect seriously the most 
 important interests of life, our trust in the mental 
 power and moral goodness of the narrator no longer 
 suffices to assure us that what he reports is a fact 
 beyond all doubt. If even in such a case we are com- 
 pelled to take action in reliance on the report, our 
 action takes the character of a venture. We are often 
 obliged to act thus when the pressure of necessity does 
 not permit of inaction ; under such compulsion we may 
 find ourselves obliged to treat the contents of the 
 narrative as fact. But it is obvious that no such 
 compulsion exists when the information received in 
 any way concerns our religious faith. If we do put 
 confidence in the trustworthiness of a nari'ator, and are 
 thus led to receive his narration as a fact among the 
 subjects of our religious thought, then, whether the 
 confidence be really felt or be only arbitrarily assumed, 
 it is always very certain that the matter reported is 
 nothing that aifecbs the vital interests of religion. This 
 may be clearly seen in Roman Catholicism. The his- 
 torical appearance of Jesus is there really accepted on 
 the authority of the narrators, and so we find that that 
 appearance has nothing to do with the highest concern 
 of religious life, namely, how a man is to find God. It 
 serves as a stimulus to the imagination, as an example 
 and as a symbol, but it is not to the Roman Catholic 
 the great fact in which he sees God entering into his 
 own life and revealing Himself to him. Whenever we 
 find the proclamation of the appearance of Jesus thus 
 
CRITICISM YIELDS NO SURE BASIS 69 
 
 based entirely on the authority of the narrators, it will 
 also be observed that the Person of Jesus is put on one 
 side so soon as the deepest religious interest comes 
 forward for consideration. A believer cannot base his 
 very existence entirely on what may be given him by 
 other men. 
 
 Our mental activity in the matter of receiving reports 
 is certainly greater when we do not form our conception 
 of the actual event from the narrative alone, but seek 
 to obtain it by a combination of the nan-ative with 
 something else which we know to be real. This pro- 
 cedure is frequently exemplified in daily life, and it has 
 been developed into an art in historical criticism. The 
 contents of the narrative are viewed in the light of the 
 evident character of the narrator as seen through his 
 writings, the position he occupied and its impress on 
 him, and the culture of his age which influenced his 
 way of looking at things. From a consideration of 
 these circumstances we decide how far the contents of 
 the story may be incorporated into our picture of what 
 actually happened. But the decision thus reached of 
 necessity lays claim to nothing more than probability. 
 We are always prepared to modify our results upon 
 more exact examination of the narrative or upon the 
 discovery of new information. It is obvious, then, that 
 such decisions do not give us facts on which our religious 
 faith could be based. Hence it is quite explicable why 
 historical criticism of the sacred records is so much dis- 
 liked in many quarters. If men will imagine that the 
 reliability of the sacred records is the proper ground of 
 • religious faith, then they must necessarily be rendered 
 
70 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 in the highest degree uneasy by faithful attempts to 
 estimate the historical probability of what is narrated 
 in those records. We have no such anxiety ; on the 
 contrary, we declare that the historical appearance of 
 Jesus, in so far as it is drawn into the sphere of this 
 attempt to establish the probable truth, cannot be a 
 basis of faith. It is only a pai-t of that world with 
 which faith is to wrestle. 
 
 At this point, of course, the question arises whether 
 we can maintain our position that the historical Christ 
 has become for us the absolutely convincing ground of 
 our faith in God. For how is it at all possible to lift 
 out of the mist of probability the content of a tradition 
 that is subject to historical criticism ? 
 
 It may be said that we learn with certainty that 
 at least Jesus lived, from the fact of the existence of His 
 church and its historical significance, and that just as 
 little can we question the correctness of certain features 
 in that portrait of Jesus which his followers have 
 preserved in the records of the New Testament. From 
 the standpoint of the mere historian this is certainly 
 the case. A historian may doubt much that the New 
 Testament tells us concerning the glory of Jesus. 
 Because it is possible to attribute it in some measure to 
 the transfiguring enthusiasm of His disciples, it is open 
 to the suspicion of exaggeration. But, on the other hand, 
 the correctness of His portrait in its other features must 
 be admitted by every one who is not prepared to adopt 
 the absurd supposition that in the case of a man who 
 has exerted the greatest influence on history all traces 
 of His earthly life have disappeai-ed. On the strength 
 
JUDGMENT OF REALITY 71 
 
 of those elements in Jesus which, beyond all doubt, are 
 with us to-day, every reasonable man will hold the more 
 general features of the common story of His life to be 
 correct. Now, one might in theory hold the opinion 
 that we have only succeeded in establishing the 
 probability of those facts concerning Jesus ; none the less 
 in practice, even if our interests in Jesus be only 
 historical, we do all include His picture with its well- 
 known features as a part of the historical reality amid 
 which we live, and here we are evidently in no way 
 dependent upon the authority of the chroniclers who 
 give us those features of the life of Jesus. On the 
 contrary, the decision which we reach that these things 
 are facts, proceeds from our own independent activity, 
 and is based upon that which we regard as real at 
 present exactly as the decisions of historial criticism are. 
 It is thus perfectly clear that we are quite in a position 
 to detach the content of a narrative both from the 
 narrative itself and from its author, and to regard it as 
 an element of the reality to which we have to adjust our 
 lives. 
 
 § 6. The Personality of Jesnis hy its own Power makes it 
 
 possible Jhr us to Grasp it as an Element of owr 
 
 own Sphere of Reality. 
 
 Yet this helps us little. The historian may succeed 
 
 thus in removing doubts as to the historical reality of 
 
 some person long since dead ; but if he seeks to 
 
 base his faith in God upon this, his argument collapses 
 
 immediately. Once again a doubt lifts its head, 
 
 one which perhaps can have no meaning for the mere 
 
72 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 historian. There comes back the feeling that it is a 
 fatal drawback that no historical judgment, however 
 certain it may appear, ever attains anything more 
 than probability. But what sort of a religion would 
 that be which accepted a basis for its convictions with 
 the consciousness that it was only probably safe ? For 
 this reason it is impossible to attach religious conviction 
 to a mere historical decision. Here Lessing is right. If, 
 notwithstanding all this, the person of Jesus is so 
 certainly a fact to us Christians that we do see in Him 
 the basis of our faith, and the present revelation of God 
 to us, this conviction is not produced by a historical 
 judgment.* The calmness with which Christendom 
 holds by the historical reality of Jesus has certainly not 
 been won by the forcible suppression of historical 
 doubt. Any such effort would be made contrary to the 
 dictates of conscience, and it could give no man peace. 
 It is something quite different which removes all doubt 
 from the picture of Jesus ; if we have that picture at all, 
 we have it as the result, not of our own efforts, but of 
 the power of Jesus Himself. 
 
 In the Christian fellowship we are made acquainted, 
 not merely with the external course of Jesus' lot in life 
 and of His work in history, but we are also led into His 
 presence and receive a picture of His inner life. For 
 this we are certainly dependent, in the first instance, 
 upon other men. For the picture of Jesus' inner life 
 could be preserved only by those who had experienced 
 
 * I will abstain from giving the names of all who, nevertheless, say- 
 that this is my view. The misrepresentation will go on. For in our 
 Church it is as useful to the rationalists as to the " positives." 
 
CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP NEEDFUL 73 
 
 the emancipating influenceof that fact upon themselves. 
 The personality of Jesus remained hidden from all 
 others ; it could only reveal itself to such as were lifted 
 by it. Such men were able to understand and to retain 
 the utterances of Jesus which were expressions of his 
 peculiar power. Hence the picture of his inner life 
 could be preserved in His church or " fellowship " alone. 
 But, further, this picture so preserved can be understood 
 only when we meet with men on whom it has wrought 
 its effect. We need communion with Christians in order 
 that, from the picture of Jesus which His church has 
 preserved, there may shine forth that inner life which 
 is the heart of it. It is only when we see its effects 
 that our eyes are opened to its reality so that we 
 thereby experience the same effect. Thus we would 
 never apprehend the most important element in the 
 historical appearance of Jesus did not His people make 
 us feel it. The testimony of the New Testament 
 concerning Jesus arose within His church, and its 
 exposition is the work of the Church, through the life 
 which that Church develops and gains for itself out of 
 this treasure which it possesses. Something similar is the 
 case with every personality ; one must stand within the 
 sphere of life which it created or influenced in order 
 to be able to understand its innermost reality. So if 
 we would understand what is most important in history, 
 we must look not only to the records but also to the 
 men whose actual present life expounds those records 
 to us. 
 
 What we are thus seeking is certainly the hardest 
 part to grasp in the whole sum of the historical reality 
 
74 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 of Jesus; nevertheless it is just this which sets us free 
 from the mere record, because it presses in upon us as 
 a power that is present through its work upon us. He 
 who has found the inner life of Jesus through the 
 mediation of others, in so far as he has really found it, 
 has become free even of that mediation. He is so set 
 free by the significance which the inner life of the man 
 Jesus has for him who has beheld it. If we have 
 experienced His power over us, we need no longer look 
 for the testimony of others to enable us to hold fast to 
 His life as a real thing. We start, indeed, from the 
 records, but we do not grasp the fact they bring us 
 until the enrichment of oiu- own inner life makes us 
 aware that we have touched the Living One. This 
 holds true of every historical personality; the inner 
 content of any such personality is laid open only to 
 those who become personally alive to it, and feel them- 
 selves aroused by contact with it and see their horizon 
 widened. The picture of a personality becomes visible 
 to us in this way, and cannot be handed over to us by 
 any communication from others ; it must arise within 
 ourselves as the free revelation of the living to the 
 living. It is thus, therefore, that the inner life of Jesus 
 becomes part of our own sphere of reality, and the man 
 who has experienced that will certainly no longer say 
 that, strictly speaking, he can know only the story of 
 Jesus as a real thing. Jesus Himself becomes a real 
 power to us when He reveals His inner life to us ; a 
 power which we recognise as the best thing our life 
 contains. 
 
 Any conscientious reader of the Gospels will be 
 
JESUS IMMEDIATELY REALISED 75 
 
 constantly questioning whether the events actually 
 happened as they stand in the narrative. Of course, 
 we can forcibly suppress this doubt, and many a 
 Christian will think it an inevitable necessity to do 
 so. But such suppression will not help him. Help lies 
 for each of us, not in what we make of the story, but 
 in what the contents of the story make of us. And 
 the one thing which the Gospels will give us as an over- 
 powering reality which allows no doubt is just the most 
 tender part of all : it is the inner life of Jesus itself. 
 Only he who yearns after an honest fulness for his own 
 inner life can perceive the strength and fulness of that 
 soul of Jesus, and whenever we come to see the Person 
 of Jesus, then, under the impress of that inner life that 
 breaks through all the veils of the story, we ask no 
 more questions as to the trustworthiness of the Evan- 
 gelists. The question whether the portrait of Jesus 
 belongs to history or fiction is silenced in every one who 
 learns to see it at all, for by its help he first learns to 
 see what is the true reality of personal life. We must 
 allow the abstract possibility of the view that the 
 historical portrait of Jesus was constructed in good part 
 by men who were able, like ourselves, to fashion visible 
 symbols of religious and moral ideas, and if we look at 
 it thus we shall feel we are in a superior position, for 
 what we can thus explain does not enrich us, but shows 
 us what we already possess. But we cannot think thus 
 of the total picture of Jesus' inner life, for it compels 
 us to simple reverence. 
 
 The man who has had this experience can with heart- 
 felt confidence allow the historical criticism of the New 
 
76 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Testament writings to have full play. If such investi- 
 gation discovers contradictions and imperfections in the 
 story, it also discloses by that very fact the power of 
 the personality of Jesus, for that personality never lets 
 the contradictions and imperfections of the story dis- 
 figure the clear features of that which it gave to men, 
 namely, Jesus' own inner life. It is a fatal error to 
 attempt to establish the basis of faith by means of 
 historical investigation. The basis of faith must be 
 something fixed; the results of historical study are 
 continually changing. The basis of our faith must be 
 grasped in the same independent fashion by learned 
 and unlearned, by each for himself. Howsoever the 
 story may come to us, whether as sifted and estimated 
 by historical criticism or not, the same results ought to 
 follow, and may follow, in both cases, namely, that we 
 learn to see in it the inner life of Jesus. Whether faith 
 then arises in us or not depends on whether this per- 
 sonal spirit wins power over us, or we hold ourselves 
 back from Him. Thus in a moral experience there 
 becomes clear to us what it is that can be the basis of 
 our faith. So far as establishing our faith is con- 
 cerned, historical work on the New Testament can 
 bring us no nearer, and neither by this nor by any 
 other means can we compel any other man to recog- 
 nise even the bare reality of that which has an effect 
 upon ourselves so powerful as to give us courage to 
 believe on God. 
 
 But, nevertheless, historical work on the New Testa- 
 ment is not without value for faith. In the first place, 
 it shows us how small a foundation those writings afford 
 
BASIS OF FAITH JESUS' INNER LIFE TT 
 
 for a historical account undertaking to set forth as the 
 result of scientific processes what the Person of Jesus 
 shall signify for the Christian. In shattering such 
 hopes it destroys certain false props of faith, and that 
 is a great gain. The Christian who imagines that the 
 reliability of the records as historical documents gives 
 certainty to his faith, is duly startled from his false 
 repose by the work of the historian, which ought to 
 make it clear to such a man that the possession of 
 Christianity cannot be obtained so cheaply as he 
 thinks. Secondly, historical work is constantly con- 
 stiucting afresh, with every possible new modification, 
 whatsoever results can be obtained from the records. 
 By this means the Christian believer is constantly 
 called upon to compare afresh that portrait of Jesus 
 which he carries within him as absolute truth, with the 
 relative truth obtained by historical research. And 
 this helps us not to forget that the most important fact 
 in our life cannot be given to us once for all, but must 
 be continually laid hold of afresh with all our soul. 
 And it helps us also to increasing knowledge of the 
 inexhaustible treasures of the inner life of Christ, and 
 to growing acquaintance with the ways of His sover- 
 eignty over the real world. Of course, we lose this 
 advantage entirely if historical research is made to 
 serve the ends of apologetics instead of remaining true 
 to its own laws. It must make us thankful to feel 
 that we have got beyond the temptation to misuse 
 science in this way. For when we speak of the his- 
 torical Christ we mean that personal life of Jesus which 
 speaks to us from the New Testament, as the disciples' 
 
78 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 testimony to their faith, but which, when we per- 
 ceive it, always comes home to us as a miraculous 
 revelation. That historical research cannot give us 
 this we hnow. But neither will it ever take this from 
 us by any of its discoveries. This we believe, the more 
 we experience the influence that this picture of the 
 glory of Jesus has upon us. 
 
 § 7. The Peculiarity oftlie Christian Religion is Rooted 
 in the Consciousness of this Fact in our own Experience. 
 It is, therefore, possible for us to apprehend the 
 historical Person of Jesus as an element in that reality 
 which gives its fulness to our life. If we are to become 
 Christians and attain to a real communion with God, it 
 is necessary that we should so kpprehend it. To have 
 gained such an apprehension of Jesus by no means 
 implies that we have attained a peculiarly sublime 
 altitude in the Christian life, it is rather the most 
 elementary thing in Christianity. We must experience 
 the personal life of Jesus to be a real force, first of all 
 by the way in which Jesus' disciples behave to us, and 
 then, when we are ripe enough, in the tradition of the 
 New Testament, and then, out of the joy and amazement 
 that such a thing as the personal life really meets us in 
 the world, it becomes possible for the Christian religion 
 to develop. No matter how carefully we may have 
 been trained from our youth up in a well-ordered 
 system of Christian doctrines, that is not Christian 
 religion, for in that case communion with God is not 
 vouchsafed to us, but is a task set for us. This com- 
 
THE STARTING-POINT OF RELIGION 79 
 
 munion, on which evei^thing depends, is ours only 
 when God Himself so enters into communion with us 
 that we can say to our souls that we mark God's work- 
 ing upon us in undeniable facts, and that we feel His 
 Presence. Clearly this can become ours only through 
 realities which we ourselves perceive to be such ; not 
 through that which others have experienced and tell us 
 about, but only through that which we ourselves 
 experience. No one is ever awakened to true religion 
 by allowing himself to be persuaded that religion in the 
 heart must begin with an absolutely unhesitating con- 
 fidence in narrators. Those men who have entangled 
 others in such a dream will reject it for themselves if 
 they are afterwards awakened. If religion consisted in 
 accepting universal thoughts concerning God and the 
 world which we could never have anived at for our- 
 selves, then, indeed, it might begin with unconditional 
 confidence in the doctrines and narratives of other men ; 
 but if no man can be religious without the conscious- 
 ness that God communes with him personally, then 
 religion can only be kindled in such an experience in a 
 man's own life as makes upon him the impression that 
 God is thereby communing with him. The nature of 
 the experiences amid which a man becomes conscious 
 of God's working upon himself just where he stands, 
 decides what will be the nature of that man's religion. 
 We, for our part, become conscious of God's com- 
 munion with us most distinctly by the fact that the 
 Person of Jesus reveals itself to us through the power 
 of His inner life. On this fact alone is based the 
 peculiarity of the Christian religion. 
 
80 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 § 8. The Saving Fact is the Personal Life of Jesus when 
 it is Grasped by Us as a Reality, 
 For this reason, always, there is nothing so 
 necessary in Christendom as the preaching of Christ, 
 for to learn to see Him is the way of salvation for a 
 Christian. But. we do not help men into that way ot 
 salvation if we tell them, on the strength of New Testa- 
 ment narratives and doctrines, that Jesus as the Son of 
 God was born of a virgin ; that He taught this and 
 that ; that He wrought many miracles and even raised 
 the dead ; and that He Himself rose again, and now, 
 having ascended to the Father, rules with almighty 
 power. Such a story is no gospel, be it never so 
 impressively told. These things, received with child- 
 like simplicity, may certainly draw men's attention to 
 Jesus and give them an impulse to seek Him for 
 themselves ; but we certainly have not in these state- 
 ments that Person of Jesus Himself which is able to 
 redeem us. If, therefore, those doctrines and narratives 
 are presented to men as the main thing in which they 
 must believe in order to find the Redeemer, they 
 are certainly deluded. Such statements are a great 
 hindrance to men to-day, for the majority can no longer 
 accept these things with childlike simplicity. The most 
 that can happen is that assent may be wrung from 
 them in anxiety for their soul's welfare, and in terror 
 excited by a violent sermon. Then they strain them- 
 selves to believe, and yet remain inwardly uncertain. 
 Such strain and uncertainty hinder them from coming 
 
RIGHT USE OF TRADITION 81 
 
 to Christ, for only they that are of the truth heap 
 His voice. 
 
 It is therefore a matter well worth consideration 
 whether those doctrines and narratives ought not to be 
 used in a different way from what has been customary. 
 They are to be taught as forming part of the witness of 
 the New Testament to Jesus, but not to be set before 
 men with the demand that above all things there must 
 be assent to them. If we do so demand, then we are 
 not preaching the gospel ; we are simply proclaiming a 
 law ; nor is it even a good law, for to the Pharisee it 
 will be easy and to the upright man intolerable. We 
 ought rather to say to men in preaching: " those men 
 who found the way to God through Jesus did actually 
 believe such marvellous things concerning Him." Let 
 us by all means have this testimony of the disciples 
 earnestly made known ; but for this very reason, if we 
 are seeking the same redemption which they found, we 
 are not to take it for granted that everything which 
 influenced the disciples, and affected them as something 
 undoubtedly real to them, must influence us in the same 
 way. If we do expect this, then the very testimony of 
 the disciples will prevent us from seeing that which is 
 to us, in our present position, the accessible and sure 
 basis of salvation. Moreover, we who are seeking 
 redemption in Jesus are by no means to undertake, as 
 if it were quite an easy task for us, to hold the same 
 exalted beliefs about Him which they as redeemed men 
 held. That would be to begin at the top, and to find 
 the basis and ground of redemption in what is really its 
 fruit. We have not to try to clamber up on high all 
 
82 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 by our own strength, but, like the disciples of old, we 
 are to let ourselves be overpowered and uplifted by 
 something which is real beyond all doubt to ourselves 
 as we are to-day. And what is thus real ? We answer, 
 first, the fact that disciples did so speak concerning the 
 power and glory of Jesus. It is a fact that they did 
 testify thus, and this ought to point us to Jesus Himself, 
 and warn us why we are powerless to give such a 
 testimony. But then, secondly, another reality is the 
 inner life of Jesus, which rises up before us from the 
 testimony of the disciples as a real power that is active 
 in the world when He reveals Himself to us by His power. 
 This happens when we see ourselves compelled to 
 recognise this spiritual power as the only thing in the 
 world to which we utterly surrender in reverence and 
 trust. In this experience we lay hold of Jesus Himself 
 as the ground of our salvation. If Jesus Himself is to 
 redeem us we must be placed under His power, and 
 only that which overwhelms us with the force of 
 undoubted reality has power over our inmost life. 
 But the power to raise us out of our previous nature, 
 that is, a redeeming power, can be found only in some- 
 thing that opposes and transcends the experiences in 
 which we have hitherto been wrapped up. 
 
 The only thing of importance is to elevate above 
 everything else that present experience in which we and 
 others feel that the power of Jesus really exercises an 
 inward compulsion upon us and lifts us out of ourselves. 
 Therefore we abandon the thoughtless habit of simply 
 saying to men that they must see the saving facts in 
 things that they can grasp only as the contents of other 
 
POWER OF JESUS' PERSONALITY 83 
 
 people's stories. For only something which inwardly 
 transforms him can constitute a saving fact for a man 
 who wishes to rise out of his spiritual weakness. And 
 this effect can be exercised on a person only by some- 
 thing he has himself experienced, and not by something 
 that is merely told him. Therefore, we call the inner 
 life of Jesus the saving fact. For we to-day, just as 
 disciples of every age, can gi'asp it ourselves as a reality. 
 For in it we ourselves meet the Personal Spirit, who in 
 all that He does to us confirms the claim tradition 
 makes for Him that He is the Saviour of the world. 
 Will we willingly surrender to the spiritual power whose 
 influence we thus perceive to be all around us ? Or will 
 we treat this incomparable thing as an every-day matter 
 and in laziness forget it and turn our backs on it ? This, 
 at last, is the real test-question of faith. And it passes 
 over immediately into the other question, whether or 
 not we are willing to be sincere. 
 
 Whenever the Person of Jesus touches us as a fact 
 that is real to ourselves, then we are hearing the gospel. 
 Not every one, indeed, can see the personal life of Jesus. 
 We see it only when it pleases God to reveal His Son 
 in us, and this can happen to us only when, with minds 
 intent on exercising our moral judgment and satisfying 
 our religious need, we come in contact with the biblical 
 tradition regarding Jesus Christ. But when this revela- 
 tion does take place, then, under the impression which 
 Jesus makes upon us, there arises in our hearts the 
 certainty that God Himself is turning towards us in 
 this experience. If we now ask : " How is it possible 
 that so mighty ein utterance should be spoken to us in 
 
84 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 the fact that Jesus stands before us, as an undeniable 
 part of what is real to ourselves ? " or " How can this 
 fact become for us the intimation wherein God discloses 
 Himself to us in His reality and power?" these ques- 
 tions can be answered only by the fact itself, and by 
 what it undeniably contains. At this point, instead of 
 saying to himself "Believe everything," a man who 
 wants to be saved must rather say : " Believe nothing but 
 what you see yourself to be an insistent fact." 
 
 § 9. The Simplest Features of the Portrait of Jesus 
 Which is to be got from the Tradition. 
 
 We begin by considering what will be admitted to 
 be the historical reality concerning Jesus by a man of 
 our time whose interest in Him is purely historical. It 
 may be that here and there an earnest student of history, 
 through no merely dull misconception, may question 
 the records concerning Jesus, and declare them to be a 
 legend in which an actual spiritual movement manufac- 
 tured a historical background for itself. Yet even 
 then the chief point will still remain the same for him 
 as it is for us. A historian has the right, and perhaps 
 the duty, of declaring the results of the investigation for 
 which he is responsible. But there is always the possi- 
 bility that he, too, in moments of inward reflection upon 
 the story on which he ventures to pass this judgment, 
 may have his eyes opened to see the consistent and 
 clear portrait of a Personal Life that has no equal. 
 Indeed, he may become so possessed by that portrait 
 that it shall become impossible for him to regard it as 
 
JESUS THE MESSIAH 85 
 
 a product of the poetical imagination. For, in truth, 
 such a product would only present to him what he him- 
 self could produce. In that case his judgment as a 
 historian concerning the story becomes limited by his 
 present experience of the story's effect. Nothing else 
 could so influence his historical judgment without doing 
 violence to his conscience. Nothing but that definite 
 picture given by the records when read as they stand, 
 and so making a powerful impression upon him, could 
 possibly have the right to limit his freedom of historical 
 judgment.! This always happens when the inquirer 
 becomes a Christian. But even if he does not get so far, 
 the fact remains unquestioned that the Christ of the 
 New Testament shows a firmness of religious conviction, 
 a clearness of moral j udgment, and a purity and strength 
 of will, such as are combined in no other figure in history. 
 If we wish, then, to make these features of His character 
 more distinct, we have a right to begin from those parts 
 of His story which are not, as a rule, called in question 
 even by those who do not know Jesus Himself. 
 
 All men are willing to allow that Jesus did actually 
 appear in the history of the world in which we live. It 
 is admitted that many hundred years ago He claimed 
 to be the Messiah of Israel ; that through His peculiar 
 conception of His work as Messiah He drew upon Him- 
 self the hatred of His people, thereby incurring His own 
 overthrow, and, finally, that notwithstanding this, He 
 died confident that He had won the victory. If we saw 
 nothing more in Jesus than this we should admit the 
 facts, though we should pay no further heed to them. 
 But we become more attentive when we perceive what 
 
86 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 it meant for a man to claim to be the Messiah of Israel. 
 Such a man necessarily conceived that his existence and 
 his work made the world complete, and that in his person 
 the pui'poses of God's creation were summed up. The 
 mere vital energy of such a man compels our admiration. 
 If along with this he had shown a mind overpowered 
 by a fevered imagination, if he had been emotional and 
 had sought for honour among men, we should have 
 counted him made of common clay, a visionary, like 
 many whom we know. But the story of Jesus describes 
 to us just the opposite case. His speech is notably tem- 
 perate, clear, and reasonable. He is neither conceited 
 nor overbearing, but constantly surprises us with the 
 impression of His humility of heart. If Jesus had simply 
 taken up the Messianic ideal of Israel, and had His pur- 
 pose not ranged beyond the spiritual horizon of the 
 Jewish people, then His character as Messiah would have 
 displayed no feature worthy of special note. For it is 
 quite possible to imagine that among a people whose 
 religion formed so large a part of their life, a highly 
 gifted man might fancy himself called upon to realise the 
 certain goal for which all were ardently longing. But 
 on close inspection the will of Jesus is seen to be by 
 no means the mere blossom of the Jewish hope for a 
 Messiah. In the work that He undertook, He rose above 
 all that Israel had looked upon and hoped for as the 
 highest good, and He was quite conscious that He was 
 disappointing the hopes He aroused. Jesus certainly 
 claimed, as was expected of the Messiah, that He would 
 establish the Kingdom of God among men, and that He 
 would thereby make the world complete. But there is 
 
HIS SANITY AND ORIGINALITY 87 
 
 no trace of political hopes,no summons to the use offeree. 
 The decisions to which he compels men concern their 
 own inner life ; for by the Kingdom of God he means 
 God's true lordship over personal life, especially in men's 
 own souls, and in their communion one with another. 
 The members of the Kingdom of God, as Jesus under- 
 stood it, are those men only who are fully subject to God 
 through boundless confidence in Him and unbounded 
 love for their neighbours. In the fact that these spiritual 
 considerations did rule His own being, and; that they 
 were germinating in those few individuals who grouped 
 themselves around Him, Jesus saw the dawn of the end 
 of all things. 
 
 Let us review those features of the portrait of Jesus 
 which we have thus obtained. First of all, we have the 
 outward course of His Messianic work, which tells us 
 little of His inner life that can claim special significance. 
 It has only two striking features : one, the conflict into 
 which Jesus comes with pious Judaism and its Messianic 
 hopes ; and the other, the remarkable assurance which 
 He maintained over against the opposition of the world, 
 and in His death. These two points need to be made 
 more clear, and we shall make them so if we realise the 
 peculiar nature of Jesus' life-work and his attitude 
 towards it. It is clear without further argument that He 
 must have regarded His work as bound to succeed, seeing 
 that He staked His life upon it. As soon as a man 
 makes it consciously the goal of his life to secure the 
 realisation of all that Jesus understood as the Kingdom 
 of God, so soon also must that man advance to the 
 further conviction that this realisation will actually 
 
88 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 come to pass. No one can be forced to advance in 
 moral development up to a grasp of the idea that the 
 personal life of man reaches its perfection in perfect 
 love, and in a trust in a God who is the very power of 
 that love ; but the man who does grasp that thought is 
 sensible also that nothing can interfere with its right 
 to be realised. Convinced of this right, many men 
 have become hard as steel against those forces of destiny 
 which shattered their outward existence. Jesus had 
 such a consciousness, the consciousness of the soul that 
 has come to know its own eternal life, and in such 
 possession he was like the martyrs who have answered 
 the summons of the moral ideal He brought into the 
 world. That feature of His personal life stands out 
 grandly in the recorded story. And, in truth, it is no 
 small matter if we let this personal power of the 
 good in the figure of Jesus work upon us and move 
 us to reverence ; for no man can be redeemed by Him 
 who does not bow in true reverence before that per- 
 sonal, living goodness which exists in its original 
 purity in Him alone. 
 
 Jesus is thus placed at the head of all those men who 
 have joyfully suffered for the sake of the good. But to 
 see this is by no means to reach that peculiar feature of 
 His inner life which must work upon us as a fact if he 
 is to redeem us. Jesus is separate from all men who 
 seek to follow Him in self-surrender to the good, not 
 simply as their never-equalled prototype, but also by 
 the attitude which He assumes towards that ideal of 
 perfect life which He reveals to men as their highest 
 good. 
 
JESUS' SELF-CONFIDENCE 89 
 
 In the first place, Jesus shows us the portrait of a 
 man who is conscious that He Himself is not inferior to 
 the ideal for which He sacrifices Himself. We do not 
 gain this impression, of course, simply from isolated 
 expressions which have been handed down to us as a 
 testimony to His sinlessness. Such expressions taken 
 by themselves have little force. But certainly the fact 
 that Jesus thought of Himself as sinless stands out 
 powerfully before us when we remember what He said 
 and did at the Last Supper with His disciples. In 
 face of a death whose hoiTor he keenly felt, He was 
 able to say that this death He was about to die would 
 take away the burden of guilt from the hearts of those 
 who should remember Him. He was able to look away 
 from the death whose approach troubled Him to the 
 moral need of men held captive by the consciousness of 
 guilt, so deeply did He feel the horror of that need. 
 And so mighty within Him was the consciousness of 
 His own purity, that He clearly saw that the impres- 
 sion which His death would cause would loose the 
 Spiritual bonds of those who had found Him and could 
 remember Him. Jesus could not have spoken as He 
 then did if He had been conscious of guilt within Him- 
 self. In that hour when the conscience of every man 
 who is morally alive inexorably sums up his life, this 
 man could conceive of His own moral strength and 
 purity as that power which alone could conquer the 
 sinner's inmost heart and free him from the deepest 
 need. And this He did, not after the manner of an 
 enthusiastic visionary, but as a man to whom the 
 deepest moral knowledge gave a most tender conscience. 
 
90 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 He was the first to declare distinctly that the command 
 to love is not simply one of the commandments but 
 that it is the whole moral law, because it determines 
 the disposition which is the condition of righteousness, 
 and which therefore alone gives moral worth to human 
 action. He led His disciples above all to recognise 
 that such a life of love is the highest good for man, 
 or, in other words, the possession out of which 
 springs everything else that gives the heart true joy. 
 Through this thought, one which no prophet of Israel 
 had grasped, Jesus brought moral knowledge among 
 men to its culmination. He has brought it about that, 
 as far as His influence extends, every man feels guilty 
 whose heart is not wholly given up to love, but still 
 seeks something else for itself besides heartfelt fellow- 
 ship with others and joy in personal life. But at the 
 same time He had to measure Himself by that same 
 standard, had to say to Himself that He must find an 
 all-conquering joy in the life and freedom and strength 
 of His own love. He could count Himself inwardly 
 pure only if He persevered in incessant effort to be 
 pure. He must have felt the ties of duty in such a 
 way. Nevertheless, even standing where He did at 
 that Last Supper, He said confidently that His Person- 
 ality would lift away the burden of guilt from the heart 
 of every man to whose heart His death should come 
 home as a message. In view of this, any one who feels 
 the appeal of Jesus to his own conscience, must receive 
 the impression that Jesus actually was what He claimed 
 to be. Jesus has indeed been, by His suffering for the 
 sake of what is good, an example which many have 
 
FAULTLESS BY HIS OWN STANDARD 91 
 
 followed ; in this further respect, however, He is in- 
 comparable, that He first saw what is good in all its 
 glory, its fulness, and its power, and that He neverthe- 
 less had not to feel ashamed of what He was compared 
 with what He knew, and what He said. In all other 
 cases, the very men whose goodness usually raises us 
 give us such a conception of what is good that we 
 measure their own moral shortcomings by it. Jesus 
 alone has had the conviction that it was not so with 
 Him, and the man who learns to know Him admits that 
 conviction to be correct. He awakens in us the deepest 
 understanding of duty, and He remains at the same 
 time Himself the highest standard for our conscience. 
 This incomparable moral strength of Jesus must become 
 clear to us in the simplest features of His appearance 
 in history, in the manner in which He claimed to be 
 the Messiah, and in the way in which He went to His 
 death. 
 
 When we see this, then our eyes are opened to the 
 glory of the rest of the tradition concerning Him ; we 
 see in it all the wonderful fact that it constantly gives 
 us fresh views of other and yet other sides of the eternal 
 life of a human soul. Such a tradition is incomparable, 
 and that not because of its contents only ;' its very 
 existence is a miraculous fact, for it comes to us through 
 the minds of men who did not experience in their own 
 lives such untrammelled life in the good as He had. 
 In spite of this, the tenderest features of such a life 
 have been preserved in their narratives, and have 
 become the true spiritual food for mankind. Jesus is 
 for us a fact in His moral glory, in those inner move- 
 
92 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 ments of His soul which include the deepest moral 
 knowledge, the never failing creative strength of the 
 moral purpose and the bliss of this self-knowledge ; He 
 is a fact for us which we do not accept for others' sake, 
 but which we see for ourselves. He has thus become 
 an integral part of all that is real to ourselves ; and He 
 fills with light all the world in which we stand. Jesus 
 differs, then, from all men who follow Him by His 
 conscious rising always to His own ideal and because 
 He compels us to admit that He does rise to it. But 
 before everything else, when the moral vitality of Jesus 
 has taken hold of us, another element of the traditional 
 portrait of Jesus becomes clear and certain to us, and 
 one that has in itself nothing to do with moral great- 
 ness, and that taken by itself must stir up unresolvable 
 doubts. 
 
 Jesus intended to do more than make the best ideal 
 clear for men, and more than live it out before them. 
 As the Messiah, He claimed not merely to set men a 
 task, but to give to them God's perfect gift. He was 
 confident that He could so influence men that they 
 would be able for a life of power. The Jesus who 
 thinks thus of Himself and who looks on humanity 
 with such a confidence in His power to redeem them 
 from the terrible misery in which He sees every one 
 round about Him, stands as a fact before us, a fact that 
 has no equal. 
 
 The dying Buddha puts his confidence in the truth 
 of his teaching ; he leaves to his disciples the admonition 
 that they may forget him, but they are to keep his 
 teaching and the way that he has shown them. Plato 
 
JESUS' PERSONAL CLAIMS 93 
 
 says the like of Socrates. Now in the whole wide range 
 of history there are no other figures, apart from Jesus, 
 which so surprise us with originality of moral strength 
 as do these two. But while these two hid themselves 
 modestly behind the teaching for which they lived and 
 died, Jesus knows no more sacred task than to point 
 men to His own Person. His life and death proclaim 
 the conviction that no man who desires true life 
 can do without him ; every one must concern himself 
 with Jesus, and must take to heart the fact of His 
 Personality, 
 
 § 10. Tlie Claim of Jesus to he the Redeemer and the 
 Proof of its Truth. 
 But Jesus has also put us in a position to judge 
 of the right of this claim of His. We can understand 
 in its actuality the redeeming power that he attributes to 
 Himself. This is certainly not the case with the 
 redeeming power that modern formal Christianity 
 professes to see in Him, while all the time giving a more 
 faithful reverence to ancient formulas of faith from 
 which the living Spirit has fled long ago. It is said 
 that redeeming forces proceed from Him, which are, 
 however, to be distinguished from Himself, and from 
 the impression His personal life makes on the spirits of 
 men, and that the mysterious operation of these forces 
 sets free the soul. If we are told that this is the case, 
 we must reply that such forces can in no case become to 
 us a fact which shall master our inmost souls. Men 
 may talk of such force, but the talking helps no one 
 whose conscience Jesus has quickened. Of course, a 
 
94 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 million voices out of the Christian church loudly 
 proclaim this very theory a way of salvation; we are 
 to be saved by certain powers which are organically 
 connected with the worship and sacraments of the 
 Church. If, however, we know what it means for us 
 that we can keep our minds fixed on the Person of Jesus 
 and His power over us, these cries will not trouble us. 
 Even if such a thought had crept into the records 
 concerning Jesus, and claimed to be part of His own 
 teaching — thank God, it is not the case — but if it were, 
 then we should certainly regi-et the fact, but we should 
 not leb it influence us. We should with easy conscience 
 declare such a doctrine to be an error of the narrator. 
 For it would contradict that which is our sole concern, 
 that which, in Jesus, has become for us as an undeniable 
 fact. It is for us a fact that Jesus stands before us in 
 history claiming to be Himself alone salvation for all 
 men. We have no right whatever to imagine in 
 addition any mysterious powers by means of which 
 Jesus is to bring about our redemption. He Himself 
 " is made unto us redemption." We can only under- 
 stand His assertion in that sense. Any teaching must 
 be a matter of utter indifference to us which tells of 
 mysterious redemptive forces which are to proceed from 
 Christ, and which for that vei'y reason are not Christ 
 Himself. Such teaching can produce no proof of its 
 truth; it remains one of those mere assertions which 
 ramble in plenty through empty heads. But for the only 
 assertion that we find Jesus make there exists a proof. 
 
 Jesus eisserts that the advent of the Kingdom of God 
 is bound up with His own appearance in history, and 
 
THE KINGDOM OF GOD 95 
 
 that this Kingdom of God makes men blessed. We 
 cannot be grateful enough for being made to notice 
 how completely, in Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom, it 
 is something to come. We are now in a position to see 
 rightly how simply and profoundly Jesus understood 
 what He called by the name the Kingdom of God. 
 Even on historical grounds it is probable that by the 
 phrase He thought, in the first place, of God's 
 sovereignty. But for those who have begun to under- 
 stand the inner life of Jesus in its characteristic majesty, 
 it is a certainty that this alone is what Jesus chiefly 
 meant by the words. He placed his whole desire in perfect 
 surrender to God. He took the great commandment 
 in earnest ; and, if He did so, he must have done so 
 most especially in His attempt to formulate the end of 
 all willing as expressed in the idea of the Kingdom of 
 God. The longing for the Kingdom of God must 
 mean, in Jesus' life, perfect surrender to God, or love to 
 God with all the heart and soul. Therefore, what he 
 understood by the Kingdom of God was the experience 
 of the complete sovereignty of God, For this it is 
 worth while to sacrifice one's whole life. But this can 
 be done only in the confidence that the sovereignty of 
 God can transfer pain into joy, and utter loss into 
 inexhaustible wealth. We can gain the confidence that 
 the Kingdom will come some day. But it is impossible 
 to possess in the present day what Jesus summed up 
 as the Kingdom of God. We know that we ought to be 
 in a state of entire submission to God, but we are not in 
 it. We can heartily pray for the coming of the King- 
 dom of God, knowing, as we do, how everything within 
 
96 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 us begins to become new when we feel the nearness of 
 God. But we are, indeed, far from the commencement 
 of a life in power. We are ever sinking back again 
 into darkness. The mountains that our faith is to 
 remove keep growing greater. The utter sovereignty 
 of God remains, therefore, a future for us, and the 
 blessedness which is to come to us from it is still 
 the goal of our hope and desire. We cannot approach 
 it by the quiet progress of inward evolution. Only a 
 miraculous transformation of our whole existence can 
 bring us to that goal. But it is possible even now to 
 set our course in its direction, and to be so moulded that 
 we shall have some experience that the sovereignty of 
 God is indeed blessedness. A man whose heart clings 
 to Mammon, who is still taking thought for his life, 
 and in bondage to the fear of men, can be transported 
 into the Kingdom of God through no violent catas- 
 trophe. He shall not stand in the Judgment. The 
 Kingdom of God is sure to come ; but whether its 
 advent will bring blessing or condemnation to particular 
 individuals depends on what they have previously 
 become. None can submit himself to God's perfect 
 sovereignty who has closed his heart against the work 
 of God upon him, and has sought satisfaction in other 
 things than the experience of God's nearness. Jesus, 
 however, had this confidence in Himself, that, by the 
 power of His personal life, He could let men see that 
 God does come near them, and that that alone can 
 make them blessed. Men who have learnt this now 
 at last look rightly with eager hope into the future. 
 But it is the redeeming power of Jesus that they have to 
 
JESUS AS REVELATION 97 
 
 thank that they have a hope at all. In the wonderful 
 feeling of self-consciousness that those who are laid hold 
 of by Him and united to Him have of being inwardly 
 changed, Jesus stands before us. The truth of His 
 claims may be tested by every one who has at all learned 
 to see the Person, the human soul of Jesus. 
 
 § 11. 7%e Person of Jesus as the Revelatkm of God. 
 
 The most important thing for the man who is to 
 submit himself to God is surely that he should 
 be absolutely certain of the reality of God, and Jesus 
 does establish in us, through the fact of His personal 
 life, a certainty of God which is superior to every 
 doubt. When once He has attracted us by the beauty 
 of His Person, and made us bow before Him by its 
 exalted character, then even amid our deepest doubts 
 the Person of Jesus will remain present with us as a 
 thing incomparable, the most precious fact in history, 
 and the most precious fact our life contains. If we 
 then yield to His attraction and come to feel with deep 
 reverence how His strength and purity disclose to 
 us the impurity and weakness of our souls, then His 
 mighty claim comes home to us. We learn to share 
 His invincible confidence that He can uplift and bless 
 perfectly those who do not turn away from Him. In 
 this confidence in the Person and cause of Jesus is im- 
 plied the idea of a Power greater than all things, which 
 will see to it that Jesus, who lost His life in this world, 
 shall be none the less victorious over the world. The 
 thought of such a Power lays hold of us as firmly as did 
 
98 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 the impression of the Person of Jesus by which we were 
 overwhelmed. It is the beginning of the consciousness 
 within us that there is a living God. This is the only 
 real beginning of an inward submission to Him. As 
 soon as trust in Jesus awakens this thought within us, 
 we connect the thought at once with our experience 
 of the inner life of Jesus as a present fact in our own 
 life. The startled sense we felt at the disclosure of 
 actual, living goodness in His Person, and the sense 
 of condemnation that we felt, are at once attributed by 
 our souls to the power of God, of which we have now 
 become conscious. The man who has felt these simple 
 experiences cannot possibly attribute them to any other 
 source. The God in whom he now believes for Jesus 
 sake, is as real and living to him as the man Jesus is in 
 His marvellous sublimity of character. The idea of a 
 Power supreme over all things wins a marvellous vivid- 
 ness for us because we are obliged to pay to Jesus the 
 homage of believing that He must certainly succeed, 
 even if all the world besides be against Him. The 
 Omnipotence of which we become conscious in this way 
 must be wielded by that same purpose which produced 
 the life-work of Jesus. 
 
 Thus God makes Himself known to us as the Power 
 that is with Jesus in such a way that amid all our dis- 
 tractions and the mist of doubt He can never again 
 entirely vanish from us. We are obliged, then, to con- 
 fess that the existence of Jesus in this world of ours is 
 the fact in which God so touches us as to come into a 
 communion with us that can endure. Of course, we learn 
 at the same time how great the gulf is between Jesus and 
 
THE REVELATION OF FORGIVENESS 99 
 
 ourselves ; and we feel it the more keenly, the more we 
 become alive to that strength of His character which so 
 overwhelms us that it makes the reality of God unde- 
 niable. But for this very reason the God we recognise 
 is not only the God of Jesus Christ. He is our own 
 God. This follows from the fact that the Man through 
 whom the reality of God becomes visible and certain 
 to us stands in the attitude of friendship towards men 
 who feel themselves far removed from God. Luther 
 says, "If we observe His loving and friendly com- 
 panionship with His disciples, if we note how He 
 rebukes without rejecting them, this will support and 
 comfort us in every kind of trial. And this is the best 
 and most excellent thing we have in Christ."* This 
 personal attitude of Jesus assures us that His God is 
 our God ; and it thereby uplifts us into the Kingdom 
 of God's love. Hence this fact, through which God 
 touches us, not only relieves the impotence of the crea- 
 ture, which of itself can arrive at no certain knowledge 
 of God, but at the same time it helps the sinner, who, 
 when left to himself, tries to shut his eyes to the revela- 
 tion of God, because God's nature is so strange to him. 
 God enters into such sort of communion with us that 
 He thereby forgives us our sins. Without forgiveness 
 we should still remain without a free certainty of the 
 reality of God, 
 
 We see that we have no inner life at all until we 
 
 recognise the good and let it rule in our hearts ; and 
 
 the clearer this becomes the more painfully are we 
 
 sensible that all the forces of our existence are in 
 
 * " Luther." Second enlarged edition, xv. 470 ; 1. 130, 
 
100 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 conflict with the good. This at least holds good for 
 any man whose conscience Jesus has quickened. He 
 knows well that by no strain of will can he bring forth 
 in his own heart what the law that Jesus has made 
 clear demands, namely, love. So the very thoughts 
 which we know are able to set free our inner life only 
 throw us back again into discouragement and despon- 
 dency. From this inward strife, from this inability to 
 live in the good which, nevertheless, we see to be the 
 form of true life, we are saved when once we have come 
 to understand the fact that Jesus belongs to this world 
 of ours. If only he has won from us the trust that His 
 cause is the cause of God, then, because of the interest 
 He showed in men, an interest which has stood the 
 severest tests, we become sure that the good has a 
 reality and a power in our own lives. Certainly, as 
 soon as the law of duty is set forth and expounded to 
 us as Jesus does it, we recognise its unassailable right. 
 But unless our existence in the world bore some sure 
 sign that the good is not essentially foreign to human 
 nature, we should never be certain that our knowledge 
 of moral law could lift us to a higher life, or that we 
 could attain to the blessed liberty of a moral life. 
 Jesus Christ is that sign. His attitude towards us 
 uplifts us and makes it possible for us to trust that the 
 Divine Power, which must be with Him and with His 
 work, cares for us and makes us fellow workmen with 
 Him in His work which aims at nothing less than the 
 actual realisation of the good, and a coming of the King- 
 dom of God. Hence, by the conviction that in Christ 
 God communes with us, we are placed inwardly in a 
 
THE REVELATION OF HOPE 101 
 
 position to overcome the opposition between our 
 natural life and the law of duty. It thus becomes 
 possible for us to believe that those very things in our 
 surroundings which are hostile to the good, are by God's 
 power being made of service for what is good. For 
 although our moral striving seems to exhaust itself in 
 vain attempts, yet we have still the consolation that we 
 stand in and belong to a historical movement in which 
 the good wields ever greater sway, for Christ's work must 
 reach its goal, and we know through God's communion 
 with us that we are assisting in that work. 
 
 § 12. The objective Grounds of our Certamty that 
 God Communes with Us. 
 
 When our moral need is satisfied in this way, the 
 impression that in Christ we have to do with God 
 becomes a radiant certainty. For that is the true God 
 who creates infinite life within us by causing us to 
 rejoice in the good. God communes with us, therefore, 
 by the appearance of Jesus Christ in such a way that we 
 are perfectly certain we see Him. The rise of new 
 doubts as to whether God does actually come near to 
 us in Jesus is prevented by the Christian's experience 
 that as soon as he understands this Man as the message 
 of God to him, he finds a joy in bowing to what is 
 inevitable, and in self-sacrifice for the sake of others. 
 Our experience of the communion of God with us 
 happens in such a way that it efifects at the same time 
 our moral deliverance. Without it we should not have 
 that certainty of faith which is present and active in 
 
102 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 every believer, even although it be often hindered in its 
 action by the want of inward self-possession and insight. 
 The rise of faith as the consciousness that God com- 
 munes with us cannot be forced. It remains the 
 incommunicable experience of the man who learns to 
 believe ; he cannot transfer it to another. For whether 
 a man should place confidence in another is a matter 
 for himself alone ; it is impossible to demonstrate the 
 necessity for such a confidence to a man in whom it 
 does not exist. If any one would obtain this soul- 
 emancipating trust in Jesus, he must turn to Jesus and 
 place himself under Jesus' infiuence. We have cer- 
 tainly all sorts of reasons for dreading to do this. If 
 some men, nevertheless, do overcome this fear and 
 are not dismayed by the appearance of the Holy One, 
 although they know themselves condemned before 
 Him, that must remain the strange secret of their own 
 inner life. 
 
 The Christian's consciousness that God communes 
 with him rests on two objective facts, the first of which 
 is the historical fact of the Person of Jesus. We have 
 grasped this fact as an element in our own sphere of 
 reality, and we have felt its power. It must be admitted 
 that unless we are to live half asleep, as it were, and to 
 have an existence on the level of the brutes, we must 
 face this fact as something in our lives, and must say 
 what we will do with it. The Christian knows that 
 every man who is morally alive must be able to see this 
 fact, which L. Ranke thus describes : " more guiltless 
 and more powerful, more exalted and more holy, has 
 nought ever been on earth than His conduct, His life 
 
TWO OBJECTIVE FACTS ONLY 103 
 
 and His death ; the human race knows nothing that 
 could be brought, even afar off, into comparison with 
 it."* Hence all who close their eyes to this, the most 
 precious fact that history contains, seem to the Christian 
 to be imprisoned in dreams, shut out from the reality 
 which is the indispensable nourishment of the inner life. 
 The second objective ground of the Christian's con- 
 sciousness that God communes with him is that we hear 
 within ourselves the demand of the moral law. Here we 
 grasp an objective fact which must be held to be valid 
 in any historical study of life. For life as studied in 
 history, or, in other words, all specifically human life, 
 rests absolutely upon the assumption that men know 
 they are unconditionally bound to obey the law of 
 duty. Now we find that in the God whose influence 
 upon us is seen in no other experience so clearly 
 as in the power the Person of Jesus has over us, the 
 moral convictions that rule our inmost soul acquire the 
 form of a personal life. In the same thoughts that 
 ceaselessly urged us forward we trace now a friendly 
 will that has ordained it for our redemption. God 
 brings it about that to do right ceases to be a painful 
 problem for us, and begins instead to be the very 
 atmosphere in which we live. Here then we find a 
 thought which we have a right to hold to be an objec- 
 tive reality for every man, and we find this very thought 
 working in us to make us certain of God. There are 
 no other objective grounds for the truth of the 
 Christian religion.f 
 
 ♦ "The Popes of Home." Sixth edition, vol. i. p. 4. 
 
 t (y. my took, " Die Religion im Verhaltnis zum Welterkennen 
 und zur Sittlichkeit " (" Keligion in Relation to Knowledge and to 
 
104 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Any one who has let the fact of the personal life of 
 
 Jesus work upon him, and who has been led thereby 
 
 Morality"), Halle, 1879. It is obvious that for every man who 
 shares this life of oura in history, the thought of duty has the signifi- 
 cance above described. If we should cease to live this life of 
 personal fellowship, this life of ours in the midst of history, then, of 
 course, thoughts concerning duty would disappear from our mental 
 horizon. On the other hand, as long as we retain even a glimmering 
 of the idea that soul finds its true life only in personal fellowship, 
 so long we must necessarily count it an eternal truth that we are 
 bound by certain unconditional obligations. We could not live side 
 by side, and know we were doing so, without assuming that we are 
 so bound. Life in personal fellowship, that is, in every relation of 
 mutual trust, is always conceived as implying moral obligations as 
 the eternal conditions of our life on earth. It is not simply true that 
 we devise a shrewd' rule by which we may preserve our worldly 
 possession for ourselves, and that we then call that rule duty. On 
 the contrary, we know that we obtain the true good of life for the 
 first time when we obey duty's unconditional demand. And yet 
 when we speak of the eternal truth of morality in this sense, we 
 certainly do not mean to assert that the human individual carries 
 that thought about with him, which we affirm to contain the eternal 
 condition for his personal life, just as he carries organs of sense. Of 
 course, it will avail me nothing to point this out. Critics like 
 H. Gallwitz (" Die Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart, 1891," p. 229) 
 will continue to say, as before, that I hold that moral knowledge is 
 part of man's natural constitution. The same writer says of me : 
 " There remains for Herrmann in point of fact nothing as redeeming 
 power in Christ except this teaching about God, and the assertion of 
 this even in death. Thus it is no use calling the work of Christ, 
 thus reduced to a system of teaching, a historical fact, whose effects 
 reach down to the present day. For according to this it is possible 
 in Herrmann's theology to separate the idea of the love of God 
 revealed by Christ, or the gospel of the Kingdom of God from the 
 Person of the Redeemer, and let it go on influencing the world by 
 its own power." I need hardly say to the reader that this summary 
 imputes to me exactly the opposite of what I have endeavoured at 
 length to show. I am not astonished. But I am surprised that he 
 speaks of a common principle underlying his own and my theology. 
 I could only feel opposed to a theology which taught what he ascribes 
 to me. 
 
PROFESSION OF FAITH 105 
 
 to trust in Him, cannot help thinking that there is a 
 Power over all things, and that that Power is with 
 Jesus. In what he experiences at the hands of Jesus, 
 he feels himself in the grip of this Power. Here his 
 religious life begins, but this beginning is kept from 
 being a purely subjective experience by these two objec- 
 tive things, viz., by that historical fact which, when once 
 seen, never disappears, and by his conscience. Through 
 Jesus he has not merely a thought of God supported by 
 proofs or authorities, but he has the Living God 
 Himself, who is working upon him. The man who 
 has attained that is a Christian. He is a Christian, 
 although he is not in a position to recognise as 
 truths all those things which other Christians have 
 professed. 
 
 § 13. The SufyectivUy of an Arbitrary Profession 
 of Faith. 
 
 Where he notes his inability to do so, he will by no 
 means determine, as some may expect, that he will 
 nevertheless profess them to be truths. For example, 
 he might be obliged to insist that it by no means follows 
 from the new life created in him by the grace of God 
 through Jesus Christ that he could stand by all the 
 affirmations of the so-called Apostolic Creed as asser- 
 tions of his own convictions. At the same time, how- 
 ever, he might observe that other Christians, for whom 
 he entertains the greatest respect, declare that they can 
 heartily join in confessing that Creed as their own. 
 Now what will a Christian do in these circumstances 
 
106 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 who has become conscious, in the way we have described, 
 that God is accepting him ? He will certainly not 
 accuse his fellow Christians of professing to believe what 
 they do not believe, nor will he at once declare to be 
 false those portions of the Creed which he cannot see to 
 be the truth. Perhaps he may be obliged to say they 
 are false for other reasons ; but the fact that these 
 things are strange to him will not of itself alone lead 
 him to deny their truth. Indeed, he has just had the 
 experience that a fact, hitherto utterly strange to him, 
 is now true, to his certain knowledge. But, on the 
 other hand, when he observes that other Christians join 
 in the Apostolic Creed, he will not be induced by seeing 
 this to resolve to do the same. In his case such a re- 
 solve would not be an act springing genuinely out of 
 that new life which he owes to the grace of God. If he 
 were to make such a resolve he would act, not perhaps 
 from cowardice or vanity, but, to put it briefly, with 
 conscious untruthfulness. At best he would be yielding 
 to an evil habit which would tend to drive him from that 
 standing-ground that made him sure and glad, from the 
 impregnable rock of historical reality and the eternal. 
 Through a strange confusion of thought this bad habit 
 prevails largely. 
 
 Men say that we must have firm ground beneath us, 
 and that for that reason it is well to hold immovably to 
 what is presented to us in the confessions of the Church, 
 and presented to us, indeed, by the Holy Scriptures. It 
 is certainly of the utmost importance that the Christian 
 should be conscious of standing on objective reality, 
 and that his view of God's working upon him should 
 
FORCED ACCEPTANCE OF CREEDS lOT 
 
 not rest merely on his own wish. But it is clear that 
 we can have such an objective basis for our faith only 
 in facts which force themselves upon us as undeniable 
 elements in the reality in which we sband. Then alone 
 can we rejoice in the truth of our faith, for in that case 
 our religious thinking obeys the compulsion of a sacred 
 necessity. On the other hand, we fall precisely into the 
 error of a false subjectivity whenever we seek to appro- 
 priate, as the contents of our faith, any conceptions 
 which we do not see arising out of the fact that God 
 comes into communion with us. For then we do not 
 fit ourselves to the objective fact which is given us, but 
 follow our own arbitrary and subjective will. 
 
 The temptation to the subjectivity of such a false 
 attachment to creeds is pressing in on us all in Christen- 
 dom with tremendous force. There is but one sure 
 protection against it, and that is the joy we have in the 
 objective reality of the personal life of Jesus, and in 
 His power to make us feel God working upon us. The 
 man who is sensible of this joy knows that he is hidden 
 in a mighty Hand ; and he is able to recognise evil in 
 the demand that he should yield to the subjectivity of 
 that arbitrary confession, an evil thing though dressed 
 in an ecclesiastical garb. In view of the devastation 
 this demand is causing, it is high time that the officials 
 of the Chm-ch should be asked whether they ought to 
 give it the weight of their approval. If they do so, 
 they hold poor souls the tighter in their prison chains. 
 The Protestant people who are refusing, in increasing 
 numbers, to join in an arbitrary confession of the faith, 
 are simply guarding themselves against counting any- 
 
108 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 thing the basis of faith which does not possess the 
 weight of undoubted fact. They are not holding by a 
 false subjectivity, as some would-be churchly people 
 would maintain ; on the contrary, they are athirst for 
 the objective in religion. So we mock their need if we 
 offer them as agroundfor their faith doctrines of Scripture 
 and propositions of the Apostolic Creed in which they 
 cannot, by any means, find an expression of facts that 
 are sure for them. They long for facts whose power 
 shall come home to their inmost souls, and by which they 
 shall see that they are not without God in the world. 
 The inner life of Jesus and their own conscience can be 
 revealed to them to be such facts. 
 
 § 14. The Power of the Person of Jestis over our Heart 
 is the Vital Prhiciple of our Religion. 
 Luther once said that he would argue no more with 
 any man who did not recognise Holy Scripture as the 
 Word of God. If we were now to take such a course, 
 it would certainly be very convenient and very pleasing 
 to the flesh, but it would be utterly fruitless. For even 
 where the admission was made, in most cases it would 
 be made no longer in the unthinking fashion of Luther's 
 day. It would be the result, as a rule, either of arbitrary 
 resolve, or of shallowness, or of anxiety. We ought 
 rather to say that we will argue with every man, and 
 will only lay down our arms when we see that men have 
 no sense of unconditional obligation, and that in them, 
 therefore, conscience is dumb. Where such a point has 
 not yet been reached, we ai'e to go on talking to men 
 
LOVE TO JESUS 109 
 
 about Jesus Christ, but without making the senseless 
 demand that they shall treat as real things they cannot 
 grasp as an undoubted reality, which, therefore, have 
 no power over them. We must rather communicate to 
 them the Biblical tradition regarding Jesus as something 
 that has been of help to us in the hope that there the 
 inner life of the man Jesus will reveal itself to them too, 
 remembering that in the sphere of conscience that inner 
 life exercises far greater power than our weak faith is 
 wont to imagine. 
 
 If, however, it is true that the reality of the personal 
 life of Jesus, when grasped as a reality, is understood 
 as the influence of that God for whose sake we will 
 forsake all else, then Jesus Himself and His power over 
 the heart is actually the vital principal of our religion. 
 " The Christian religion consists in the personal love 
 and adoration of Jesus Christ ; not in correct morality 
 and correct doctrines, but in homage to the King." * 
 And what are we to call that joy in the personal life of 
 Jesus with which men's hearts glow when Jesus brings 
 them into the presence of God, and they learn there 
 how He slays and makes alive again ? I have no other 
 name for it but this : it is the mightiest love the soul 
 has to give. This love to Jesus we have when once we 
 have tasted the experience that it is through Him that 
 God communes with us. The religious life of the 
 Christian is inseparable from vision of the personal life 
 of Jesus. That vision must be the Christian's constant 
 companion, and so it becomes as he finds more and more 
 
 * F. W. Kobertson, " Sein Lebensbild in Briefen " ("Hia life as 
 described in his letters"). Gotha, 1888, p. 71. 
 
110 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that in such vision he grasps that reality without which 
 all else in the world is empty and desolate. 
 
 It is a dangerous undertaking then, and one that 
 needs gentle handling, to say there is such a thing as a 
 false love for Christ. And yet this must be done. 
 The very importance of the matter demands that it 
 shall have firm handling. If love for Jesus is anything 
 else than reverent joy in that personal life which makes 
 us feel the judgment and mercy of God, then that love 
 is but the blossom of an impure heart. We are easily 
 impressed with the spiritual beauty of Jesus, and it 
 arouses tender emotions in the soul ; but if we do not 
 get beyond this, we show thereby that we are not letting 
 Jesus work upon us what He would. In these tender 
 emotions we make ourselves virtually His equals, and 
 remain precisely what we were before ; but such emo- 
 tions would be stifled if we really experienced what 
 Jesus causes to dawn upon the sinful man who does not 
 give play to His own vain feelings, but really gives 
 himself into Jesus' hands. True love for Jesus is a 
 more earnest thing ; its attitude is determined by the 
 discovery that He at once destroys all the self-content- 
 ment we had before, and that was the source whence a 
 sentimental admiration for His spiritual beauty could 
 flow. We have said already that the religious ex- 
 perience of Christians, or the experience of God's 
 enti-ance with power ifito our own life, is inseparable 
 from the vision of the personal life of Jesus. It is 
 equally true to say that we occupy the attitude of true 
 love towards Jesus only when we are raised by Him 
 up to God and away beyond ourselves. Jesus loses 
 
THE MYSTIC OBJECTION 111 
 
 nothing when with manly earnest we desire nothing 
 else than to trace in our own souls the working of the 
 power of the Everlasting God ; indeed, it is only then 
 that Jesus receives the reverent love which is His due. 
 
 § 15. The Mystic, Traditional, and Rationalistic 
 Objections. 
 
 It is to be hoped that we have thus really described 
 how God comes near in such a manner that we can say 
 He communes with us. This will be denied, no doubt, 
 to begin with, by all those good people who look upon 
 a historical event only as a means of expression for a 
 religious idea, but do not know how to use it as a 
 message of God to themselves. With these it is easy 
 to deal. In so far as their theory may be taken as a 
 true expression of their mode of thought, they do not 
 stand within the Christian community at all. For 
 the fact wherein they apprehend God, is in their view 
 either a state of being possessed by religious ideas, or it 
 is an emotional experience of some other kind in which 
 they think they can trace the nearness of God. But 
 for the Christian community the fact is the historical 
 appearance of Christ, as that is made comprehensible 
 among us by the preaching of the Gospel and by 
 practical Christian life. 
 
 There is another objection, and with this it is not so 
 easy to deal. We may be told that what we have 
 described as features of Jesus' personal life do not make 
 such an impression, by any means, as to justify our 
 assertion that he who comes to see their reality is him- 
 self thereby lifted over into a new sphere of reality. 
 
112 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 We cannot rebut such an objection; we have rather 
 here to guard against a misunderstanding. My power 
 is insufficient, to speak concerning Jesus so as to make 
 His portrait alive and powerful in the soul of the 
 reader. If I could preach like F. W. Robertson or 
 H. Hoffmann, I would hasten as a preacher of the 
 Gospel to give to the community the best thing that 
 can be given it, and would not remain an academic 
 theologian. My task here is a more modest one, but it 
 is not superfluous : it is to describe the inner process ot 
 the Christian religion, and, in the first place, to describe 
 its fundamental experience. It is surely worth the 
 labour simply to bring the Christian Church to recog- 
 nise that it is the most important thing for a Christian 
 to become inwardly certain, through facts that are 
 objective and cannot be taken away from him, that 
 God communes with him. This is clearly the most 
 important thing if our salvation is to consist in our 
 having God ruling in us. If God is to rule in us, then 
 above all things God must become a reality for us, so 
 that all that holds us in captivity shall be thereby 
 thrust aside. Hence the question is whether God 
 manifests Himself as a real Power working upon us, so 
 that we are conscious of it just as of anything else in 
 this world. Jesus could not give us this knowledge 
 through His teaching alone; even the sacred Scrip- 
 tures, regarded as a compendium of doctrines and infor- 
 mation concerning God and Christ, cannot convey it to 
 us. We can have it through Jesus only when we 
 apprehend His personal life to be now and for us a 
 present part of the real world, and powerful enough to 
 
OBJECTIONS OF TRADITIONALISTS 113 
 
 compel us to see God as a real power. I have now 
 sought to show how this can be. The records concern- 
 ing Jesus show us an inner life which wins our trust 
 through its moral sublimity and the force of its self- 
 consciousness. No means which historical science can 
 employ will suffice to give us full assurance that what 
 the story offers us is an actual part of the history to 
 which we belong. Doubt as to its actual historicity 
 can be really overcome only by looking to the contents 
 of what we learn to know as the inner life of Jesus. 
 
 Of course, every one endowed with ordinary human 
 feeling can see that the tradition regarding Jesus pre- 
 sents to us a marvellously clear picture of personal life. 
 But that that picture is not a work of the imagination 
 which has gradually become adopted by many as a text 
 for religious and moral truths, can be proved only by 
 the effect produced upon us by the contents of the 
 picture. We find the Person of Jesus only in the 
 preaching of disciples who believed in Him. Is it 
 perhaps possible that it is only the disciples we see, 
 and not Jesus Himself? To this question no answer 
 can be given by that science whose business is to find 
 out what can be proved to be real. The man who does 
 answer it must base his answer upon his own personal 
 conviction. The Jesus, that is, the inner life of Jesus, 
 that appears to us in those testimonies of the disciples 
 concerning their faith, brings us face to face with a 
 decision, to wit : are we going to exalt ourselves above 
 this man, or are we going to bow before Him ? If we 
 bow before Him, we do so because His person works in 
 us an experience that can be produced in no man by 
 
114 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 external force. We feel that He first reveals to us what 
 the true life of a personal spirit is, and He makes us 
 feel how stunted and confused is our own inner life. If 
 the portrait of Jesus tells us these things, then we need 
 not insist on knowing it in the exact historical sense : 
 we can accept that portrait as the historical effect of a 
 Person who is all-powerful in His sway over us, but 
 whose personality we cannot comprehend in its actuality. 
 If any one will insist on some other mode of procedure, 
 then he must hold the opposite conviction, namely, that 
 he could produce the portrait of the personal life of 
 Jesus out of his own spiritual resources. For our part 
 we cannot do this, for it is He who makes us both poor 
 and rich. We could never make an exhaustive portrait 
 of that inner life of Jesus which so influences Christians, 
 however many words we might say. Each man can win 
 this portrait for himself only when he sees that in all 
 that touches his inner life there is nothing more im- 
 portant than the tradition regarding Jesus and the 
 traces of His power that meet Him in his own 
 immediate environment. 
 
 It is the same in any other case : if a man wins our 
 confidence, we find that the immediate impression 
 which his personality makes upon us has far more in it 
 for us than all that we might say to others in justifica- 
 tion of our trust. The more powerfully the personal 
 impression lays hold of us, the greater is the contrast 
 between our powers of description and the impression 
 which the memory retains. Hence we will have no 
 belief whatever in our ability, by the skill of our 
 description, to show others the Person of Jesus in all 
 
THE IMPRESSION JESUS MAKES 115 
 
 its power. But we will recall how it was that we our- 
 selves were helped. As a matter of fact, the witness 
 to the faith offered to us, partly by disciples long dead, 
 partly by those still alive, has so reached our heart, that 
 from it we have acquired for ourselves a picture of the 
 inner life of Jesus as the supreme spiritual power over 
 all things, and have thus gradually learned to under- 
 stand the Jesus of the Gospels. So when we wish to 
 help others to Christianity the chief thing is to become 
 Christians ourselves, and so to influence them by the 
 natural and unforced exhibition to them of what really 
 lives within us. Thus they will come into their first 
 actual contact with Jesus Himself, and be touched with 
 the desire to lay hold on Him more fully. He who is 
 of the truth will hear the voice of God in the fact that 
 such a life actually exists. No one can render help to 
 him who will not be silent before the facts ; such a man 
 gets drowned in his blank negation. But the man who 
 lets himself be mastered by that power of personal life 
 that is made manifest in Jesus gains thereby a new 
 fulness of life, and is himself renewed and transported 
 into a new world. Through the strength of Jesus he 
 is made to acknowledge the reality of an Omnipotence 
 which gives this Man the victory, and from the friend- 
 ship of Jesus for the sinners whom He humbles, he 
 gathers courage to believe that all these things mean 
 God's love seeking out him, poor sinner as he is. 
 
116 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 § 16. The Impossibility of Giving Expression to the New 
 Life in Commmiion with God in Representations 
 that are Devoid of Self-Contradiction. 
 When Jesus has given us these things, then we are 
 united in our own inner hfe with God. We no longer 
 need any one to tell us that there is a God, for we 
 cannot see the fact of the inner life of Jesus which 
 is now present before our own souls without becoming 
 aware of God in that fact. Just as little do we need 
 to be told by others how God works upon us, for God 
 comes into communion with us in the very event which 
 makes us certain of Him. We find out how God works, 
 for we actually experience God making us feel, by the 
 spiritual power of Jesus, who He is, what is His will, 
 and what are His purposes with us. We cannot com- 
 municate to a third person by any words of ours what 
 God thus imparts to us. We cannot even find any 
 complete expression of it which will satisfy ourselves. 
 When we try to express it we constantly fall into the 
 use of conceptions which partially contradict each 
 other because they cannot be combined into the picture 
 of a single definite finished event. God takes away our 
 self-confidence, and yet creates within us an invincible 
 courage ; He destroys our joy in life, and yet makes us 
 blessed ; He slays us, and yet makes alive ; He lets us 
 find rest, and yet fills us with unrest ; He takes away 
 the burden of a ruined life, and yet makes human life 
 much more difficult than it is without Him. God 
 gives us a new existence that is whole and complete ; 
 
A CHILD'S CHRISTIANITY 117 
 
 yet what we find therein is always turning into a 
 longing for true life, and into desire to become new. 
 If God would allow us to remain what we were, then 
 we could comprehend and represent without self-con- 
 tradiction His working upon us ; but as soon as we 
 become aware that God is touching us in the personal 
 life of Jesus, in order to make us certain of Himself, 
 then at once we feel that we have set out upon a new 
 course of life. If we only keep in touch with the inner 
 life of Jesus, and are lifted up to God by Him, then we 
 become constantly impressed anew by the fact that an 
 ever-new fulness is being given to our life. We have 
 not the mastery over it, for it is utterly inexhaustible, 
 and is ever re-moulding us. 
 
 § 17. The Chnsticmity of Children. 
 The faith which was planted in us as children by 
 Christian training becomes perfected in this conscious- 
 ness that God communes with us by the Person of 
 Jesus. When we were children we heard of God 
 through other Christians. At that time the inner life 
 of Jesus could not yet be the revelation of God to us. 
 We could not at that stage so apprehend it that we 
 should be compelled to see in the manifestation of 
 Jesus the working of God upon xis. Nevertheless, even 
 then God turned towards us, and so made it possible 
 for us to understand what others said concerning Him, 
 it was, all the time, the same revelation of Him, 
 although in another form. Some of those who spoke 
 to us of God — our parents, for example, if all was as it 
 
118 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 should be — convinced us that they saw that of which 
 they spoke. Their earnest love, their truthfulness and 
 self-control, their stronger and more mature personal 
 life, became to us a revelation of the God to whom 
 they prayed. We were brought near to God, not by 
 the mere instruction we received in Christian thoughts, 
 but by that personal life sanctified of God which found 
 expression in the instruction. Just so, the Church, the 
 community of believers, became our mother, and 
 opened to us the Kingdom of God. We were led to 
 God, in the first instance, not through the inner life 
 of Jesus itself, but through persons who belonged to 
 Him, who had been set free by Him and placed in 
 the presence of God. But why is it then that this 
 does not suffice in later life.? As we arrive at riper 
 years our moral convictions must be reached inde- 
 pendently ; we have to distinguish for ourselves 
 between good and evil. Even in respect of our faith 
 in God we outgrow our dependence on our surroundings. 
 Of course, our religious faith can never be as inde- 
 pendent as our moral convictions are; for our certainty 
 of the reality of God always depends upon our actually 
 seeing that God is communing with us, hence it is 
 impossible for us to become entirely independent of 
 revelation. But the growth of oxu: moral freedom 
 makes necessary for us a revelation quite different from 
 that which can be imparted to a child. When we 
 awake to the consciousness of our moral responsibility, 
 we are compelled to collect our thoughts, and thereby 
 free ourselves and realise ourselves inwardly as so 
 distinct from our surroundings that the faith of other 
 
ADULT CHRISTIANITY 119 
 
 men can no longer be for us a decisive proof of the 
 presence of God. God must speak more distinctly to a 
 man who has been thrown upon himself and isolated by 
 the power of his moral thoughts. Hence the Christian 
 Church, which taikes the child in her arms, points the 
 adult to something away beyond herself. She points 
 him to the fact which she holds in constant remembrance 
 as the foundation for her own existence, namely, the 
 Personal life of Jesus. 
 
 § 18. Adult Christianity. 
 When we have been- trained to moral freedom, and 
 are thus enabled to judge our own conduct, it soon 
 becomes impossible for us to profess the same faith 
 in God in which we grew up as children. We can 
 no longer depend, as the child does, on the persons 
 about us, for we now actually measure the spiritual life 
 of others, by ideals of which we ourselves perceive the 
 right. We make higher demands on the foundation 
 of religious faith, for we have learned by our new moral 
 insight what sort of thing a truly well-grounded personal 
 conviction is. But, above all, when we feel the stress 
 of the moral life, we cannot help thinking that God has 
 forsaken us. When we are obliged to admit that we 
 have ruined our spiritual strength, and that we are a 
 hindrance to what is good, then the thought of that 
 Omnipotence which supports and protects us grows 
 faint within us. For it comes upon us as an undeniable 
 truth that our ways run contrary to that which alone 
 can ultimately prevail. Then we are forsaken of God, 
 in what we are making of our own life. Of course, we 
 
120 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 may try to reassert ourselves, even in such a position. 
 We may either take those thoughts of the love of God 
 which express the confidence of Christian faith, and try 
 to use them to deaden and silence our own experience, 
 wherein no trace of God's love is written. This is the 
 practice men are led to adopt when they are told that it 
 will help them if they determine to accept Christian 
 doctrines. Or, again, we may be honest, and give up 
 faith that a God has anything to do with us, and may 
 still retain our faith in moral ideals, and may resolve 
 to live for these. This is the position of men without 
 number, who are called by their wealth and culture to 
 be the intellectual guides of the people. Or, finally, 
 we may join the ranks of those who fling away all that 
 uplifts the soul, and abandon ourselves to the careless- 
 ness of a brutish life. This last course is but the 
 natural outcome of the other two, for both these are 
 equally untrue. Thoughts of the love of God are 
 meaningless to us if we feel that we are condemned by 
 that power which alone we can think of as divine. 
 And a man who is conscious of guilt cannot establish 
 a faith in moral ideals, except at the cost of falsifying 
 those ideals and deceiving himself. Such persons 
 evade the truth that a man can only will the good 
 by denying himself, and that he can only deny himself 
 when he has inwardly risen above all need, but not 
 when he is rendered unhappy and powerless in his 
 inmost soul by the consciousness of guilt. It is not 
 possible, then, for an adult to feel himself as thoroughly 
 in the protection of God as a child feels unless he has a 
 different revelation of God from that which a child has. 
 
JESUS COMPELS TRUST IN GOD 121 
 
 We can rise out of the God-forsaken condition of an 
 evil conscience and find our way back to God only when 
 we are able to see that God has regard to this need of 
 ours in His revelation of Himself. Jesus brings this 
 vision to us, for by His appearance in history He 
 makes us certain of God, when, for conscience' sake, we 
 cannot rest content with any mere record of the 
 religious thoughts of other men. Every man who has 
 come to be at all conscious of what is good may be led 
 on to understand that God can be none other than the 
 Personal Vitality and Power of Goodness; and the 
 marvellous fact of the Person of Jesus corresponds 
 exactly to this hope of our hearts concerning God. 
 While from our own inner life we gain no certain 
 knowledge that the power of the Good is really supreme 
 in all that happens, Jesus makes us certain of it by 
 exhibiting in His Person the living fulness and un- 
 doubted power of a good will, and thus He gives us a 
 vision of the power of the Good over the real. We 
 find in Him the first person who makes clear and gives a 
 definite character and content to those moral ideals by 
 which we judge ourselves and others. Hence we cannot 
 judge Him, but we feel ourselves judged by Him. If 
 we do not know Him, our evil conscience ever confirms 
 us in the thought that there is no God. For the con- 
 trast between what we ought to be and what we are, 
 between our desire for life and our feeling of nothing- 
 ness, prevents any strong faith in God from arising 
 within us. But if, on the contrary, Jesus has become 
 a real fact to us, He makes us feel that the Good has a 
 power over the real, and He makes us feel also that we 
 
122 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 are separate from that power. In this experience a 
 man who is morally mature gains a new certainty of 
 God which is no longer dispelled by his consciousness 
 of guilt, but confirmed by it. We do not believe in 
 God on the strength of what we observe in ourselves ; 
 it is also true that we do not believe in Him because 
 of what others tells us. Our well-meaning friends can 
 utter no words which can avail against the reality of 
 our moral need ; only some reality which is similarly 
 undeniable can help us there. But now, what we 
 cannot do of ourselves we must do for Jesus' sake, 
 namely, lay hold of the thought that God rules in this 
 real world of which we ourselves are conscious. We 
 can think of ourselves as being without God ; we cannot 
 think so of Him. By the strength of His inner life 
 He makes clear to us both our own moral powerless- 
 ness and the reality of God. The power of Jesus 
 over personal lives consists in the fact that when He 
 :icomes to them He causes them at once to despair 
 of their own strength and to become aware of God. 
 But when Jesus has revealed God in such a way to 
 men. He then uses His power over them so as to 
 uplift them. 
 
 Jesus gathers together all His powers for the task of 
 redemption, which is His great vocation. This vocation 
 is to reveal to us the blessedness of the life of a man 
 who is in fellowship with God, and also His own desire to 
 help us and His invincible confidence that He can do so. 
 In showing this to those who experience His power over 
 them, He redeems them. For they gather from this 
 that the God whom they learned to know first as 
 
SELF-SURRENDER TO JESUS 123 
 
 Jesus Christ's Father and as their Judge, desires, 
 nevertheless, to be their Father. 
 
 Herein lies the true analogy between the faith of a 
 Christian and that of a child. We must suffer ourselves 
 to be wholly determined, like children, by a stronger per- 
 sonal life, and lifted above all that we are when left to 
 ourselves. In this way we fulfil the commandment that 
 we shall become as little children. On the other hand, 
 we certainly do not resemble children if we try to copy 
 the religious conceptions which prevail around us. For 
 while such imitation follows naturally in the case of a 
 child, we can only accomplish it by an act of violence 
 against ourselves. Though we might attain the same 
 outward result, we should be acting in a spirit entirely 
 opposed to that of a child. The child- like spirit can 
 only arise within us when our experience is the same as 
 a child's ; in other words, when we meet with a personal 
 life which compels us to trust it without reserve. But a 
 man who has awakened to moral self-consciousnes finds 
 this nowhere else in the World. Only the Person of Jesus 
 can arouse such trust. If such a man surrenders himself 
 to anything or any one else, he throws away not only 
 his trust but himself. 
 
 Now, when the fact of Jesus' personal influence upon 
 us has led us to recognise that God reveals Himself to 
 us and pours out His love upon us, the whole world is 
 transformed for us. For the world wherein this has 
 befallen us is no longer to our eyes a weary stretch of 
 numberless and perplexing events. What we experience 
 at the hands of Jesus tells us the purpose of all that 
 reality amidst whose relationships His Person stands. 
 
124 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 When we understand the meaning of His life, the par- 
 ticular events of our life all turn out to be efforts of God 
 in behalf of our souls. The whole world appears to us 
 now to be a well-ordered system whose culminating-point 
 is the Person of Jesus and His work upon us. And yet 
 this new view of the world is by no means the end of all 
 that is included in the thought of the Christian who has 
 become certain of God through the reality of Jesus • he 
 has more than an altered view of the real world : he sees 
 also a new reality which is to take form in himself and 
 others through that which God will make of them. 
 
 § 19. The Easy ChristiwnUy that Renounces Self- 
 knowledge and Re/lection, and Accepts the 
 Conceptions of Others. 
 
 But we are only raised to such life amid new reality 
 when that fact remains present to us which alone can 
 tell us the depths of our moral need, and can then raise 
 us to the experience of divine life. We affirm that this 
 fact is the inner life of the Man Jesus, and yet we cannot 
 prove it. How could we, since every one must experience 
 for himself that the spiritual power of Jesus destroys his 
 confidence in self, and creates in him a trust in God, that 
 makes him a new creature ? All we can do is to show how 
 a man becomes inwardly changed, when he does find and 
 understand the communion of God with his soul in the 
 influence of Jesus upon him. But we cannot substitute 
 any product of reflection for this fact itself which we 
 are to experience as the turning of God towards us. 
 
 And yet, self-evident as this appears, it is, neverthe- 
 
FASCINATION OF DOGMA 125 
 
 less, only with immense difficulty that we free ourselves 
 from the contrary way of thinking. Even we who are 
 Christians are constantly tempted to regard Jesus Christ 
 as the pre-supposition from which our relation to God 
 may be inferred with logical certainty. The truth is 
 that we ought to grasp Him as a fact which is real 
 beyond all doubt, and which convinces us, by the power 
 of its own content, that God is turning to us in that very 
 fact itself, in order to draw us to Himself. But then it 
 is infinitely more convenient to put aside this vision of a 
 fact, and to seek the guarantees of oui- certainty of the 
 grace of God in thoughts concerning Jesus ; for the vision 
 of this fact, in other words, the real, personal life of Jesus, 
 constantly imposes new labour upon our souls, and makes 
 us find God's power in an experience which is most painful, 
 and which utterly breaks down our self-conceit. If, in- 
 stead of this, it were actually possible for us to find true 
 blessing in such mere reflections concerning Christ, and 
 if these could give us substantial guarantees of the 
 presence of God, then it would be possible to avoid that 
 painful inward process amid which we become lifted to the 
 consciousness that God is acting upon us. The tempta- 
 tion to follow this view always accompanies an acceptance 
 as a matter of custom of the doctrines of the Church 
 concerning Christ and His work. These doctrines may, 
 indeed, be expressions of well-grounded Christian 
 thinking ; but they become, in spite of that, a powerful 
 temptation to us if they hinder our vision of the fact 
 in which we are to find God entering our life, and 
 which, therefore, ought to be the basis of our faith in 
 Him. The same thoughts concerning Christ which in 
 
126 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 others may be a sign of their redemption, will become 
 deadly to us if we allow ourselves to be persuaded that 
 we must accept them in order to be redeemed. For then 
 the fact remains concealed from us that God alone is our 
 Helper, that our highest good is to be at one with Him, 
 and that we are at one with Him only when we are able 
 to trace in undeniable facts the evidence that His power 
 is the power of love that is seeking us out and overcom- 
 ing the evil within us. If our hearts no longer impel 
 us to seek in Jesus Christ the fact in which God reveals 
 Himself to us, then, even surrounded by the greatest 
 wealth of Christian ideas, we shall soon come to desire, 
 not God Himself, but security from Him. 
 
 I 20. The Possibility of a Confession of the Divinity 
 of Christ. 
 This danger is clearly seen in the way in which the 
 Christian Churches use the confession of the Deity of 
 Christ. They do not, of course, abandon the proposition 
 that Christ is the Mediator through whom Christian 
 people have access to God, or through whom their com- 
 munion with Him is mediated. But the proposition is 
 robbed of its meaning by what is added to it. In other 
 words, it is regarded as self-evident that if we wish to 
 enjoy the mediation of Christ we must fir'st of all confess 
 His Deity. This demand prevents many an honest man 
 from coming to Christ, and disturbs the clearness of 
 many an earnest Christian's faith. Its injustice can 
 no longer be concealed. To confess the Deity of Jesus 
 means, obviously, to confess that Jesus is God. It is 
 
CHRIST'S DEITY NOT A PRIMARY DOGMA 127 
 
 clearly impossible for a man to appropriate this thought 
 to himself so as to find any meaning in the words, unless 
 Jesus has already led him to break with his past and to 
 enter upon a new existence. 
 
 If we are to understand the proposition that Jesus is 
 God, it is evidently necessary first of all that we know 
 Jesus Himself. If we do not learn to know Him, and if 
 we nevertheless go on using the thought that He is God, 
 then we only possess the general idea of Divine Incarna- 
 tion. A man who is not utterly devoid of imagination 
 may do something even with this ; he may construct a 
 philosophy of the world in which he himself plays the 
 part of a spectator. But such a play of imagination 
 round the thought of Incarnation and the resulting 
 theory of the universe have no significance for a man's 
 own personal existence. It may be said, however, that 
 the doctrine that in Jesus God became man is, neverthe- 
 less, of service because it draws men's attention to Him. 
 That is true, but it by no means follows that in order 
 to become Christians we must adopt the confession of 
 that doctrine, or even that we could do so. It can only 
 incite us to gaze upon the Man who so influenced others 
 that in Him they were able to see a God who had become 
 man. In that case it is possible that we may leam and 
 understand what moves the soul of Jesus, and feel the 
 power of that Personal Spirit, which in all its move- 
 ments reveals the power of what is good, and at the 
 same time ventures to place itself in the midst of history. 
 We ourselves may have to sum up the content of such 
 experiences in the thought that God Himself can be 
 none other than that Personal Spirit who acts upon us 
 
128 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 through Jesus. It is what we experience in the Man 
 Jesus that first gives definite content to the confession 
 of the Deity of Christ. Redeeming power for us can 
 only lie in something which actually works upon us. But 
 the doctrine of the Deity of Christ, on the contrary, can 
 of itself help no one. The man who only knows that 
 doctrine and the name of Jesus, and who is also so 
 devoid of character as to repeat the doctrine after others, 
 is certainly not made a Christian by that. Hence it is 
 meaningless to say to men, "If you wish to be 
 redeemed by Christ you must believe in His Deity." 
 We ought rather to put the matter thus : " If you 
 wish to be redeemed by Christ, you must experience in 
 the fact of His Person that God communes with you." 
 Secondly, if we are truthfully to confess the Deity 
 of Jesus, it is necessary that we should have known God. 
 But we first see clearly what God really is when we 
 experience God's communion with us in the influence 
 which Jesus hfis upon us. Before God becomes a power 
 in our inner life and makes us a new creature we have 
 necessarily false notions concerning Him. By the 
 miracle of His appearance Jesus can overcome both our 
 doubts as to the reality of God and our illusions con- 
 cerning Him. Has a man seen the fact of the personal 
 life of Jesus and does he feel in it the mighty working 
 of God upon himself, then in that he has the beginning 
 of redemption. In the vision of the God, who is 
 in such ways working upon us, and through submission 
 to Him, we break way from our whole previous 
 existence. Before we have known this power 
 of personal spirit we can form only uncertain and 
 
CONFESSION FOLLOWS EXPERIENCE 129 
 
 confused ideas about the being of God, and therefore we 
 cannot yet understand the expression " Deity of Christ " 
 in a religious sense, but only in the sense of earthly 
 dreams. And so the Church durst not say to the men she 
 wishes to lead on the way of redemption, " Believe in 
 the Deity of Jesus, that ye may be saved." She ought 
 rather to say, " Do not imagine that you can either 
 believe or understand it, for only the redeemed can do 
 that." If we do utter the name of God as we think of 
 Jesus it is due to the power and action of the Holy 
 Spirit within us (compare 1 Cor. xii. 3). It is revealed 
 to us that Jesus is Lord when we are brought by His 
 personal power to the consciousness of God and to 
 submission to Him. In the true confession of the Deity 
 of Christ there speaks the Spirit of God which is 
 ours through the fact that Christ unites us to God. 
 A horrible caricature of this sacred knowledge is the 
 assertion that one must believe in the Deity of Christ 
 in order to be redeemed by Him. 
 
 § 21. Defects in the old Protestant Doctrine of the 
 Work of Christ and the Way of Salvation. 
 
 The demand that men shall confess a definite doctrine 
 concerning Christ as a condition of redemption is not 
 the only customary injury that is being done. The 
 one question of absolute importance is whether Jesus 
 gains a power over us through His personal life. And 
 a second hindrance to this may easily arise from the 
 content of the Church's doctrines of the Person and 
 Work of Jesus. 
 
 This hindrance may be clearly seen in that doctrine 
 
130 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 of the Atonement which the Reformers derived from 
 the theology of the Middle Ages, with certain well- 
 known alterations. According to that doctrine there 
 was a divine nature in Jesus, and because of it the deeds 
 which He actually did were able to remove those 
 hindrances in God which restrained His love for sinful 
 humanity. Since Jesus' work wrought satisfaction for 
 God in view of the injury done to Him by sin, it 
 becomes the ground of our certainty that God can 
 forgive us, and can receive us again into the realm of 
 His grace. This conclusion — that God can do such 
 things for us — is, of course, the highest point we can 
 reach on the assumption of that doctrine, viz., that 
 Christ's work is made a work of redemption by His 
 divine nature, a nature not fully defined, which for some 
 reason or another. He is supposed to possess. This 
 indefinite conception of Christ's divine nature may 
 indeed serve us in one way, namely, by adding a sort of 
 explanation as to how what is to us an incomprehensible 
 procedure becomes possible, namely, that God should 
 turn towards the sinner and proffer him His love. But 
 the thought that in some mysterious way there was 
 divine nature in Jesus cannot help us to think of God's 
 forgiveness as something actual. Yet this alone can 
 satisfy our longing for redemption. 
 
 As opposed to Socinianism that doctrine of the 
 Reformers concerning the Atonement was in the right, 
 and it may claim even to-day that it protects an 
 important truth against rationalistic disfigurements of 
 the Christian thought concerning the Atonement. For 
 the Christian faith is obviously a very feeble thing if 
 
DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT 131 
 
 all it does is to infer that divine forgiveness goes without 
 saying because we have learned that God is love.* 
 Any one must have utterly misunderstood the history of 
 Jesus'" life who only gathers from it that He proclaimed 
 such an inference as a truth which any man can grasp. 
 If the work of Jesus be seriously studied, it will rather 
 make the impression that the divine forgiveness of sins 
 is not a matter of course, but is something utterly 
 marvellous. It is therefore a merit of the Reformer's 
 doctrine of Atonement which cannot be too highly 
 praised, that it emphasises this impression made by the 
 story of Jesus. Their doctrine represents the work of 
 Jesus as simply that satisfaction given to God which 
 makes it possible for Him to perform that act of for- 
 giveness, which would otherwise be impossible. 
 
 But this very form of recording the important truth 
 that divine forgiveness is not a matter of course is of 
 little use for the end it seeks. For, in the first place, 
 this form of the doctrine suggests that a man can see 
 why it has become possible for God to forgive him. 
 But the more a man supposes he has this insight, the 
 more will he lose sight of the idea that forgiveness is 
 for every one who receives it an act of unfathomable 
 goodness. 
 
 Again, this orthodox doctrine of the Atonement 
 leaves the individual in the end in the same position 
 where he is left by rationalism, with its assertion that 
 all Jesus did was to proclaim that God, as the loving 
 Father, is willing to forgive. The supporters of the 
 
 * This opinion has been attributed to Eltsohl ; I consider this the 
 grossest misrepresentation of his theology which has been made. 
 
132 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 orthodox doctrine observe, rightly enough, that such a 
 proclamation is of no use to the sinner, for the simple 
 reason that he cannot believe it. Over against the 
 declaration of this thought, there stands the undeniable 
 reality of his own feeling of guilt. The man who feels 
 condemnation by the Eternal in his own consciousness 
 of guilt is not so easily persuaded that acceptance of a 
 doctrine will take away this reality from him. He 
 finds himself in a condition which to him is an 
 undeniable fact; and is he able to step out of that 
 reality in which he finds himself, out of that con- 
 demnation whose justice he sees, for the sake of a 
 doctrine which others preach to him .'' Jesus did indeed 
 speak of that love of the Heavenly Father which is 
 prepared to forgive without reserve those who repent, 
 but He never made to any one the degrading suggestion 
 that it should be accepted simply on the strength of 
 His mere statement, Jesus did not write the story of 
 the Prodigal Son on a sheet of paper for men who knew 
 nothing of Himself. He told it rather to men who saw 
 Him, and who, because of His own personal life, were 
 to be sure of the Father in Heaven, of whom He was 
 speaking. From this fancy that the mere doctrine of 
 the father-like love of God can help the troubled sinner, 
 it is evident that ideas belonging to Catholic piety 
 have sprung up again amid rationalism, and in wide 
 circles of the liberal Christianity of our time as well as 
 amid pietism. For this fancy coiTesponds to the 
 Catholic practice, which does not minister to the inner 
 life of the Christian thirsting for truth and reality, but 
 requires instead that, like the Jesuits, we shall forego 
 
DEFECTS OF ORTHODOXY 133 
 
 altogether any inner life of our own, full of sincerity 
 and truthfulness. A sinner who is not willing to tread 
 the Jesuitical path will heartily scorn the suggestion 
 that he either can or ought to approve of that ration- 
 alistic doctrine. Thus Protestant orthodoxy exhibited 
 some of the genuine instincts of the Reformation when, 
 during the Socinian controversy, it fought to the bitter 
 end against that rationalistic dream. But what now 
 must be said of the practical working of the orthodox 
 doctrine itSelf ? It rejects the rationalistic doctrine, for 
 it is impossible that God can forgive as a mere matter 
 of course. So it goes on to say that first the work and 
 sufferings of Christ provided a satisfaction for the justice 
 of God, and then this made it possible for Him to 
 forgive sinners. Thus the attempt is made to face the 
 fact that no sinner who is trying to be honest could by 
 any possibility regard God's forgiveness simply as a 
 matter of course. But then, even if a sinner whose 
 whole soul has been broken by the feeling of his moral 
 unworthiness should accept this orthodox doctrine, he 
 still remains precisely where the teaching of rationalism 
 would leave him. Even suppose the doctrine true, that 
 God can spare sinners the torments of hell because 
 Jesus suffered these in their stead, still, no sinner who 
 has become conscious of his need can draw from this 
 ability of God to forgive all men the only inference 
 that could relieve his own distress. He cannot say to 
 himself, " Since God can forgive all men, he actually 
 forgives me." 
 
 Now what has orthodox theology done to bridge 
 over the chasm between the universal possibility of 
 
1S4 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 forgiveness and that actual forgiveness of God which I 
 need ? It has proposed a doctrine of the " Plan of 
 Salvation " ; and in this we are told that various stages 
 of help by Divine Grace are needed to bring the sinner 
 to appropriate for himself that salvation which has been 
 objectively provided, namely, that deliverance of God 
 from the necessity of condemning us of which we are 
 told in the doctrine of the work of Christ. But even 
 this doctrine, again, may be true, and yet it will not 
 deliver any one who accepts it from his own moral need. 
 For the sinner will be constantly driven to ask himself 
 whether, after all, what it says, and what may really 
 happen with others, will actually come to pass in his 
 own case. Repeated assurances that he will get the 
 certainty, if he only faithfully adopts the doctrine and 
 seeks to live by it, do not help him at all. Any 
 Christian who has but a trace of earnest desire for life 
 will certainly not be put off with words like these 
 instead of food. He demands a fact which shall out- 
 weigh the fact of his inward feeling of condemnation. 
 Nothing can help him but a fact which shall speak to 
 him from an undeniable event, telling him that God 
 does forgive him, that is, forgives this particular man. 
 The orthodox theology has not opened the way for this 
 fact, but has blocked it. 
 
 It may well cause amazement to see pious men, who 
 are enthusiastic for their Protestant faith, who can be 
 nevertheless quite content with the orthodox doctrine of 
 the work of Christ and the " Plan of Salvation," although 
 these can by no means bring a sinner to what he needs 
 for his redemption, even if he resolve to accept them. 
 
CHRIST'S VICARIOUS SUFFERING 135 
 
 This would be still quite incomprehensible, even if these 
 men had never known Jesus from their Bibles. Their 
 love for Him, to which their hymns and lives bear 
 abundant witness, justifies us in thinking that, in spite 
 of their doctrine, they must have received their actual 
 proof of God's forgiveness from the fact that the inner 
 life of Jesus has confronted them as a real element in 
 history. 
 
 § 22. The Value of the Doctrine of the Substitutionary 
 Penal Suffermgs of Jesus. 
 On the other hand, it is quite right that men are 
 unwilling to let go the thought that redemption has 
 been won by the vicarious suffering of Christ. For 
 when once the believer has heard the message of God 
 to him in Christ, and sees therein that God's forgive- 
 ness has come to himself, his faith naturally conceives 
 that only through the fact of the moral Personality of 
 Jesus, made perfect through suffering, could God enter 
 once more into communion with men who have sinned. 
 Nay, more ; he says with a natural impulse, as he looks 
 back upon Jesus' work, " He suffers what we should 
 have suffered." Hence it might seem remarkable that 
 more is not said in the New Testament of this idea that 
 Christ bore our punishment. For the misery of our 
 feeling of guilt is ever being overcome in the knowledge 
 that the one Man through whom we have access to the 
 Father has, since He knew that nothing else would 
 avail, sacrificed Himself and so taken on Himself our 
 burden. In the fellowship that He established thus 
 with us, we become free, 
 
136 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 But everything is ruined if, instead of this, we adopt 
 the ecclesiastical dogma of satisfaction, and make the 
 idea of substitution the starting-point from which we are 
 to imderstatid Jesus, aiid the ground of our certainty of 
 the forgiveness of our sin. The man who has received 
 forgiveness through Christ will constantly experience 
 afresh that doubts arise from his sense of guilt, and seek 
 to rob him of this spiritual treasure. But if he has 
 truly found in Jesus a God who forgives him, then he 
 will also find help against the doubts of his evil con- 
 science by looking upon Jesus. He will see that while 
 Jesus dispensed forgiveness, He at the same time did 
 everything to establish the inviolable justice of God's 
 moral order. Now here is just where the doctrine of 
 the vicarious suffering of Jesus takes it rise : it is thus 
 that this thought is produced in the man who has 
 already received forgiveness from Jesus. It helps to 
 overcome the doubts which are always springing up 
 again as to the reality of the forgiveness which has been 
 experienced. But it is a strange misunderstanding to 
 imagine that it can serve to give certainty of forgiveness 
 to one who is not already redeemed. In such a man the 
 doctrine will only raise false conceptions of God if he 
 propose to follow it. If he follows such a suggestion, 
 he will conceive of God as a Being who cannot forgive 
 at all, but who can traffic with men in matters of 
 justice. 
 
LUTHER ON THE ATONEMENT 137 
 
 § 23. Luther's Criticism of the Thought of a 
 Substitutionary Satisfaction. 
 It is interesting to observe here how strongly Luther 
 felt that the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction does not 
 by any means serve to set forth that which procures the 
 sinner divine forgiveness. The doctrine has rather to 
 do with the thoughts that the evil conscience of the 
 sinner prompts concerning God's attitude towards him. 
 The doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction is intended to 
 express the, faith that these are overcome ; and so it 
 makes use of those ideas which an evil conscience would 
 employ in thinking of God's relation to a sinful man. 
 It teaches that Jesus wrought out precisely that which, 
 according to the verdict of an evil conscience, God must 
 demand from the sinner before He can forgive him. 
 And these ideas have their rightful place if they arise 
 in the mind of a man who has already received the for- 
 giveness of God through Christ. For they express his 
 experience that Christ alone protects him against all 
 the doubts as to the reality of forgiveness which arise 
 within him from his consciousness of guilt ; but they do 
 harm when they are supposed to express the only ground 
 for trust in God's forgiveness. In this latter case they 
 increase the illusion, so very convenient for the sinner, 
 that the strained relations between God and himself 
 can be set right by a kind of traffic in justice which the 
 reason can see through, and thus they conceal the truth 
 that this strained relationship can only be removed by 
 the act of forgiveness which is indeed an incomprehen- 
 
138 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 sible revelation of personal love. Luther saw all this 
 concerning the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction ; and 
 so, on the one hand, he supported and defended it as 
 one of the Church's precious jewels ; but, on the other, 
 he also pointed out its defect, namely, the application 
 of legal conceptions to the relations between God and 
 man. 
 
 The following utterance of Luther is very instructive 
 in this connection. It is taken from a sermon which 
 did not appear until the last issue of his Summer- 
 Postille, in 1543.* He says, "The whole Papacy has 
 had no better idea what to teach concerning Repent- 
 ance than that it consists of three parts, which they call 
 Remorse, Confession, and Satisfaction, and they are 
 unable to teach the people aright concerning any one 
 of these. And, itideed, as to the word ' satisfactio,^ satis- 
 faction, we have been wiUing to please them and let it pass 
 (in the hope that by gentleness we might bring them to 
 the true doctrine) ; yet on the understanding that it 
 means not our giving^ satisfaction but Chrisfs, namely, 
 that He pays for our sins by His own blood and death 
 and conciliates God. But since we have so often ex- 
 perienced hitherto, and still plainly see thab we cannot 
 win them at all by any gentleness, and that the longer 
 they live the more they will contradict the true doc- 
 trine, so we must strip ourselves clean of them, and 
 part from them, and have nothing more to do with the 
 words they have invented in their schools, with which 
 they now only seek to confirm their old error and lies. 
 Therefore, for our part, shall this word satisfaction 
 * Brlaugen edition, xi, 306, 
 
THE TERM "SATISFACTION" 139 
 
 continue no longer, and it shall be dead in our churches 
 and our theology, and it shall be handed over to the 
 judges and schools of the law, where it belongs, and 
 whence also the Papists took it." In these words it is 
 clearly declared that a satisfaction rendered to God for 
 the purpose of restoring His grace to the sinner does 
 not in the least concern the communion of man with 
 God ; that this idea came from law into theology 
 through the medium of the Catholic sacrament of 
 penance ; and, finally, that Luther had admitted it into 
 consideration in the doctrine of Atonement out of 
 friendly regard for the then prevailing mode of thought, 
 but that he had in view its entire repudiation.* Hence 
 we may clearly conclude that Luther saw, indeed, how 
 the idea of a satisfaction wrought by Christ had arisen 
 from an erroneous view of the relation of the sinner to 
 God ; but that he nevertheless used the idea, because 
 he wished to grapple with the most injurious error of 
 Rome on its own field of thought. He might, indeed, 
 have said that a man who has already received God's for- 
 giveness in another way does not need to trouble himself 
 as to the accuracy of such doctrinal ideas, which he him- 
 self had employed in common with the old church ; and 
 
 * H. Schultz, in his " Doctrine of the Deity of Christ " (" Die Lehre 
 von der Gottheit Christi," 1881), p. 194, says, with reference to this 
 passage, that Luther here rejects altogether the word satisfaction, and 
 yet only with regard to the doctrine of repentance. But the remark- 
 able feature of the passage appears to me to be that Luther here 
 rejects the word in the sense of the satisfaction wrought by Christ. 
 It is otherwise in xxiv. 86, where Luther says, in regard to the 
 mischief which the word has wrought as it is used in the Sacrament 
 of Penance : " For this reason, too, I am against the word ' satisfac- 
 tion,' and wish it had never arisen." 
 
140 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 yet the fact is that Luther did feel, and did say that he 
 felt, the incongruity of the juristic conceptions in which 
 that doctrine moves. 
 
 § 24. The Receiving of Forgiveness through Jesus. 
 
 According to Socinian and rationalistic teaching, 
 Christ simply proclaimed the forgiveness of sins ; ac- 
 cording to the orthodox doctrine, He made it possible ; 
 in truth He bestows it on us. In the first case, it is 
 enough to see in Jesus a man who proclaims a divine 
 truth. In the second case, it is sufficient that we con- 
 ceive of a Divine Being united with Jesus, and yet other 
 than Himself. But in the third case, forgiveness itself 
 only becomes ours when we actually behold God Him- 
 self in the Christ who is an indubitable fact for us. 
 The only way we can receive the forgiveness of God is 
 this, that He makes us feel the penalty of our sin, and 
 yet at the same time makes us notice the incompre- 
 hensible fact that He is seeking us and not giving us 
 up. If we are in earnest in our hope through Christ to 
 receive God's forgiveness we must, in the first place, not 
 ask for a doctrine concerning Him, but honestly try to 
 reflect about Him who is indeed an insistent and unde- 
 niable reality. For we cannot reckon up by the aid of 
 the notions of a system of doctrine that forgiveness 
 which is to be a work of God upon ourselves in our own 
 experience. Therefore, it is not of any importance that 
 we try to say the highest possible things regarding 
 Christ. We must leave such artifice alone and simply 
 be ready to hear what the tradition has to say to us 
 
THE EXPERIENCE OF FORGIVENESS 141 
 
 about Him. If there is nothing in it that takes hold of 
 our inner life as a reality, it is meaningless to ask any 
 further whether or how Christ mediates to us God's 
 forgiveness of sins. 
 
 - What touches particular men who come in contact 
 with the tradition about Christ, as being real, naturally 
 varies in each diflFerent case. For in order not to lose 
 connection with the Redeemer, each man can hold only 
 to what shows itself to him as an undeniable reality. 
 For if there is any redemption for him at all in his inner 
 life it can surely be expected only from something 
 that can appear in this inner life as something real. 
 Anything that has not the strength to force its way 
 into this inner world of consciousness as an undeniable 
 reality is not in a position to constitute with this inner 
 world the fulcrum of a new life. 
 
 In the second place, we can say that Christ bestows 
 on us the forgiveness of God only if he acts on us as the 
 revelation of God that conquers every doubt and thus 
 lets us feel that God is seeking us in spite of our sin. 
 The forgiveness of God is not a demonstrable doctrine, 
 still less an idea that can be appropriated by an act of 
 will. It is a religious experience. It must stand before 
 us as an incomprehensible reality that the same fact that 
 increased our grief for our unfaithfulness and weakness 
 of will nevertheless is also preceptible to us as a word of 
 God convincing us that He has reached down to us. 
 The appearance of Jesus can become for us this expres- 
 sion of God's forgiveness as soon as we perceive in Him, 
 as nowhere else, the nearness of God. It is not through 
 long-winded dogmatic reflections that we reach the 
 
142 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 thought that we receive the forgiveness of sins through 
 Jesus, but that comes into our consciousness as soon as we 
 understand religiously, or lay hold of as a work of God 
 upon us, the facb that the Being of this Man is part 
 of our sphere of existence. For then His death, as 
 He bore it and as He expounded it in words at the 
 Last Supper, becomes to us the word of God that 
 overcomes our feeling of guilt. The God who comes 
 near us in Christ reconciles us with Himself by that 
 death. 
 
 Our yearning to meet a personal life that shall resolve 
 every element of separation between us and it into pure 
 trust, and thus give our spirits a home, is the longing 
 for the living God. But we find it satisfied in Jesus in 
 every moment when the recollection of Him takes away 
 our fear of the abyss and delivers us from the confusion 
 and perplexity of the evil conscience. Then vanishes 
 from the depths of our souls the isolation in which 
 all our experiences were wont to culminate. We 
 are no longer forsaken. The personal life of Jesus 
 through its track in history reveals itself to us in 
 its power. 
 
 § 25. The True Idea of the Deity of Christ and 
 
 Christohgical Dogma. 
 
 Thus, in the work which Chi'ist does upon us, we get 
 
 a view of His Person which can only be rightly expressed 
 
 in the confession of His Deity.* We come to understand 
 
 • Of. Luther, Erlangen edition, xvii. 265 : " The man now who so 
 knows Christ that Christ has taken away from him all his sin, death 
 and devil, freely through His suffering, he has truly recognised Christ 
 
GOD IN CHRIST 143 
 
 Jesus to be the divine act of forgiveness, or, in other 
 words, we see Him to be the message through which 
 God comes into communion with us ; and so we recognise 
 in His human appearance God Himself drawing us to 
 Himself.* This thought, that when the historical 
 Christ takes such hold of us, we have to do with God 
 Himself — this thought is certainly the most important 
 element in the confession of the Deity of Christ for 
 any one whom He has redeemed. We do not reach this 
 thought by way of a logical conclusion from that which 
 we have experienced at the hands of Christ ; but the 
 experience itself is such when we confess His Deity we 
 simply give Him His right name. In what Jesus does 
 to us, we grasp the expression God gives us of His 
 feeling towards us, or God Himself as a Personal Spirit 
 working upon us. This is the form in which every 
 man who has been reconciled to God through Christ 
 necessarily confesses His Deity, even although he may 
 decline to adopt the formula. 
 
 as a Son of God." Qf. 1., 173 : " But since no one can give eternal 
 life but God alone it follows inevitably that Christ must be truly and 
 naturally God," "Worthy of notice, too, is the expression in xlvii. 6, 
 where Luther says it is an essentialis definitio, to believe that Christ 
 bestows eternal life. Another remarkable passage occurs in xlii. 6, 
 where Luther says that if we believe that Christ gives eternal life, 
 that is an essentialis definitio, a definition of His nature. 
 
 * Cf. Luther, Erlangen edition, xx. I., 161: "When I thus 
 imagine Christ, then do I picture Him truly and properly, I grasp and 
 have the true Christ as He pictures Himself ; and then I let go 
 utterly all thoughts and speculations concerning the Divine Majesty 
 and glory, and hang and cling to the humanity of Christ ; then there 
 is no fear there, but only friendliness and joy, and I learn thus 
 through Him to know the Father. Thus arises such a light and 
 knowledge within me that I know certainly what God is, and what 
 is His mind," 
 
144 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 What the Christian has in Christ, namely, that God 
 turns to him and is accessible to him is simply summed 
 up in the confession of His Deity. Hence it is impossible 
 that this confession should ever vanish from the Christian 
 Church. But the same words, by which faith confesses 
 that it finds God in Jesus, as its highest good, may also 
 be used in an entirely opposite sense. Indeed, we cannot 
 grasp the true meaning of the confession of the Deity of 
 Christ at all unless we let that work take place upon us 
 which God effects through Jesus in the soul of every 
 man who comes to himself. But we may, of course, have 
 a confession of the Deity of Christ that spares us this 
 experience with all its inward travail. This is the case 
 when we content ourselves with assuming that behind 
 the human life of Jesus, and in wonderful combination 
 with it, there stands the substance of the Deity, from 
 whose presence we may argue that the work and suiFerings 
 of Christ possess redeeming power. Certainly it is 
 not comprehensible how any one desires to make this 
 assumption with inward truthfulness if he expressly 
 excludes the idea that we must experience the redeeming 
 power of God through the influence of the personal life 
 of the Man Jesus. But how easily all that is overlooked 
 by any one who regards it as of importance, for some 
 other reason, to adopt the Christian confession ! We 
 shall see in the next chapter what sort of a soul a 
 man must have who repeats a confession that is not his 
 own, and asserts as a fact something which he has not 
 found to be such. Our aim here is to show that such 
 a conception of the Deity of Christ conceals from us 
 what God desires to give us through Jesus. 
 
CHRISTOLOGICAL DOGMA 145 
 
 This conception, against which we are thus complain- 
 ing, is the conception found in the old dogma of the 
 Roman Catholic Church. But does not our Church also 
 teach the same? It is a fact that the Reformation 
 effected no change in this respect. Consequently, 
 Protestant theology has done little to show the Pro- 
 testant Christian that he cannot live on that conception 
 of the old church. It is true that rationalistic criticism 
 has not failed to point out the contradictions involved 
 in the old Christological dogma. But this has had an 
 effect similar to that which the intellectual revival in 
 Prussia, known as the " Kulturkampf," had on the 
 Romish Church. Criticism has not destroyed these 
 relics of a bygone form of Christianity, but has given 
 them a new lease of life. For that criticism denied 
 altogether the truth of the Deity of Christ, and so 
 caused all those forces of faith which tend towards this 
 idea to stream together in support of the ancient dogma 
 which, at least, supports that truth. In laying bare 
 the fatal inconsistency in the doctrine of the two natures 
 in Christ, rationalistic criticism gives that doctrine the 
 benefit of a support that helps indeed all thoughts that 
 spring out of faith, namely this, that every such thought 
 must seem utterly unreasonable to a non-religious 
 thinker, unless it be deprived of its essential meaning. 
 In the " Kulturkampf" of eighteeth-century lUuminism 
 the reaction against dogma was carried on with an honest 
 desire for truth, but also with an astounding lack of 
 effort to understand the nature of the thinking that 
 springs from faith. The severity of that criticism has 
 therefore given the orthodoxy of the Protestant people 
 
146 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 and their leaders a similar look to that which the 
 Prassian " Kulturkampf " has left behind in Catholic 
 circles, for we find in both, on the one hand an earnest 
 religious exaltation of tone, and on the other a deaden- 
 ing of the sense for truth and a certain primitive 
 roughness of party spirit. 
 
 It is no part of our task here to try to mediate 
 between rationalistic criticism and the popular ortho- 
 doxy which it has angered and thrown into confusion. 
 No abatement of hostility is possible. Each party 
 requires the opposite side to fight against in order to 
 justify its own existence. We must rather try to bring 
 the opponents away to quite another ground, and to 
 interest them in questions which cannot possibly receive 
 consideration amid their party strifes. In this under- 
 taking Luther can give us help. 
 
 § 26. Luther's Attitude to Christologicdl Dogma. 
 In Luther's position in regard to the Chi-istological 
 question nothing is so conspicuous as his enthusiastic 
 loyalty to the old dogma. To adduce quotations from 
 Luther''s works in support of this statement would be 
 quite superfluous. What A. Hamack has stated in detail 
 on the matter is quite true, namely, that of that 
 generation of theologians among whom Luther stands 
 out supreme, none treated the old church dogma so 
 seriously as Luther. To others that dogma had become 
 a sacred relic, honoured indeed, but having no higher 
 significance for the inner life than that of a point of 
 attachment to which an arbitrary and imperious fancy 
 
ACTUAL COMMUNION THROUGH JESUS 147 
 
 could link whatever activities or consequences and 
 requirements it chose. To Luther, on the contrary, 
 the dogma expressed what his faith had actually found 
 in Christ, namely, redemption from trouble and sin. 
 But while Luther read the old dogma in this sense, 
 he combined with it thoughts of which neither its 
 authors nor those who used it after them, had any 
 conception. 
 
 These thoughts arose in Luther's mind of necessity, 
 because his view of the salvation which Christ brought 
 us was different from that of the old church. He 
 sought and saw in the Person of Jesus the fact that 
 God was looking upon him with love, and was over- 
 coming him ; the same God, from whom he had felt 
 separated by his own sin, and whose power, at last, had 
 been utterly hidden from him by the sense of his own 
 miserable condition. The authors of the old church 
 dogma never saw these things in the Person of Jesus ; 
 and numberless Christians, even in our own Church, who 
 cherish the same way of thinking, never make that 
 discovery. They believe that the Person of Jesus gives 
 them something quite different, namely, nothing but 
 the certainty that blessedness is possible to them in the 
 futiu-e, or, at most, the certainty that a communion 
 with God could now be resumed. This is clearly some- 
 thing less than Luther had from Christ. When a fact 
 that has become part of a man's own life is to that man 
 a communion between God and his own soul, a com- 
 munion that he had never hitherto had any conception 
 of, then that man has something quite different from a 
 mere doctrine that he may now be certain of the 
 
148 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 possibility of finding God once more. It is also evident 
 that only in the former case the man gets something 
 from Christ which can be possessed only in the form 
 of a purely religious experience ; something, therefore, 
 that can have no existence except for faith. For the 
 idea that the conditions have been fulfilled whereby 
 mankind may hold communion with God, can be 
 established equally well by philosophical arguments 
 which can be grasped even by those who are 
 complete unbelievers. Just as little can it be gain-- 
 said that we come into the most intimate relation to 
 the Person of Jesus when we are able to recognise the 
 approach of God to us in the power with which 
 the personal life of Jesus draws us upwards towards 
 God. On the other hand, the Person of Jesus recedes 
 in interest from us when we see in the Divine Nature 
 united with that Person merely the fulfilment of the 
 condition required if fellowship with God is to be 
 possible to us. The man who gets no further than this 
 has certainly an undefined idea of a Divine Nature, 
 whose entrance into humanity appears to him to be the 
 basis of salvation ; but when he thinks of what moved 
 the soul of Jesus, he cannot make use of it as 
 anything more than an example. He cannot rest 
 his hopes of life upon it, for that alone is a foundation 
 of salvation for ourselves, which works in the inner 
 pi'ocess of our rise to the God Who is a power actually 
 saving us. 
 
 Hence the attitude towards Jesus which Luther 
 consciously held marks a step forward in the development 
 of the Christian religion. We move forward in our 
 
DOCTRINE OF CHRIST'S PERSON 149 
 
 Christianity only when the Person of Jesus gains a 
 higher and more comprehensive significance for our own 
 way of feeling and thinking, and when our thought 
 concerning our faith finds expression in terms which 
 must seem meaningless to one who has not this faith, 
 and which in his mouth would be untrue. 
 
 Among those new thoughts which Luther consequently 
 combined with the confession of the Deity of Christ, 
 may also be counted his well-known demand that the 
 two natures in Christ of which the dogma speaks must 
 be regarded as more closely united than men usually 
 consider them. The usual view was a mistake, Luther 
 declared, into which not only heretics but the " highest 
 theologians" fell. He confesses that he himself 
 formerly thought, to quote his own words, "I did well 
 to distinguish the Deity and humanity of Christ one 
 from the other."* A man who stood towards Christ 
 as Luther did, and who, at the same time, held by the 
 formula of the " two natures," was necessarily driven to 
 advance at least to the demand mentioned above. He 
 was obliged to protest against every Christology 
 " which thinks of the Deity and the humanity in 
 Christ as being so externally united that we may 
 look at the one apart from the other." t But 
 Luther's endeavours to bring the two ideas of a 
 divine and a human nature into closer union were in 
 vain.J It could not be otherwise. Luther was thinking 
 of the marvellous experience of faith, namely, the fact 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xlvii. 362. 
 
 •f Of. H. Schultz, "The Doctrineof the Deity of Christ," 1881, p. 201. 
 J Cf. J. Kostlin, " The Theology of Luther," 1863 ; ii. 398 j and 
 H. Schultz, in the volume quoted, p. 204. 
 
160 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that Jesus compels us to see in Him God redeeming us ; 
 and this experience cannot be expressed by anything 
 that our thinking can make out of the two ideas of a 
 divine and a human nature. If such an expression were 
 possible, then we should have to be able to see to the 
 bottom of a mystery which in reality we can only 
 experience as fact. So long as the Church had not 
 come to see that redemption lies just here, namely, in 
 one's own experience of the power which the Person of 
 Jesus has over the soul, so long was it natural that 
 men's minds should busy themselves with these two ideas. 
 Constant pleasure in the effort to form some more 
 suitable conception of the relation between the two 
 natures gave a cei-tain satisfaction to thought, and 
 concealed the damaging defect that men did not 
 rightly grasp the reality of the fact about the possibility 
 of which they were reflecting. Even the con- 
 stantly evident fruitlessness of these attempts had a 
 high value in the circumstances, for it kept alive the 
 impression that here men had to do with an unfathom- 
 able mystery. Luther, on the contrary, had grasped 
 the new thought whose position reveals the worthlessness 
 of all this painful delving in a barren soil. And yet it 
 was one of the marks of his significance as a reformer 
 that he clothed the new thought in the forms of the 
 old, and so he bequeathed it as a hidden germ to those 
 generations which should only wean themselves by long 
 mental exercise from the forms of thought employed by 
 the ancient church. 
 
 What Luther found in the Person of Jesus cannot be 
 fully expressed in the forms of the old dogma, for 
 
LUTHER MAINTAINS CHRIST'S DEITY J 51 
 
 he had found the Personal God who, in the human 
 life of Jesus, turns towards those who are overpowered 
 by Jesus' spiritual force. This experience is not so 
 much expressed as concealed by the formula that com- 
 bines a divine nature with the human nature of Jesus. 
 None the less does the new element in Luther's faith 
 press to the front and find clear expression in his 
 innumerable descriptions of what the believer means 
 by the Deity of Christ. It goes without saying that 
 the Deity of Christ was for Luther as much as for 
 Athanasius the basis of his salvation. He writes "now 
 if Deity be wanting in Christ, there is no help or 
 deliverance for us against God's anger and judgments."* 
 Again, " We must have a Saviour who is more than a 
 saint or an angel, for if He were not more, better and 
 greater than these, then there were no helping us. But 
 if He is God, then is the treasure so weighty that it 
 outweighs and lifts away sin and death ; and not only 
 this, but also gives the eternal life. This is our 
 Christian faith, and therefore do we rightly confess : ' I 
 believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who 
 was born of Mary, suffered and died.' By this faith 
 hold thou fast, and let heathen and heretic be never 
 so wise, thou shalt be blessed." t Again, "We 
 Christians need to know this : if God be not with us in 
 the balance, and He do not give the weightiness, then 
 we sink with our little scale to the ground. Hereby 
 do I mean to say, that if it could not be held that God 
 died for us, but only a man, then we are lost." J In 
 view of such words as these, which might be multiplied 
 * Erlangen edition, xlv. 315. f iW. xlvii. 3-4. J 76i<?. xxv, 312/. 
 
152 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 without difficulty, it would be strange if any one should 
 doubt that Luther rested his confidence in God on the 
 Deity of Christ. But it is equally true that Luther 
 had a richer conception of Christ's Deity than was 
 expressed in the dogma of the elder church, as may be 
 seen from the three considerations which follow. 
 
 In the first place, Luther does not content himself 
 with the theory that there was a divine nature in Christ, 
 giving to Jesus' human work the weight necessary for 
 our redemption. In a sermon on John xiv. 23-31, 
 which was not published until the last edition of the 
 summer series for 1543 we read as follows : " For the 
 devil can bear it if men cling to the man Christ and go 
 no further ; yea, he will also let us speak and hear the 
 word that Christ is truly God. But then he will not 
 have it that a heart be able to connect Christ and the 
 Father so closely and inseparably that it shall count His 
 word and His Father's to be one word, heart and will. 
 Just as darkened hearts do think and say : Yes, I hear 
 indeed with what friendliness and comfort Christ speaks 
 to the troubled conscience, but who knows how it 
 stands between me and God in Heaven .'' That means, 
 then, that the heart has not counted God and Christ 
 all one, but has made for itself a Christ apart by 
 Himself and a God apart from Himself, and has bartered 
 away the true God, who wills to be found and laid hold 
 of nowhere save in this Christ." * Here Luther is speak- 
 ing of such as do indeed confess that Christ is truly God, 
 but are nevertheless unable to take comfort from the 
 friendliness of the Man Jesus. With such a confession 
 of the Deity of Christ, he says, men remain a prey to 
 * Erlangen edition, xii. 324. 
 
CHRIST ONE WITH GOD 15S 
 
 the devil.* But, on the other hand, he believes that 
 those are taken out of the power of the devil who 
 are able to hear, from the friendly words of Jesus, 
 how it stands between them and God in Heaven. 
 Such souls do not distinguish between the mind and 
 
 * It has been said by " Lutherans " {see Th. Meinhold's book 
 entitled "The Holy Spirit and His work upon Individuals," 1890, 
 p. 1721) that the doctrine of the " two natures " is not made super- 
 fluous for Christian faith by the fact that the devil does not oppose 
 it. For, say they, the devils believe in God, but we should certainly 
 not wish to assert that therefore the belief in God is superfluous for 
 the Christian. To this we reply that in any case the Christian does 
 not need such faith in God as the devils may possess, or, rather, 
 ought not to have such a faith. The Christian's faith in God means 
 that, convinced by the revelation of God, he knows that he is sur- 
 rounded by an Almighty love. And on this point any modern 
 Lutheran may be convinced by Luther's Greater Catechism. 
 Christian life simply is the constant victorious wrestling for this 
 certainty. In such a strife the devil's faith, whatever it may be, can 
 by no means help us, for the devils, with their sort of faith, never 
 attain to the knowledge of God in His full reality, because the Father 
 does not draw them to the Son. They must surely conceive of God 
 as a violent and therefore diabolical Being, against whom they delight 
 to rebel. Luther doubtless meant by these words of his that the 
 thought expressed in the doctrine of the two natures, or the Church 
 dogma of the Person of the God-man, is not able of itself to be the 
 basis of the inner life of the redeemed. That bliss is wrought alone 
 by the knowledge that in the inner life of Jesus we grasp the very 
 mind of God Himself as love poured out upon us. This knowledge 
 was certainly not expressed in the dogma, as we well know. Of 
 course, Luther did connect the two, the dogma and this know- 
 ledge, as I willingly grant my opponent, but the question is whether 
 that redeeming knowledge is to be obtained only when we have first 
 professed faith in the Church dogma. This will be affirmed by every 
 one who is tied to that Catholic kind of faith which does not trust in 
 the redeeming power of the Man Jesus, who conquers the sinner's 
 heart, but, on the contrary, ascribes redeeming power to doctrines 
 which any man can appropriate without ever having his heart 
 renewed. We deny this, for our redemption rests on the fact that we 
 find God in the Man- Jesus. 
 
154 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 will of God on the one hand, and the message of the 
 inner life of Christ on the other, because just in the 
 latter do they find God letting them see His heart. 
 Now, if the confession of the Deity of Christ is to have 
 any meaning at all, it is clear that it must in any case 
 mean that we connect God in our thought with the Man 
 Jesus. But Luther is not satisfied with simply thinking 
 of a divine nature as bound up with the human nature 
 of Jesus after the fashion which the Church dogma 
 supposes. That is indeed a connection of God with Jesus, 
 but it is such a connection that it is quite possible to 
 distinguish between God on the one hand, and the 
 personal life of the Man Jesus on the other. Luther 
 was conscious of something different from this : he felt 
 that precisely in the revelation of the inner life of Jesus 
 he had found God working upon him, and disclosing to 
 him ail the divine Mind. In this experience he knew 
 himself redeemed ; but he knew also that God will not 
 let Himself be found in any other way, and so he 
 believed that we miss the true God altogether if we 
 understand by the Divine Being anything else than 
 that Personal Will which works upon us in and from 
 the appearance of the Man Jesus. 
 
 Luther's mind is that when a man finds and grasps 
 the speaking and acting of the Father in the Person of 
 Christ, as that Christ reveals Himself in word and will, 
 then that man has in himself the marks of redemption. 
 Does the older dogmatic doctrine of the two natures 
 lead us to grasp the Person of the Father in the dispo- 
 sition which Jesus manifested towards men ? Surely it 
 rather prompts us to distinguish all Jesus' words and 
 deeds on the one hand from the divine nature on the 
 
LUTHER SOMETIMES A SCHOLASTIC 155 
 
 other hand, which alone gave to those their effectual 
 value. It is the direct opposite of what Luther expressly 
 demanded ; hence our assertion is correct that Luther, in 
 these and similar utterances, rises above that conception 
 of Christ's Deity which the dogma expresses. We will 
 not dispute that Luther often does use the confession in 
 the old dogmatic sense, and that in true Catholic fashion 
 he describes assent to it as a condition of redemption, but 
 we deny that Luther never rose above that position, 
 
 Luther's discussions of the Deity of Christ do not 
 always bring to the front this main principle on which 
 the truly Christian meaning of the idea depends. He 
 speaks, as a rule, rather of the confession of Christ's 
 Deity as the sum of all that a Christian believes with- 
 out emphasising that momentous significance of the 
 idea. But if any one refuses to gi-ant that for Luther 
 the great matter was that he found God in the Man 
 Jesus, then he must have expressly determined not 
 to see it. To show this, let the question simply be 
 asked whether it is likely that such a man as Athanasius 
 could have written the following words : " This is the 
 first principle and most excellent article, how Christ is 
 in the Father: that we are to have no doubt that 
 whatsoever that man says and does is counted and must 
 be counted said and done, in Heaven, for all angels ; in 
 the world, for all rulers ; in hell, for all devils ; in the 
 heart, for every evil conscience and all secret thoughts. 
 For if we are certain of this -. that what He thinks, 
 speaks, and wills the Father also wills, then I can defy 
 all that may fight and rage at me. For here in Christ 
 I have the Father's heart and will."* According to the 
 * Brlangen edition, xlix. 183, 184. 
 
166 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 conception of Athanasius, the fact which procures 
 salvation is the union of the divine and human natui-es 
 in the Person of Christ ; and Luther certainly did not 
 give up that view, but he deepened it and perfected it. 
 For he did not speak simply of divine nature in general, 
 but he spoke out his own experience, to wit, that the 
 personal life of Jesus gave him a certainty of God and 
 a vision of the divine nature, and that we have God 
 before our eyes and in our hearts only when the mind 
 and will of Jesus lay hold of our hearts, and we under- 
 stand them to be the power that is greater than all the 
 powers of evil. Luther got beyond the indefinite 
 thought that with the entrance of Jesus into the world 
 the Divine Essence came into the most intimate union 
 with the human race, or with human nature. He bids 
 any and every individual soul experience for itself that 
 in the Person of Jesus the Personal God Himself is 
 exerting His love and His creative power upon such 
 particular individual. Of course, the thought which 
 the old church dogma expresses may be inferred as a 
 derivative corollary from this experience. For let any 
 one stand in such a relation towards Jesus that the 
 reality of this Man in history touches him as the 
 redeeming action of the Personal God upon his own 
 soul, then such an one cannot help thinking that thfe 
 divine and the human nature are united in Jesus in 
 spite of the contrast between them. And there may 
 also spring from this fact the impulse to reflect upon 
 the way in which the union was accomplished. Luther 
 did not indeed think much of this tendency to reflection, 
 for he says : " As for the man who will not hold fast 
 
UNITY OF CHRIST'S PERSON 157 
 
 by the Word, but wants to be subtle and to reckon up 
 how it can sound correct that God and man are one 
 Person — let him go on and be subtle and reckon up, 
 and see what he gains by it. How many a man has 
 become a fool by all this ! " * 
 
 Perhaps Luther himself is not wholly free from 
 blame for the fact that the tendency he thus tersely 
 describes has grown apace even in the Protestant 
 Church, and has matured such fancies as the modern 
 theory of Kenosis. And yet even his doctrine of the 
 Incarnation had far richer contents than that of the 
 Greek theologians had, who meditated upon the 
 possibility of a union between the divine and human 
 natures, and formulated their dogma as the norm for 
 those speculations. Luther was fully conscious that 
 the knowledge which he had won was far superior to 
 that less definite knowledge on which the dogma is 
 based; he says of the Popish Church, that although she 
 had loyally preserved the dogma, she never imagined 
 "that we ought to learn to recognise God in Christ.""^ 
 Those Christological heretics against whom the old 
 church had fought were by no means the worst of 
 heretics in Luther's eyes. He thought that rather to 
 be the worst heresy which distinguishes between the 
 disposition of God and that of Christ." % 
 
 The second point wherein Luther's idea of the Deity 
 of Christ is richer than that of the old dogma is the 
 following : Luther, as every one will admit, repeatedly 
 emphasised the fact that then only do we believe in 
 
 * Eriangen edition, xix. 15. t ^^^- ^'i^- 126. 
 X Ibid. 1. 197, 198. 
 
158 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Christ when we base all our confidence on Him, and so 
 live throuffh Him. He saw and said that " to believe 
 in Christ does not mean to believe that Christ is a 
 Person who is both God and man, for that helps 
 nobody."* This sentence does not mean, of course, 
 that to Luther the union of the divine with the human 
 nature in the Person of Jesus was useless. For, indeed, 
 he held rather the conviction that when we behold that 
 union sis a fact, we no longer live without God in the 
 world, but are redeemed. Luther can only have meant 
 that there is a kind of belief in that union which is 
 worthless. Now what are we to understand thereby ? 
 We might take him to mean that a Christian must 
 believe, not only in this, but in something else in 
 addition, and Luther himself gives occasion for such a 
 conclusion. In the very passage just quoted he con- 
 tinues : " But that the same Person is Christ, that is, 
 that for our sakes He came forth from God, entered 
 into the world, left the world again, and went back to 
 the Father, this is as much as to say : herein is His 
 Christhood, that for us He became a man and died, rose 
 again and ascended into Heaven ; by reason of such 
 office He is called Jesus Christ ; and to believe con- 
 cerning Him that such is true, is to be and to remain 
 in His name." Here it seems to be clearly stated that 
 in addition to believing that Christ is a Person who is 
 both divine and human, we must also believe that " the 
 same Person" fulfilled His office for our sakes. And 
 yet, however often Luther may give us occasion to 
 suppose this to be his meaning, his idea cannot have 
 * Erlangen edition, zii. 163. 
 
CHRIST'S WORK ONE WITH HIS PERSON 159 
 
 been entirely this. Eor if the right belief in the Deity 
 of Christ needed such a supplement, then that belief 
 could not be the actual laying hold of the God who is 
 working upon us to our salvation, and this is what it was 
 in Luther's opinion. Just hecause Luther thought so 
 highly of belief in the Deity of Christ, he camnot have 
 thought it needed supplementing in any such external 
 manner. Again, this is impossible also for the further 
 reason that when Luther expressed his faith in the 
 Deity of Christ, he did not find it needful to add to the 
 thought of the Person of Christ any special reference to 
 His work. The Person of Jesus meant to him the 
 mind and will of God turned towards himself, and this 
 is visible to us only in the historical work of Jesus, i.e., 
 in His " office." That Luther, nevertheless, did appear 
 to demand trust in the work of Jesus as something 
 special apart from which faith in the union of the two 
 natures in the Person of Christ was of no avail is 
 explained simply by this, that there is a faith in the Deity 
 of Christ which by its very character excludes a redeeming 
 trust in the fact of Jesus' work. In attacking this kind 
 of faith in Christ's Deity, Luther emphasises this char- 
 acteristic of it, that it lacks the trust in the historical 
 work of Christ as the redeeming act of God. But from 
 this it does not follow that Luther always held those 
 two things apart in this way : first the faith in the 
 Deity of Christ, and then trust in the work that He 
 accomplished. He certainly does that often enough 
 when he is simply proceeding on the lines of the concep- 
 tions bound up with the old dogma. But it is not so 
 easy to follow him here. For one is not yet in agreement 
 
160 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 with him simply by being ready to conceive that Deity 
 and humanity are united in the Person of Jesus because 
 others have so taught, and then in the second place by 
 resolving to trust in the work of this Person. 
 
 It is not permissible to pass so easily over a point 
 that marks for Luther the most profound inward 
 experience. Luther demands trust in the work of 
 Christ. But how does this trust in Christ come to exist 
 which frees man from himself and from his need. Many 
 imagine it is by resolving to think that a divine nature 
 is present in Christ along with his human nature, and 
 then adding to this an additional resolution to have 
 confidence that the work of this Man has redeemed the 
 sinner. They even venture to assert that this disposi- 
 tion of theirs, which they have brought about by theirown 
 resolutions,has been wrought in them by the Holy Spirit. 
 Now Luther directly refuses to have anything to do with 
 so empty and untruthful an undertaking, and this, thank 
 God, we may know for certain. We have only to watch 
 what Luther understands by that trust in Christ and in 
 His work without which belief in Christ's Deity is to him 
 worthless. Trust in Christ means to Luther the actual 
 experience of redemption. And it can have that same 
 meaning to us only when it is accomplished by no 
 undertaking of ours, but is created in us because the 
 Man Jesus has made us feel the power and grace of God 
 turned towards us. In such case we experience the rise 
 of this confidence as a transplanting into a new exist- 
 ence ; and then only does it follow that we give up all 
 attempts to win satisfaction by our own activity for 
 our craving for fellowship with God. Luther counted 
 
A CREED MAY BE USELESS 161 
 
 that the readiness to give up all such attempts was the 
 real evidence of right faith in the Deity of Christ. 
 
 In a sermon on Matt. vii. 15-23, which Enders con- 
 jectures to have been delivered on May 1, 1525, in the 
 church at Wallhausen, Luther contrasts the faith 
 in the Deity of Christ which redeems with that faith 
 which the devil is quite willing to see ; he says : 
 " There are many of you who say, ' Christ is a man 
 of this kind : He is God's Son, was born of a pure 
 virgin, became man, died, rose again from the dead,' 
 and so forth ; that is all nothing. But when we truly 
 say that He is Christ, we mean that He was given for 
 us without any works of ours, that without any merits 
 of ours He has won for us the Spirit of God, and has 
 made us children of God ; so that we might have a 
 gracious God, might with Him become lords over all 
 things in heaven and on earth, and, besides, might have 
 eternal life through Christ — that is faith, and that is 
 true knowledge of Christ,'''' * He speaks of a confession 
 of the Deity of Christ which does not mean a confession 
 that we have eternal life through Him, and he says that 
 this is the sheep's clothing of the false prophets. Such 
 a confession, he declares, is suffered by the devil and 
 practised by the Pope. He contrasts with this what it 
 really means to know Christ truly; and without any 
 doubt we may take it that by true knowledge of Him 
 he means the knowledge of His Deity. To him, then, 
 true knowledge of the Deity of Christ is identical with 
 the certainty that through Christ we have a gracious 
 God, that we are lords over all tilings, and that we 
 * Erlangen edition, ziii. 261-2. 
 
 L 
 
162 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 have eternal life. Then in what follows he goes on to 
 concentrate this great truth in the proposition that 
 only then do we possess true knowledge of Christ, i.e., 
 of the Deity of Christ, when we are entirely delivered 
 by Christ from all desire to gain fellowship with God 
 by our own works. He is well aware that the Pope 
 knows how to teach beautifully concerning the work of 
 Christ, and of how eternal life has been procured for us 
 thereby ; but he thinks, on the other hand, and rightly, 
 too, that when Christ has brought a man so far that in 
 his craving for fellowship with God he relies no longer 
 on his own works, but on that alone which he finds in 
 Christ, then that man has the true knowledge of 
 Christ. For in reality we do so rely upon Christ when 
 we find for ourselves in Him the Personal God who 
 reveals to us His own inner self, and when we so 
 experience God's coming into communion with us. 
 Until we reach the true knowledge of Christ, we shall 
 of necessity be always trying of ourselves to find some 
 way of securing fellowship with God. 
 
 This richer conception of the Deity of Christ which 
 Luther attained, stands thus inseparably connected with 
 the newly-gained comprehension of justification by faith 
 alone. The one is impossible without the other. When 
 we think it our duty to confess the Deity of Christ be- 
 fore we have found in the Man Jesus the God who 
 redeems us, we are attempting to base our soul's happi- 
 ness on our own work, and must therefore deny the 
 truth of Luther's doctrine of justification. It is indeed 
 utterly impossible to make that doctrine clear to a man 
 who has not found the communion of God with his soul 
 
CREED MUST REST ON EXPERIENCE 163 
 
 in what he experiences at the hands of Jesus ; but the 
 most complete departure from that doctrine takes place 
 when, in order to secure salvation, a man puts on the 
 sheep's clothing of the false prophets, or, in other words, 
 professes to believe in the Deity of Christ before he has 
 found redemption in the Man Jesus. In the passage 
 above quoted, Luther concludes by saying : " Where- 
 fore I warn you once more, and bethink yourselves of it 
 when I am dead, that you look well to their doctrine 
 whether they preach Christ aright ; that is, whether 
 they do not attempt to do some of God's own work 
 instead of Him." * The present leaders in the Protestant 
 Church, on the contrary, seem intent on nothing so much 
 as to insist that they must " attempt to do some of God's 
 work for Him^ namely, must prepare a co7ifession of 
 the Deity of Christ, which is to be subscribed in order that 
 we may be saved. But Luther's Reformation doctrines 
 only countenance such a confession of the Deity of 
 Christ as springs naturally to the lips of the man whom 
 Jesus has already made blessed. 
 
 The third point of superiority of Luther's view over 
 the old dogma is this : In Luther's time all who claimed 
 to be Christians confessed the Deity of Christ as matter 
 of course, much in the same way as nowadays most of us 
 agree in believing that the earth revolves round the sun ; 
 and Luther himself usually employed the forms of ex- 
 pression which really belonged to this customary belief 
 in the Deity of Christ. Hence the fact is the more 
 surprising that he, nevertheless, could raise and answer 
 rightly the question as to how belief in the Deity of 
 ♦ Erlangen edition, xiil, 253. 
 
164 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Christ arises. Those who believe in the Deity of Christ 
 as a matter of custom never ask this question ; they 
 simply say over to themselves the original doctrine, which 
 it never occurs to them to dispute. Whoever did not 
 agi'ee with it would be making " shipwreck of the faith." 
 Now, as a rule, Luther's method, too, is simply to quote 
 the texts which, according to traditional exposition, 
 testify to the Deity of Christ, to set them together, with 
 the teaching of the fathers alongside of them, and then 
 to infer from these the doctrine that Christ was very man 
 and very God in one. But these discussions of his are 
 frequently interspersed with traces of his new recognition 
 that the Deity of Christ means more to a believer than 
 the mere presence of divine substance in Jesus. And 
 sometimes Luther goes into the question as to how that 
 belief in the Deity of Christ arises which is not simply 
 an easy assent to traditional doctrine, but is a wonderful 
 experience that entirely regenerates a man. When he 
 does this, he always gives an answer which confirms our 
 view of his new conception of the Deity of Christ. 
 
 If the Deity of Christ does not simply mean that a 
 divine substance underlies the human life of Jesus, but 
 that the personal God Himself turns towards sinners 
 and opens His heart to them in that human life, then 
 belief in Christ's Deity can only arise out of that which 
 the Man Jesus brings about within us. We might easily 
 be persuaded to suppose that a divine substance was 
 bound up with the Man Jesus, and in any case we might 
 be persuaded of this without troubling ourselves about 
 the Man Himself, or experiencing the power of His per- 
 sonal life over us. But, on the other hand, the certainty 
 
JESUS SEEN FIRST AS MAN 166 
 
 that the personal God Himself lets us feel His power and 
 His mercy through Jesus can only arise within us when 
 the personal life of Jesus has such influence over us that 
 we must believe it. It would be a senseless undertaking 
 to attempt to lay firm hold of the true Chi'istian thought 
 of the Deity of Christ if we did not feel ourselves to be 
 supported by the power of such a fact as we have de- 
 scribed. It is possible for me to speculate on the general 
 idea of God without diiBculty, but it is not possible in 
 that sort of way to gain confidence that God Himself as 
 a personal Spirit actually comes near to me, the indi- 
 vidual, and shows His mercy towards me. In order to 
 believe that, I need some fact wherein the reality of God 
 and the fact of His grace actually directed towards me 
 shall be made sure. Luther was convinced that the 
 Scriptures lead us in this way to the knowledge of the 
 Deity of Christ. He says, " Therefore we can have no 
 certain proof of the Deity of Chi-ist unless we enfold and 
 enclose our hearts in the sayings of the Scriptures. For 
 the Scriptures begin very gently, and lead us on to 
 Christ as to a man, then afterwards to a Lord over all 
 creatures, and after that to a God. So do I enter de- 
 lightfully and learn to know God. But the philosophers 
 and the all-wise men have wanted to begin from above ; 
 and so have they become fools. We must begin from 
 below, and after that come upwards." * Undeniably 
 Luther raises here the question how we can have a 
 sure foundation for our belief in the Deity of Christ, 
 and gives as answer that only the man Jesus lets us 
 recognise God, and that therefore He alone can establish 
 * Erlangen edition, iii. 412. 
 
166 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 in us a certainty that in Him we have to do with God 
 Himself. And just as he here distinguishes the true 
 knowledge of Christ's Deity from the false knowledge of 
 the worldly-wise men, who want to begin with the pre- 
 supposition that Christ is God, so also he does else- 
 where. " But to know Christ in the other and true way 
 means to know that He died for us, that He heaped my 
 sins upon Himself, so that I hold all my own affairs to 
 be naught, let go all that is my own, and cling only to 
 the faith that Christ has been given to me, and that His 
 sufferings. His piety, and His virtues are altogether 
 mine. When I know this, then I must hold Him dear 
 in return, for I must be loving to such a man." * 
 
 Here some theologians, like R. Kubel,f will say, of 
 course, that Luther doubtless means that we can only 
 have all this in Christ if we start from the presupposi- 
 tion that He is truly God. But Luther follows up the 
 words just quoted thus : " Afler this I rise up from the 
 Son to the Father, and see that Christ is God.'''' Kiibel 
 is certainly right in maintaining that Luther regards 
 the vision of Christ's Deity as the very kernel of 
 Christianity ; but for a man who takes that view, the 
 question may very well arise how we get at that kernel. 
 Even Kiibel will admit that Christianity is not so light 
 a matter that we may expect everybody to make its 
 kernel his own without any difficulty. Luther, at any 
 rate, was aware that the true knowledge of Christ's 
 Deity can only arise where the sinner, in his longing for 
 
 * Briangen edition, xii. 249. 
 
 t Of- the " Neue Eirohliche Zeitschrift," issued by G. Holzhauser 
 1891, p. 47. 
 
THE ART OF FAITH 167 
 
 fellowship with God, is enabled to go thoroughly against 
 his own nature and give up all trust in self. When Christ 
 redeems us from ourselves, then we see God working upon 
 us in Christ's Person. Luther did not hold to the dream 
 that we are able to make the idea of the Deity of Christ 
 our own so as to become redeemed, that is, that even 
 as unredeemed men we can see its truth. 
 
 To Luther the act of believing in the Deity of Christ 
 was no simple matter ; it was an art. " Hence it is an 
 art so to recognise this King, that He is true God and 
 man." Thus the question how we are to reach the 
 knowledge of the Deity of Christ attained, in Luther's 
 eyes, an importance which, as it appears to us, every 
 earnest Christian of our own day must come to feel far 
 more keenly. He did not count himself relieved from 
 considering this question by his certainty of Christ's 
 Deity, for he knew that as a living Christian he had to 
 wrestle for this certainty every day anew. There is one 
 particular discussion in which he expresses his certainty 
 thus : " Wherefore it is our boast and our glory that 
 we know that this King is not only true man but also 
 true God " ; but he interrupts this declaration with the 
 warning : " Yet especially must we first begin thus, and 
 first grasp that first beginning, that He was born in 
 Bethlehem, and then after that go on to the other result.* 
 Luther believes that if we take this course " it will 
 follow of itself " that Christ came forth from the Father. 
 
 Our opponents urge that if we would experience 
 the saving power of Christ, the only true method, and 
 the method, too, they say, that Luther followed, is Lo 
 * Brlangen edition, xvlii. 178. 
 
168 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 approach Him with the presupposition that He is the Son 
 of God ; but this is definitely declared by Luther to be 
 the practice of the worldly-wise, who begin from above to 
 build the roof before they have laid the foundation. No 
 picture could exhibit more clearly than this the difference 
 between that which forms the foundation of our faith on 
 the one hand, and that high idea of the Deity of Christ 
 on the other, in which the thinking of faith reaches its 
 climax. Luther says, in his exposition of the fifth 
 Psalm,* that Christ first works upon us as the King who 
 delivers us from ourselves, and draws us to Himself; this 
 He effects by His humanity. Hence Christ must be ap- 
 prehended first as man, and only afterwards as God ; but 
 the Man Christ to whom we cling will Himself bring it 
 about that He shall appear to us as God.f Luther is 
 also able to tell us why it is so hard for a devout person 
 to take this course. He says it is hard for the flesh, for 
 the flesh always prefers to think of the Deity of Christ 
 rather than of the Man Christ, because it shrinks with 
 horror from the entrance into glory through the cross. 
 Let us remember that for Luther Christ is the only true 
 God, and that when he speaks of a becoming filled with 
 divine benefits, and expects such from the mighty work- 
 ing of the power of this God, he is speaking of the rise of 
 faith in the soul, and it is evident that his assertion 
 quoted above means that our flesh is always trying to 
 make our religious experience easier than it is. In reality, 
 we can find God only when the Man Jesus overcomes 
 our souls, so that in His dying a malefactor's death we 
 
 * Erlangen edition, opp. ex Lat. xiv. 181-2. 
 
 ■f " Christus homo habitus Christum Deum sponte sua adducet." 
 
THE CHRISTOLOGY OF FAITH 169 
 
 recognise His kingly power, and experience its work 
 upon us. This is not pleasant to the flesh, and hence 
 the sinner is always trying to avoid that experience, and 
 to talk about the Deity of Christ right away as though 
 he could learn the meaning of this knowledge by simply 
 repeating words after others. 
 
 Thus Luther desires to hold fast by the old dogma, 
 but none the less he puts a new meaning into it. In 
 the first place, he claims that he finds the Personal God 
 Himself in the personal life of the Man Jesus. It was 
 not necessary that he should here be conscious of break- 
 ing away from the old dogma, for what he demanded 
 might certainly be regarded as the strongest possible 
 assertion of that union of the divine and human natures 
 to which the old dogma bore witness, and Luther actu- 
 ally so regarded it. Nevertheless he did depart here 
 from the original meaning of the dogma, for, according 
 to its original meaning, it did not deal with the recog- 
 nition of the Personal God in the human appearance of 
 Jesus, but with a presupposition of a divine nature 
 underlying that appearance. The conception of the 
 divine natiure which was used in this latter case was 
 formed quite independently of what we experience of 
 the Person of Jesus ; and the effect upon us which was 
 supposed to follow from the union of the divine nature 
 with the human had nothing to do with our conscious 
 inner life. Secondly, Luther read a new meaning into 
 the old dogma thus : he held that the true recognition 
 of Christ's Deity is inseparably connected with an entire 
 renunciation of all our efforts to gain redemption by 
 any act of ours. But the recognition of the Deity of 
 
170 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Christ, which is expressed in the old dogma, implies, on 
 the contrary, no such resignation ; there has always been 
 bound up with it the idea that the individual must 
 perform a certain operation which God demands from 
 him, in order that he may enter into possession of those 
 riches which have been made accessible for all mankind 
 by the incarnation of God. And it cannot be other- 
 wise, for in the very act of appropriating the ideas of 
 the dogma it is impossible to carry out that renuncia- 
 tion. The man who seeks salvation will stop trying to 
 help himself only when he knows that God has helped 
 him. Now such knowledge and certainty are implied 
 as already possessed by such as Luther would consider 
 to be aware of the Deity of Christ, but that certainty 
 is not implied as possessed by all who profess the 
 dogma. Thirdly, in Luther's understanding of the 
 Deity of Christ is involved an interest to the human 
 life of Jesus which the dogma utterly lacked. We can 
 busy ourselves with the ideas of the dogma without 
 troubling ourselves about Jesus, whereas we cannot 
 confess Christ's Deity, as Luther confessed it, without 
 experiencing in ourselves the power of the Person of 
 Jesus. 
 
 Thus there can be no doubt, when we take these 
 peculiar ideas of Luther's own into account, that to 
 Him the Person of Jesus was of far higher importance 
 for the inner life of religion than it was when viewed 
 from the old dogmatic standpoint. With Luther the 
 Person of Jesus stands in the very centre of the religious 
 experience itself. Jesus makes him certain of God, lets 
 him see the divine nature and life, becomes to him that 
 
GOD MET IN THE PERSON OF JESUS 171 
 
 manifestation of God's grace in which God enters into 
 communion with him. He knows that he has been 
 lifted up to God, and he traces the power of Jesus in 
 that fact; he sees God, and he finds in the infinite 
 power which presses in upon him nothing diiferent from 
 the personal life of Jesus. Viewed from the old dog- 
 matic standpoint, all was diflFerent. There the Person 
 of Jesus was not the medium through which a devout 
 soul beholds God and experiences God's working. 
 There the Person of Jesus is of importance for the inner 
 process of religion itself, and for the uplifting of the 
 heart into the felt presence of God, only in so far as it 
 serves as an admonition and an example. This admoni- 
 tion and that example may indeed be valuable, yet they 
 place the Person of Jesus only on the outer threshold 
 before the door of that sanctuary wherein the com- 
 munion of the soul with God is to take place. Every 
 truly devout person seeks to lay hold on God Himself 
 in his own religious experience, and therefore if we 
 understand by the Essence of God anything else than 
 the inner life of Jesus, then we get away from Jesus 
 altogether in our moments of religious exaltation. Is 
 that the course of religion to which the New Testament 
 bears witness ? Or do we not find that there the rule 
 of God and the rule of Christ in our souls are equally 
 described as the highest good, without any distinction 
 being drawn between the two ? But the confession of 
 the Deity of Christ which the dogma demands pre- 
 supposes precisely this : that the Essence of God is 
 something quite other than the inner life of Jesus, and 
 is to stand assured for us quite independently of the 
 
172 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Person of Jesus. Thus the dogma necessarily thrusts 
 the Person of Jesus out from that very position within 
 our religious experience which alone can give any 
 meaning to our words when we speak of the Deity of 
 Christ. Hence we come to the decision that in the 
 Christological dogma and in all the systems of thought 
 that have grown from this loot, theie is not in any 
 degree expressed that idea of the Deity of Christ which 
 belongs to the life of the Christian religion, or is, in 
 other words, a form of our communion with God. 
 
 § 27. TTie Connection of Luther's peculiar Idea of the 
 Deity of Christ with his View of Hedemptian arid 
 with the Christian Krtowledge of God. 
 When we thus defend Luther's ideas concerning the 
 Deity of Christ, we are met with the objection that the 
 predicate, " deity," as we use it, has no clear meaning 
 as applied to Christ, and that therefore we had better 
 lay it aside.* To this objection we reply, in the 
 first place, that we do not set much store on the mere 
 name, "Deity of Christ," t but that our highest interest 
 is rather to arrive at such an understanding of the 
 Person of Christ as shall make us actually certain of our 
 redemption, i.e., as shall assure us of a real communion 
 with God in spite of the trouble and sin with which we 
 have to fight. Now this assurance we have attained, 
 because we have learned to understand the fact that 
 
 * See LipsiuB, " Philosophy and Eeligion," 1885, p. 308. 
 t Of. Erlangen edition, xlix. 21, 151, where more stress is laid 
 upon the divine power and work of Christ than on the divine name. 
 
THE FACT OF REDEMPTION 173 
 
 Jesus' entry into our life to judge and bless us is the act 
 by which God lets us know Himself and draws us to 
 Himself. Our keen critics may say as much as they 
 please about our still lacking the most important thing 
 of all — we have through the Man Jesus all that we 
 need, and we know that to long for anything higher is 
 to fall away from the highest, it is to deny Christ, and 
 to harden our hearts against that which is good. We 
 know that in Christ we meet with God, and we know 
 what sort of a meeting this is ; we know that this God 
 gives us comfort and courage to face the world, joy in 
 facing the demands of duty, and with all this eternal 
 life in our hearts. He who has already found the 
 actual fact of this God in Christ, thinks it indeed a 
 strange suggestion that he must start by presupposing 
 God to be in Christ if he would enter correctly on the 
 way of salvation. 
 
 But in the second place, we afBrm that in the Pro- 
 testant Church no other conception of Christ's Deity is 
 justifiable except that to which we adhere, and that 
 therefore we alone have a good right to use that ex- 
 pression which our opponents would forbid to us. The 
 general proposition, that God came to us in the historical 
 appearance of Christ, requires various interpretation, 
 just according to the particular view which is taken of 
 the redemption that Christ brought. If we understand 
 by redemption our equipment with certain powers of 
 everlasting life, of whose nature we have, however, no 
 clear conception, and if our entry on possession of these 
 powers is not to be realised in any conscious process of 
 our inner life, then it will be quite sufficient to express 
 
174 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Christ's significance as Redeemer by the statement that 
 the substance of the Deity was present in Him, and 
 that this has worked upon human nature to produce its 
 restoration and enrichment. In that case such an ex- 
 pression suffices, because the indefinite conception of what 
 redemption is demands no more definite conception of 
 the presence of God in Christ. Athanasius and Gregory 
 of Nyssa, indeed, following this old Catholic view of 
 redemption, expressly rejected the idea that redemption 
 is the inner deliverance of the sinner from the burden 
 of guilt. If they thought like that about redemption, 
 of course they could rest content with an inadequate 
 confession of a divine nature in Christ. They defended 
 from their standpoint the honour of Chi-ist against 
 Arianism, and the generation in which they lived might 
 very likely have their faith strengthened by the theologi- 
 cal speculations which went on as to how a divine nature 
 could exist in Christ alongside of His human nature.* 
 But the Reformers, on the other hand, had gained 
 another and a clearer view of redemption, and hence 
 along with this they were necessarily led to another view 
 of the presence of God in Christ. They had become 
 
 • Nevertheless, even at that early date there were not wanting 
 gome who felt that the necessity of entering into these speculations 
 was a burden imposed upon the Church by faithless heretics. Cf, 
 Hilarius Pict., "De Trinitate," ii. 2 : "Compellimur haereticorum et 
 blasphemantium vitiis, illioita agere, ardua scandere, ineffabilia loqui, 
 inconoessa praesumere. Et quum sola fide explorari, quae praecepta 
 sunt, oporteret, adorare videlicet patrem et ■oenerari own eo Jilium, 
 aancto spiritu abv/ndare, cogimur sermonis nostri humilitatem ad ea, 
 quae inenarrabilia sunt extendere et in mtium vitio eoarctamur alieno, 
 ut, quae contineri religione mentium oportuisset nunc in periculum 
 human! eloquii proferantur." And again, in vii. 38 : " Non relictus 
 
CERTAINTY OF REDEMPTION 175 
 
 convinced that only those can live the life of the re- 
 deemed who have some measure of certainty of their 
 redemption. Now such certainty can never attach itself 
 to an equipment with supernatural power, which equip- 
 ment is, moreover, entirely concealed from our conscious- 
 ness ; but, on the contrary, it does arise from the vision 
 of a fact, when the understanding of that fact is always 
 accompanied by a complete change in the inner life, 
 accompanied, in other words, by a re-arrangement of 
 our conscious relation towards God. According to the 
 teaching of the Reformers, this renovation of the inner 
 life is faith, i.e., it is the reliance of the repentant sinner 
 upon God, brought about by his understanding of 
 Christ. Certainty of redemption is, of course, con- 
 nected with faith as thus conceived, for such faith is 
 redemption itself. Thus we find it stated in the 
 "Apology," ii. 62: "Haec fides in illis pavoribus 
 erigens et consolans accipit remissionem peccatorum, 
 iustificat et vivificat. Nom ilia consolatio est nova et 
 spvritualis vita.* This faith has for its correlate, as the 
 
 est hominum eloquiis de dei rebus praeterquam dei sermo. Omnia 
 raliqua et arota et conolusa et impedita sunt et obscura. Siquis aliis 
 verbis demonstrare hoc, quam qnibus a deo dictum est, volet, aut 
 ipse non intelligit aut legentibus non intelligendum relinquit." If 
 our opponents will compare with these passages an utterance of 
 Augustine's, which is equally candid (" De Trinitate," vii. 4-9), they 
 must surely doubt their right to denounce our abandonment of that 
 sort of speculation, as though we were shirking the highest problems 
 and robbing Christianity of all its meaning, when these very specula- 
 tions were so condemned by their own classic authorities. 
 
 * Qf. Luther, Erlangen edition, vii. 159 : "And Christ redeems 
 us through this faith from all unrighteousness, makes us free once 
 more, that we may live divinely and heavenly, which we could not 
 do before in our prison of unrighteousness." 
 
176 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 " Apology ■" explains (ii. 50-52), the promiss'io Dei, 
 and just as the latter counts upon the faith of men, so 
 this faith can stretch out to nothing but the good news 
 of the gracious mind of God. All the various items 
 enumerated in the Reformers' Confession of Faith point 
 to objects of faith only in the sense that they work 
 together to bring about the finis historiae, that is, 
 the remissio peccatorum. In other words, these must 
 be means of expressing the gracious will of God, 
 who is seeking to awaken in the heart of the sinner the 
 trust that will set him free. 
 
 Thus the man who shares that need of redemption 
 which the Reformers felt, will certainly not expound 
 that most important object of faith, namely, the presence 
 of God in Chi'ist, by the mere statement that in Him 
 the divine substance was united with human nature. 
 We might indeed calculate upon its substance, or argue 
 from its existence — that suits the Catholic conception 
 of our need for redemption, which seeks safety, not 
 certainty — ^but to place confidence in it is impossible. 
 This winning of trust, this peculiar power which works 
 amid the moral intercourse of persons, enters into us 
 only when the will of some person lays hold of our 
 inmost being, and quickens our life by giving us a free 
 intimation of its own intention.* Hence the Protestant 
 Christian, who can stand before God with the confidence 
 of a child, must have found in the Christ, to whom he 
 owes that relation to God, not some mysterious divine 
 substance, but a living power, acting upon him, over- 
 
 * On this point compare KaWer in "The Atonement throueh 
 Christ," 1885, p. 26, "'ougu 
 
GOD ACTS ON US THROUGH JESUS m 
 
 whelming him and announcing to his soul the will of 
 the Personal God. In Jesus, as His historical work 
 shows Him to us, we have before us the inmost will of 
 God, to which everything is subject, and we experience 
 it to be a power constraining and emancipating our 
 souls. 
 
 Now, of course, our opponents tell us that this is not 
 confessing the Deity of Christ ; for, say they, we admit 
 that only when we presuppose that in Him thei'e is the 
 substance of the Deity. Lipsius demands, therefore, 
 in the work quoted above, that we shall speak only of 
 a Revelation of God in Christ. But that expression is 
 liable to misunderstanding; it might be thought we 
 meant that Jesus mediates to us a doctrine concerning 
 God. Jesus certainly does that, too, but that is not 
 the way in which He is the ground of our salvation. 
 For He is our Redeemer because He Himself compels 
 us to understand the will which is active in His work to 
 be the mind and will of God, of that God who comes 
 near to us in order to draw us into communion with 
 Himself by the touch of Jesus upon our life. The 
 question whether we are right in speaking of the Deity 
 of Christ when we have found God turning towards us 
 in the disclosure of Jesus' personal life, must be decided 
 according as we conceive God to be in His nature a 
 substance on the one hand, or on the other hand a 
 Personal Spirit who asserts His nature by the energy 
 of a will directing itself towards certain ends and pre- 
 serving in itself a certain disposition. If we choose the 
 former conception of God, then certainly the proposi- 
 tion that there is divine substance in Christ will be 
 
 M 
 
178 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 chosen as the proper expression of belief in His Deity ; 
 but if, on the contrary, the latter conception be 
 followed, which is clearly the only one represented in 
 the Sacred Scriptures, and the only one permissible in 
 the Christian community, then it is self-evident that 
 the Deity of Christ can only be expressed by saying 
 that the mind and will of the Everlasting God encounters 
 us in the historically active will of this man. 
 
 The other interpretation of the Deity of Christ is in 
 any case a departure from the Christian idea of God. 
 It was excusable in an age when the Christian com- 
 munity had not outgrown that meagre conception of 
 redemption with which the great fathers of the fourth 
 century were content. It is endurable when employed 
 in discussing the theological question — a superfluous 
 question, certainly — as to how a union of God with 
 man is possible ; it is endurable if we unite to it, 
 as Luther did (see the passage quoted above), the per- 
 ception that it is not the thought in which the redeemed 
 have life and which the devil cannot bear. But when in 
 the Protestant Church the Lord's people are taught, 
 by those who are counted their proper leaders, that this 
 is the only possible expression for the Deity of Christ, 
 then the way is barred to that knowledge without which 
 no one ever enters into communion with the Living 
 God ; and this is done for the sake of a conception 
 which any one can adopt, without having redeeming 
 faith at all. 
 
 I do not doubt, of course, that many, who, as theo- 
 logians, are enthusiastic adherents of the barren for- 
 mula of the " two natures," are yet, as Christians, able 
 
THE RIGHT ESTIMATE OF CHRIST 179 
 
 to find the God who is working upon them in the Man 
 Jesus. If we may try to account for such men's ina- 
 bility to use this their own living utterance of their own 
 God-awakened faith as the source of their knowledge 
 and estimate of the Deity of Chi'ist, perhaps the 
 explanation lies in their giving too little regard to the 
 fact on which, in every instance, Chi-istian life is based, 
 the fact, namely, that we are compelled to regard the 
 entrance of Christ into our life as an act of God upon 
 us. If only we bear this in mind that faith in Provi- 
 dence, or that " fiducia dei " which alone deserves the 
 name of faith, arises within us in the way just described, 
 then it will not be a difficult matter for us to apply the 
 method of judgment which we follow in that case to 
 the historical appearance of Christ, and to behold in 
 Him the Living and Working God. Any theological 
 opponent, in so far as he is a Christian, will surely admit 
 that we stand thus towards Christ in a relation of the 
 greatest conceivable dependence, and that we find in 
 Him something the possession of which prevents us 
 from being embittered and wounded by the hatred 
 and calumny of men. 
 
 § 28. The Advancement of Christian Piety hy Means 
 o^ Luther's Thought. 
 We by no means deny that our conception of Christ's 
 Deity differs from that expressed in the dogma. We 
 rather regard the difference as being of the greatest 
 value. That difference, to put it briefly, is this : That 
 conception of the Deity of Christ which is expressed 
 
180 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 in the dogma, can only be asserted in the form of a 
 scientific theory. On the other hand, in religious prac- 
 tice, in other words, in the actual uplifting of the heart 
 to God, it is necessarily put aside, and this has always 
 happened. The religious practice which accompanied 
 the undisputed rule of the dogma was mysticism. That 
 worship of the Man Jesus, which went on at the same 
 time, had nothing to do with the reverent bowing of 
 the soul before God ; it was therefore only a mere 
 accompaniment to the religion, and it did away with 
 the Deity of Christ rather than confirmed it. Quite 
 the opposite is the case with our view of the matter, 
 for with it we can have what Luther demands respect- 
 ing Christ and the Father : " in our heart and faith 
 they must be entirely one." * Our view makes it 
 possible that " the recognition wherein He and the 
 Father are recognised is one recognition." With our 
 attitude towards Jesus it becomes possible to look on 
 God and Christ as one in the Christian religious experi- 
 ence. On the other hand, it is not possible to describe 
 the unity of Christ and God, which we experience in 
 our faith, in terms of any previously established con- 
 ceptions of divine and human nature. This impossi- 
 bility arises from the fact that we first know what 
 Divine Nature is when we apprehend it in Christ. For 
 us God is none other than that Personal Spirit, who 
 comes spiritually near us in the existence in this world 
 of the Man Jesus, and who thus compels us to think 
 of Him as the Lord who holds in His grasp both our- 
 selves and that infinite realm by which our life is 
 ♦ Erlaugen edition, xlix. 126. 
 
CHRIST'S DEITY NOT DOGMA 181 
 
 conditioned. What do we lose by our inability to 
 support a fact, which we experience in the stirring of 
 faith, by a scientific theory which any one might adopt 
 without any such stirring of his faith ? Certainly we 
 do lose the ability to make that fact quite accessible to 
 the unbeliever. But that is not a fault; for we all 
 expect that for the man who tuins his back on the 
 Person of Jesus, the marvellous fact in which our con- 
 fidence rejoices must remain the meaningless cobweb of 
 a dream. Whoever undertakes that task which we 
 have thus seen to be impossible is desecrating what is 
 divine. 
 
 For the very reason, then, that we believe in the 
 Deity of Christ in the full sense of the term, we must 
 reject the dogma concerning it as an utterly inadequate 
 effort at thought. Luther's attempt to combine the 
 correct idea concerning Christ's Deity with the dogma 
 proved to be an impossible task ; for among those who 
 wish to follow Luther here, that correct idea has been 
 lost sight of, and deductions from the dogma have been 
 developed which reduce it to an impossibility. For 
 these circles are raising to the dignity of a first and 
 foundation principle the proposition that we must 
 confess Christ's Deity before we can possibly experience 
 the divine work of redemption through Jesus. Luther, 
 on the other hand, did indeed hold by the Christo- 
 logical dogma, but at the same time always asserted 
 that we find the Living God in Jesus Christ alone. If 
 Luther was right, and indeed he was right, then that 
 main principle of modem Lutheranism just cited is 
 untenable. If I am to speak of the Deity of Christ, 
 
182 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 then God Himself must already have become a reality to 
 me. But He only becomes real to me when He lifts 
 me to Himself. He does this through the man Jesus, 
 and when this act of God revealing Himself gains 
 power over our inner life, we are redeemed. Hence 
 modern Lutherans require men to regard as a condition 
 of redemption that which is really its result. The 
 injury they do in this way is not little, for the men who 
 follow their advice are playing with the Holiest. They 
 speak of God as a reality before their souls have been 
 uplifted to God. In that case their hearts must wither. 
 They hide from themselves the fundamental truth of all 
 religion, namely, that the redemption of a mortal being 
 can mean nothing else than its being lifted up into 
 fellowship with the Everlasting God. This is the fate 
 to which the practice ruling at present in the Church is 
 bringing those who would be devout. Or are we, in 
 saying this, once more doing our opponents an injustice .'' 
 They tell us, aye, unceasingly, that we must first know 
 that Christ is very God before we can possibly be re- 
 deemed by Him. (C. Luthardt. Zeitschrift fur Kirchl. 
 Wissenschaft und kirchliches Leben. 1886,pp.63£-658.) 
 Nevertheless, we can partly excuse such procedure by 
 the following considerations : In the first place, a man 
 who has been lifted up by Christ to God and received 
 into fellowship with Him, will say ever afterwards to 
 his soul : Thou couldst not have had that experience 
 through Him, had not God appeared to thee in Him. 
 Eternal life is the gift of God alone. How easily may 
 this thought lead to the error of supposing that we 
 must know that Christ is God before we can have 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF GOD IN CHRIST 183 
 
 eternal life through Him ! In the second place, we say 
 with truth that we are to find in Christ something 
 inexhaustible, which shall be constantly assuming a 
 new significance for our lives. "What I believe is 
 always more and greater than what I have experienced " 
 (Kiibel, in the Theol. Litt. Bl., 1891, No. 12). And 
 so, when we say that the inner life of Jesus is itself the 
 power of redemption, it may appear as though we are 
 setting something which our poor experience can com- 
 pass in the place of that immeasurable magnitude 
 which the Church finds in Christ. Only thus can we 
 understand and excuse the rejection of the correct 
 doctrine and practice on this most important point. 
 But it is easy to show that here is a misunderstanding ; 
 for we are to learn the mysterious and overwhelming 
 power of the Divine Being only in and through the 
 phenomenon of the inner life of Jesus. The man who 
 thinks he can exhaust that fact and become master of 
 it, will never, of course, bow to the sovereignty of 
 Christ. But even though we can thus find excuses for 
 the procedure of our opponents, we none the less regret 
 that procedure. For it hides from men the truth that 
 to come into personal communion with God through 
 the appearance of Jesus is to experience the marvellous 
 fact of redemption. 
 
 " Now what I have said means this : that God will 
 not suffer us to rely upon aught else, or to cling at 
 heart to aught that is not Christ in His Word, however 
 sacred and spiritual it may appear." * When we come to 
 understand the historical Christ, and only then, does 
 * Erlangen edition, xi. 27, 
 
184 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 God so touch us that He lifts us above our trouble and 
 our sin, so that we become certain of Him. Hence we 
 come into contact with God only through the Word 
 that makes such understanding possible to us ; and so 
 we must receive the Person of Christ Himself as the 
 tidings of God in which He desires to come near us. 
 
 § 29. Commimion with God and Christ through 
 the Imagination. 
 
 At this point we may revert to that objection of our 
 opponents in which they assert that since Christ brings 
 us to God, therefore there must be an immediate com- 
 munion of the soul with God, of which that fact forms 
 the basis.* This assertion is particularly interesting 
 for the reason that it lets us see plainly how far the 
 acknowledgment of a divine substance in Christ is 
 from the true confession of His Deity. If, after a man's 
 experience of Christ, he still feels that he lacks and must 
 obtain an immediate communion of the soul with God, 
 then, evidently, that man is unable to apprehend and 
 feel God to be in Jesus Himself: and he who is unable 
 to do this even if he claim to be an orthodox believer 
 on the ground of some dogmatic formula, however 
 venerable it may be, is not in fact a believer, for he has 
 not found God in Christ, but distinguishes between 
 God and Christ in the way which Luther, in a passage 
 quoted above, ascribes to " the heart void of under- 
 standing." If God, in bringing Christ near to the 
 individual soul, gives to that soul the full tidings of 
 • See page 111. 
 
CONTACT WITH GOD THROUGH CHRIST 185 
 
 what is in God's heart, and if He thereby gives the soul 
 clear vision and peace, then He makes that soul feel 
 His own Almighty power, and deals with such a soul 
 in the most direct and intimate way possible. A more 
 immediate contact of the soul cannot be conceived or 
 wished for, save by those who do not think of their God 
 as a Personal Spirit but as an impersonal substance. 
 The Personal Spirit communes with us through 
 manifestations of His inner life, and when He con- 
 sciously and purposely makes us feel what His mind is, 
 then we feel Himself. 
 
 Hence we must utterly reject the idea that God can 
 in any way come nearer to the individual soul than 
 when He lets Himself be found in Christ. Here the 
 difference between us and our opponents becomes quite 
 clear. They conceive of the Deity of Christ in such a 
 way that they only use Him and His work as a pre- 
 supposition before their communion with God ; they 
 think that this presupposition holds good indeed for all 
 cases alike, but that in addition to the presupposition, 
 and over and above it, every individual must strive for 
 himself to come into immediate contact with God. 
 Such a desire for God is quite justifiable where men 
 have been accustomed to contemplate the Christological 
 dogma instead of fixing their attention on Christ 
 Himself; but of a surety it also leads men into un- 
 certainty. It is to us incomprehensible how men can 
 appeal to Luther in support of such a position, for 
 Luther saw in the historical Christ no mere pre- 
 supposition fulfilled centuries ago in order that ever 
 afterwards men may become Christians. He writes : 
 
186 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 " To me it is not simply an old song of an event that 
 happened fifteen hundred years ago ; it is something 
 more than an event that happened once — for it is a 
 gift and a bestowing that endures for ever." * And 
 when we read in the same connection : " through this 
 we are so profoundly taught, that we know what God's 
 will is, and what God has in His heart," Luther does 
 not mean some knowledge concerning God which may 
 be held as a general truth apart from the historical 
 deed of Redemption, but he means that every one whom 
 this deed touches and causes to come to himself ex- 
 periences therein exactly what God purposes concerning 
 him and is producing in him as an individual soul.f I 
 do not need to remind the reader how very often Luther 
 repeats the assertion that every Christian has this 
 experience of being set free, amid his own particular 
 surroundings, when the figure of Christ comes face to 
 face with him through the preaching of the Gospel. 
 Hence the Reformer can say : " Nothing which takes 
 place in ourselves and of ourselves can make any man 
 a Christian. What then can ? This alone, that we 
 know this Man, and that we receive from Him and 
 expect from Him what He wills that we shall receive 
 at His hands." f 
 
 When the Christian experiences this at the hands of 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xx. I. 114 ; I. 241. 
 
 t In the Erlangen edition, 1. 241, Luther says that the faith that 
 Christ was sent of the Father into the world amounts to this : " That 
 thou shalt esteem and hear without question every word that fell 
 from His lips as though thou heardest now the voice of the Father 
 speaking with thee from heaven." 
 
 J Erlangen edition, xii. 50. 
 
FANCIFUL COMMUNINGS WITH GOD 187 
 
 the historical Christ, and sees that thus God Himself 
 lays hold of him and makes him feel there is a most 
 special divine care over him, then he listens without 
 concern when any one claims that God and Christ have 
 entered the realms of his imagination in forms distinct 
 from that historical event, and that they so commune 
 with him. Luther knew the language of that Roman 
 Catholic piety which can talk of such experiences with 
 the Bridegroom of the soul, and he even used it some- 
 times ; but he gave it a new and Protestant meaning, 
 as we shall see later on. The strength of the man lay 
 herein, that it was in the actual world that he found 
 the God who talked with him, and it was there he 
 sought Him. That other sort of seeking and finding 
 God within the realm of the pious fancy was thoroughly 
 well known to him from his monastic life ; but he was 
 aware that in it the soul supports heaven, not heaven 
 the soul. " God made His Son one with human nature 
 in order that we might discern and know in Him God's 
 friendly will towards us ; "* the man who knows this 
 will hold by the voice of God only as it speaks to us in 
 this fact, and will not try to make God speak within 
 his soul in any other way. " Therefore, I say : I will 
 hold by His common revelation to all men in the word 
 and works of Chi*ist."t As monk, Luther, like the 
 rest, crept into a corner and thought that God would 
 work for him " something all his own.'f Later on he 
 came to see that sectaries indeed " claim to hear " a 
 secret voice and a revelation ;§ but that the Christian 
 
 * Brlangen edition, xiv. 228, f lUd. xx. I. 29. 
 
 X Ibid. XX. I. 414. § lUa. xy. 151. 
 
188 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 hears the speech of his God in facts that speak plainly 
 to all men.* Luther did indeed give abundant tes- 
 timonv to his faith that Christ lived and worked in 
 him, and we shall discuss later on, in chap, iii., the 
 correctness and value of this thought of faith ; but no 
 one will venture to prove by this that Luther, as a 
 Protestant Christian, made out of this experience any 
 peculiar communion between himself and the risen 
 Christ. On the contrary, Luther was aware that we 
 find the true Christ and experieiice the direct influence 
 of our risen Lord when we come to understand the 
 Christ of history. It was not Luther's mind that a 
 Christian, who has drawn the necessary teaching from 
 the historical work of Christ, may then turn his back on 
 those facts and seek to reap from them a harvest 
 peculiar to himself in a special communion with God or 
 with the risen Christ within the sacred quiet of his own 
 inner life. On the contrary, he would have thought 
 that in so doing he would be departing from the realm 
 of real, life-giving power. " For the man who lets go 
 of Chi'ist's life and work, and desires now to seek Him 
 as He sits in heaven in some private way, betrays Him 
 
 * Monaohi celebrant patrum suorum Benedioti, Bernhardi legendae. 
 Sed profeoto Deus in genere cum quovis Christiano multo oopiosius 
 loquitur etfamiliarius canversatur, quam illi jactant de suia patribus. 
 Imo si in mauu mea res asset, non vellem, Deum mihi loqui de coelo, 
 aut apparere mihi. Hoc autem vellem, et tendunt hoc quotidianae 
 meae preoes : ut in dlgno honore habeam et vere aestimem donum 
 Baptismi, quod sum baptisatus, quod video et audio fratres, qui 
 habent gratiam et donum spiritus si, qui consolari, erigere verbo 
 possunt, exhortari, monere, docere. Quam enim tu optas meliorem 
 et utiliorem Dei apparitionem ?— Luther's " Latin Works," iv. 157-162 • 
 cf. Ivii. 45, 51. ' 
 
GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 189 
 
 afresh. He must seek Him as He was and walked on 
 earth ; then shall he find life ; it was there He came to 
 be our Life, our Light, and our Blessedness ; it was 
 there that all took place that we are to believe con- 
 cerning Him.* Even as it is said in the Mass, ' In Him 
 was Life ' ; not that He is not now our life, but that 
 he does not now do what he then did." 
 
 § 30. The Mediation of True Commimion ■with God by 
 Means of the Christian Community. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is an element of truth in the 
 insistence that God must come to each individual soul 
 in a special manner, even though He comes near to all 
 through the same fact. For the appearance of God in 
 Christ meets each of us in special circumstances of His 
 own. Those things and events which open up the 
 understanding of Christ for any particular individual 
 must necessarily have special modifications according 
 to the circumstances of the particular case. We must 
 necessarily take into account all the circumstances 
 connected with the influence of Christ upon the soul in 
 our obsei-vation of the accomplishment of the act 
 whereby God comes into communion with us. Hence it 
 is true to say in this sense — but in this sense only — that 
 God communes with every individual soul in a special 
 way ; or, in other words, as men prefer to say nowa- 
 days, that God enters into a personal relation with 
 each individual soul. 
 
 The first relation of life to be considered, wherein 
 * Erlangen edition x. 189 ; of. xxxv. 170f. 
 
190 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 the Christian traces the redeeming act of his God, is 
 our environment by the Church. God cannot disclose 
 Himself to all men without distinction ; He holds indeed 
 the guidance of every life in His hand, but He can open 
 His inner Self only to such as are in the Church, i.e., in 
 the fellowship of believers. Our experience that the 
 Gospel helps others gives us also an ability to accept it 
 for ourselves. Hence when Christians interest them- 
 selves in us, Christ comes near us. The proposition 
 that the Church is the mother of believers is not under- 
 stood in its true sense until we think of her, with Luther, 
 as " a Christ-like, holy people," * and not as an institu- 
 tion which possesses within itself certain mysterious 
 redemptive powers. When we live in the midst of 
 Christian people the sense is awakened by which we may 
 see God in Christ, and the germ of undei-standing is 
 nourished. Wben we ourselves have found our God, 
 and so have become new men, then we are linked with 
 Christians in fellowship, not only by our joy in that 
 fellowship, but also by the life it gives us. It is this 
 power of bringing our new life into being that gives to 
 the Christian Church its name of " mother." f And 
 since we see that in her alone do we meet with the 
 Creator and the Redeemer, J she becomes to us on this 
 earth an element in that divine act by which we 
 
 * (y. the Greater Catechism and the Eriangen edition, xii. 50 • 
 XXV. 354. 
 
 t Eriangen edition, xlvi. 278. Here Luther says, in talking of the 
 new birth : " Christ does this, who, by baptism and the Word of God, 
 lays thee, as a Christian, in the lap of the Christian Church, as of our 
 dear mother." 
 
 J Ibid, xxiii. 238, 
 
CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP 191 
 
 know that, in the midst of this world, we have been set 
 within the Kingdom of God. But we can be certain 
 that God turns to us through the Church only in so far 
 as the activity of the Church gives expression in a way 
 that fits our own special circumstances to the Gospel in 
 which God is brought within our reach, and develops in 
 us the ability to receive this Gospel. The Church enables 
 us to do this in so far as it is that fellowship of believers 
 which enables every one of its members to meet with 
 the Word of Chiist, through direct preaching in the 
 first place, and, in the second, through Christian life. 
 Without the second the first is of little use. Hence, 
 if we wish to remain in communion with God, we 
 must remain in communion with Christian people, 
 who make us feel their moral severity towards them- 
 selves and their love towards others. Through this 
 moral communion with Christians we enter a realm of 
 experiences amidst which we see more and more clearly 
 how forlorn our condition would be if the personal life 
 of Jesus were not a reality in the world, standing 
 there before our eyes. Hence it becomes evident also 
 that a Church which does not direct all its efforts at 
 developing such fellowship of moral intercourse is lifeless 
 and dead. In the events wherein a believer experiences 
 this two-fold influence of the Church, he sees of necessity 
 the special communion God has with him which no 
 other has in exactly the same way. It is certainly 
 highly important that every one should come to the 
 certainty of this special communion of God with himself. 
 The possibility of all this vanishes just in proportion 
 as we regard the Church, not as the instrument of that 
 
192 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Gospel which saves us when it is understood, but as the 
 shell containing certain mysterious redemptive powers 
 which are to save us when we submit to their operation. 
 The Church, in the former sense of the word, exercises 
 her redeeming power over us when believing Christians 
 give us their sympathy and care ; for these are counted 
 worthy as believers to represent God speaking to us, 
 and thus to open to us the Kingdom of God.* But 
 the Church in the latter sense, on the other hand, is 
 supposed to do all its work by means of indefinite divine 
 powers which are presupposed to belong to the minis- 
 terial office, and its acts. In this latter sense the 
 Church necessarily loses all its significance as an expres- 
 sion of the speech of the Living God ; she rather thrusts 
 herself in between Him and us, and leads us to the 
 worship of a dumb idol, to wit, the redemptive power 
 concealed within herself. 
 
 But " we have a God who speaks and lives, who gives 
 us His sure Word ; and we know how He is disposed 
 towards us and what we are to expect of Him."t We 
 are suiTounded by theChristian Church, which brings 
 the tidings of Christ into our hearts in a thousand ways ; 
 
 * Cf. Luther's Erlangen edition, xi. 347. " To him who has the 
 Holy Ghost is the power given ; to him, that ia, who is a Christian. 
 But who is a Christian ? Whosoever believes has the Holy Ghost. 
 Therefore, every Christian has the power that the Pope, bishops, and 
 monks have in this case to retain or to remit sins," xvi. 495. " Now 
 mark that the Gospel is a common thing and not appointed for the 
 Pope atid tlie clergy alone. I have just as much power as the 
 Pope to forgive sins and make absolution, and we must not let this 
 power be taken from us, but must assert and establish it. If we let 
 it go we lose God, Sis Gospel and faith" xxv. 364 ; xxviii. 27ff. ; 
 li. 387, 482, 483. 
 
 t Erlangen edition, ix. 203. 
 
BROTHERHOOD OF THE CHURCH 193 
 
 and when we understand its tidings, this environment 
 becomes to us an evidence that God desires to assure 
 us of His grace. The man who accepts this testimony 
 of God that is offered him knows hence that he is lifted 
 into a realm where God's grace will continnally reveal 
 itself to him, and will remain immovable, even if he fall 
 into sin : " Just as the sun rises daily in the heavens, 
 and does not only drive away the night that is .past, 
 but goes ever onward and lights up all the day, even 
 though he be somewhat darkened and hidden by thick 
 clouds."* To see that God communes with him thus 
 is certainly the matter of most personal importance for 
 each Christian. That " peculiar exercise " amid which 
 Luther in his monkish life enjoyed richly what was 
 supposed to be communion with God, did not make 
 him a Christian. For this alone makes a man a 
 Christian, " that his faith lays hold of and knows this 
 point, that he dwells in the kingdom of grace, since 
 Christ has taken him beneath His wing, and gives him 
 the forgiveness of his sins without ceasing." f The fact 
 is, as Luther says in the passage already quoted, that 
 the Christian can never even wish that God should 
 specially appear to him or speak down to him from 
 heaven. He receives the revelation of God in the living 
 relationships of Christian brotherhood, and its essential 
 contents are that personal life of Jesus which is visible 
 in the Gospel, and which is expounded by the lives of 
 the redeemed. If he has really found God thus, he will 
 desire with all his heart that the God who has already 
 appeared to him may come ever nearer to him, and 
 * Erlangen edition, xi. 320. t Ibid xiv. 211. 
 
 N 
 
194 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that he himself may ever experience more deeply, in his 
 own growing clearness and firmness of moral purpose, 
 that God is redeeming him. 
 
 The significance which the Church has for the 
 Christian as a fellowship of believers, must remain 
 unknown if the false claims of church officials deprive 
 believers of the priestly dignity, whereby all of them 
 are the organs of God for their brethren. Hence 
 Luther says, in the passage just quoted, that such 
 hierarchical claims do not simply injure Christians in a 
 matter of privilege which they might conceivably 
 waive, but that they rob them also of God, of the 
 Gospel, and of the faith. For the assurance of God's 
 grace is limited by such claims to a single official act, 
 and so loses its certainty. The forgiveness of sins is 
 not to be interpreted in reference to a single moment, 
 namely, " when the absolution is pronounced ; but it is 
 to be a continuous, eternal treasure and an everlasting 
 grace which works and is mighty always." * Whenever 
 the Church thus makes the divine act of revelation, 
 that is, the Christ of history, an element of our present 
 life, then all the events we pass through begin to utter 
 the speech of God. First among these stands all that 
 directly helps in the preaching of the Gospel. " There- 
 fore God appears thus to me through His Word : item, 
 I apprehend him in baptism ; item, God appears to me 
 through the schoolmaster, through my parents, through 
 preachers, through His Word; item, in the Absolu- 
 tion."! But the light which thus enters the soul 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xl. 319. 
 + Hid, xs. I. 27 ; xlvii. 222. 
 
CHRIST INTERPRETS LIFE TO US 195 
 
 throws its radiance necessarily over all life's course.* 
 In all our providences we recognise the pressing in upon 
 us of that earnest love of God, whose reality and 
 meaning are made certainties for us by Jesus Christ in 
 His work for the eternal kingdom of God. The very 
 same events which lead men who have no faith into a 
 pathless desert, shape a way through life for the 
 Christian to his well-known goal, as he sees it growing 
 definite before him amid his various moral responsi- 
 bilities and experiences. 
 
 § 31. The Difference between this Christian Religion 
 and Mysticism. 
 
 That experience which, in the light of Christ, we have 
 learnt to count as a work and word of God for us, has 
 the power to make us rejoice in what is eternal, and so 
 brings us actually to live in it. For God, who of His 
 nature desires the good, gives to us a token of His 
 loving care for us herein, that He makes us feel at 
 home in that which is good, and makes us able for that 
 self-denial which is laid upon us by our sharing in 
 eternal life. We can know in all experiences, great or 
 small, that we are laid hold of and borne up by a Love 
 that is not to be distinguished from the power of the 
 Eternal which through the moral law claims us for itself. 
 In this inner process we feel ourselves touched by the 
 
 * Eriangen edition, xlix. 90, 196. God sends trial " that He may 
 reveal Himself to us the more, that we may know His love. For such 
 trial and conflict are to teach us (what preaching alone cannot do) 
 how mighty Christ is, and how truly the Father loves us." 
 
196 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Infinite, fed by it and certain of it, as no mystic ever 
 does. For the emotion of the mystic, however sweet 
 and mighty it may be, has nothing to do with the 
 Eternal in its relation to our inner life, or with the 
 moral end. For this reason it is impossible for mystic 
 piety to get assurance of an inward truth that can never 
 be buried and lost amid the alternations of excitement 
 and reaction. But we, on the other hand, are certain of 
 God and of His communion with us, seeing that nothing 
 can ever blot out the historical fact to comprehend 
 which is to feel God's nearness in all the relations of 
 our life, and that the inner use of that historical fact 
 lifts us up into joy in God and so to a share in the 
 Eternal. In our comprehension of Christ, and in the 
 new meaning of all our experiences which that compre- 
 hension makes possible, we become certain of the fact 
 that God touches us. It is not to be supposed that the 
 difference between mysticism and our way of experiencing 
 the communion of God is that only the mystic believes 
 that he can feel himself inwardly grasped of God. That 
 experience is obviously the Christian's greatest joy. 
 Indeed, so true is this that it can be said of Christians, 
 in Luther's words, " that even if they knew that there 
 were no heaven, no hell, and no reward, even still 
 would they seek to serve God for His own sake." * We 
 differ from the mystic solely in the way in which we 
 become aware that God is touching us. To the true 
 mystic God is the Eternal as opposed to the temporal, 
 and hence the mystic enjoys his sense of possession by 
 God when he has such an exalted sense of the Eternal 
 * Erlangcn edition, xxii. 733 
 
LIFE IN THE ETERNAL 197 
 
 as makes him feel the charm of a wonderful calmness 
 of spirit amidst the unrest of the life that feeds on 
 this world. We also have such experiences, and hold 
 them in no light esteem ; we believe that in them we 
 are aware of the incomprehensible glory of God. But 
 we do not find in them that communion of God with 
 us which is all-important in our eyes. For to us God 
 is not the Eternal itself, which inspires us and humbles 
 us ; but He is the Power who rules both the eternal 
 and the temporal, and who brings us, men who live in 
 time, to a life in the Eternal. Life in the Eternal is 
 laid open before us when we understand moral necessity : 
 and we share that life in the Eternal when we choose 
 with joy, and so of our own free will, to do what is 
 morally necessary. The power that helps us to do this 
 is our God. 
 
 It is not in the Eternal, itself that we find the God 
 who turns to us with abundant help : it is in that 
 process in time which makes a life in the Eternal possible 
 to us. Whether in this case the inner life is richer 
 than one lived in blind devotion to the Infinite, and 
 whether it means more to men to live in the Eternal or 
 to disappear before its presence — these are questions 
 on which we shall never agree with the advocates of 
 mysticism. But the former is Christian, the latter is not. 
 And yet the prevailing theology of our time is compelled 
 to try to join forces with mysticism, unless it is willing 
 to appear devoid of all religious content. For whatever 
 may be the secret attitude of heart towards God 
 amongst those theologians, their theological theory 
 does its utmost to conceal the fact that in the 'Christ 
 
198 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 of history God so touches each one of us that we may 
 apprehend His reality and comprehend His love. 
 Before any mention is made of the Redeemer, without 
 whom for a Christian there is no God, this theology 
 erects altars to a Deity whom we are supposed to know 
 from metaphysics and from detached texts of Scripture. 
 To such an image of Deity, which the reason has con- 
 structed, the soul is expected to struggle upwards of 
 itself! From every one who becomes a slave to this 
 kind of worship, the figm-e of Jesus withdraws into the 
 far distant past. Jesus Christ is God present for us, 
 suri'ounding us with grace and compassion, only when 
 we give to Him the glory that in His appearance, as it 
 stands before us in the Gospels, we see God's approach 
 to us and God's presence with every one of us. Thus 
 far, unfortunately, in German Christendom, official 
 dignity and esteem are accorded to a theology which 
 tells a people who no longer know their Luther that 
 we deprive Christianity of all its worth if we make the 
 simple confession that the man Jesus is God appearing 
 in history and redeeming us ! And at the same time 
 this official theology itself, which evades the confession 
 of the Reformers, which openly gives up the old dog- 
 matic doctrine of Inspiration, and yet will not admit 
 the Person of Jesus Christ the sole authority for our 
 faith, to be counted as such — this official theology 
 nevertheless poses as the defender of the faith because, 
 with skilful art, it laboriously binds together the con- 
 flicting elements of tradition. So long as such " scribes " 
 rule, so long will mysticism remain necessary as a 
 substitute for Christian piety. For mysticism is cer- 
 
MYSTICISM AND ORTHODOXY 199 
 
 tainly true religion in this sense that it aims to bring 
 men into fellowship with God Himself. But the man 
 who has found Jesus Christ, and God in Him, can 
 dispense with mysticism, for in the narrow experiences 
 into which mysticism withdraws there is no room for 
 the life of Christian faith. 
 
 The chief end of every real religion is to secure God's 
 communion with each individual soul, and every devout 
 man knows that he himself cannot bring about that 
 communion, but that God does it for him. This act of 
 God is the revelation on which the reality of all 
 religion rests.* In the soul of the man who stands 
 amid such revelation religion is established ; and that 
 participation in the divine life, towards which our 
 religious longing yearns, consists in a man's becoming 
 conscious that he means something to God, and that 
 God is entering into communion with him. He who 
 does not admit these propositions to be true does not 
 know what religion is. We feel that we have a common 
 understanding with all who show that they understand 
 religion thus, whether they are Christians or not. But 
 these persons can only become Christians when they 
 learn to lay hold of the inner life of Jesus in the tradition 
 which has come down to us in the Christian brotherhood. 
 When they learn to see that, then they are at once set 
 free from mere dependence on that report, and move 
 on to the firm ground of their own indubitable ex- 
 perience. For this personal life works upon the man 
 that is at all able to see it in such a way that by what 
 it is it confirms for him the tradition. The man who 
 
 * <y. my lecture on "The Meaning of Eevelation," Giessen, 1887. 
 
200 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 feels the strength of Jesus' love, and sees that confidence 
 of victory which welled up from His peace of soul, 
 and is thus filled with amazement and humility — 
 that man will no longer see a historical problem in 
 Jesus, but a Reality before which he bows. On this 
 alone it depends whether a man is to become a 
 Christian. For Jesus would not be the Redeemer if 
 He could not help the man whom He Himself had so 
 overwhelmed by the strength of His inner life ; but 
 He does redeem us by compelling us to see in His 
 existence in the world the reality of a God whose 
 Presence made Him, Jesus, glad and confident, even 
 when He was forsaken of all others. 
 
 We can know of ourselves that we stand in the 
 midst of an incomprehensible infinity, which brings on 
 sufitring that we cannot alter ; but the Person of Jesus 
 alone can give a man the invincible certainty that it is 
 the almighty power of His Father in heaven which 
 rules in the boundless world. And if the Person of 
 Jesus so works upon us that we cannot think of Him 
 without God, then inevitably His existence and His 
 influence over us will appear to be the working of God 
 upon our own souls. Thus God reveals Himself to us. 
 In the man with whom God enters thus into communion 
 there arises a new inner life. He turns to God with 
 the consciousness that he is doing a thing which was; 
 impossible to him before, and he has the experience 
 constantly renewed that the God whom He has found 
 in Christ is making him a new creature. He learns to 
 grasp thoughts concerning God and Christ, concerning 
 the world and himself, whose meaning was previously 
 
CERTAINTY THROUGH JESUS 201 
 
 completely hidden from him, although, perhaps, he had 
 often heard them expressed. And all this new ex- 
 perience is based on the fact that in the Person of 
 Christ that which is truly supernatural has entered the 
 world, and is now lifting us above it. But this know- 
 ledge that He alone can loose our bonds and make us 
 out of mere elements in the world into sharers of divine 
 life, would all be simply concealed from us if, instead 
 of looking at Him, we should give ourselves up to the 
 sway of an indefinite conception of an " influence of the 
 supemattu'al.'" The vision of the truly supernatural is 
 ours only when we experience Jesus' power to make us 
 certain of God. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE EXERCISE OF OUE COMMUNION WITH GOD IN 
 BELIGIOUS FAITH AND MOKAL ACTION 
 
 § 1. Turning to God is Wrongly Supposed to Begin 
 
 in Prayer. 
 As God comes near our souls by giving us tidings of 
 His love towards us, even so do we, on our part, turn 
 to Him by giving Him tidings of our inner life. These 
 tidings given by man to God are prayer ; in the awak- 
 ing of the voice of Christian prayer God's purpose to 
 draw us to Himself reaches its goal. When prayer dies 
 in us, then the soul closes itself against revelation. 
 Prayer is the expression of human need before God, the 
 expression of satisfied need in the prayer of thanksgiv- 
 ing, and of need still felt in the prayer of supplication. 
 From this we might seem to get the rule that the 
 Christian is to turn towards God by telling Him all 
 trouble and thanking Him for all help received. Yet, 
 self-evident as it may seem that such is to be the 
 Christian's use of prayer and such his experience, we 
 have by no means fully and correctly described the 
 Christian's communion with God by saying this. 
 
 If prayer is not to be simply the cry of agony from a 
 helpless man, but a real communion with God, then 
 it must have direct relation to the fact that God turns 
 
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN PRAYER ? 203 
 
 towards us. The Christian must know well the fact 
 that he wanders away into emptiness if he tries to find 
 and lay hold on God outside of his own actual historical 
 circumstances, in some realm of fancy. But if this be 
 true, then supplication is not the first fact in the 
 Christian's turning towards God. To quote Luther, 
 "Before thou callest upon God or seekest Him, God 
 must have come to thee and found thee." * By 
 his own efforts a man may become a praying man, but 
 not a Christian.^ The Christian grasps God because 
 God has grasped him, and it is only in prayer breathed 
 out of this experience that the Christian can be certain 
 that God hears him and answers the cry of his soul. 
 The supplication that is wrung from the heart by 
 trouble, and the idea, born of the wish of the tortured 
 soul, that an Almighty God will break the chain of 
 causes and effects — these are not the elements which 
 make Christian prayer. The most important feature is 
 lacking. A prayer that contained nothing more than 
 these would clearly be no communion with God, since 
 the utterer would certainly not be in the presence of 
 God. He would be alone, alone with his fears and 
 wishes, making simply an uncertain venture if perchance 
 he may accomplish anything by the inner travail of his 
 soul and by his concentration on the object of his desire. 
 
 On one condition certainly, supplication might 
 possibly be the first thing in our communion with God. 
 If we could perceive God with the senses, if we actually 
 grasped His reality in all its relation to other things, 
 and knew Him by His ways towards other persons, then 
 
 * Erlangen edition, x. 11. ' t IJnd. lii. 135f. j xiv. 336. 
 
204 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 it would have some meaning to say that our communion 
 with Him might begin in the form of supplication by 
 us. We could then begin relationship with Him with 
 a request, just as we often do thus approach our fellow 
 men. But we do not see God with our bodily eyes : 
 neither does the story of what He has done for others 
 make us acquainted with Him ; hence there can be no 
 meaning in the supposition that the communion of the 
 Christian should begin by supplication. Of course, 
 many Christians take the reality of God as a self- 
 evident fact, and they consider this to be a merit, and 
 a sign of their immovable piety. So it becomes possible 
 for such to begin their prayer with a request ; and to 
 count on a time of thanksgiving in case the prayer be 
 answered. But at the same time they put themselves, 
 with their immovable piety, among those men whose 
 nature Jesus hated from the bottom of His heart, 
 namely, among the hypocrites. Let us consider what 
 would really be implied if the reality of God were a 
 self-evident fact for us. It would mean that every- 
 thing which presses itself upon our consciousness, 
 whether we will or not, impresses upon us the idea of 
 God just as clearly as it impresses upon us the idea of 
 an actual world. Now we are always taking the reality 
 of the world into account ; on it hang our fears and our 
 hopes. How, then, would it fare with ■ us if the reality 
 of God had this same power over our inner life, if that 
 reality determined our feeling and shaped our resolu- 
 tions in exactly the same way .'' We only need to put 
 the question before us to see that the assumption that 
 the reality of God is a self-evident fact, even to a 
 
DUTY, WORK, FELLOWSHIP 205 
 
 Christian, is a miserable fiction. The man who has 
 become entangled in it cannot come near to God, for 
 we cannot do that in falsehood, but only in the truth. 
 Yet on that assumption rests the view that the Christian 
 can turn to God by first addressing supplication to Him. 
 
 § 2. The Form of the Personal Life m which a Communion 
 with God can take place. 
 
 The fundamental features of Christian piety must 
 depend on the way in which God appears to us in 
 Christ and works upon us. Now the God whom we 
 feel laying hold of us when the appearance of Jesus 
 becomes an experience of our own, is that power of 
 goodness which, with victorious love, throws down all 
 the ban-iers which divide us from what is good. Hence 
 Christian piety can only arise in the field of men's moral 
 experience. God and all that He wishes to give us re- 
 mains afar off and dark unless we abide under the pressure 
 of duty, under the constraint of work, and under the 
 discipline of people of whom we think with reverence. 
 
 According to the preaching of Jesus, our life with 
 God takes place in a kingdom of God, which Jesus 
 Himself brings ; but this kingdom is presented only 
 where pure love rises up in persons and goes out to 
 persons. For only in such love and such activity does 
 God reign in persons and for persons. This means, 
 however, also that it is only in an inward yearning 
 towards this kingdom of God that there can be any 
 turning towards God Himself, or any enjoyment of His 
 goodness. This thought of Jesus, simple and clear, as it 
 
206 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 is, has not ruled the teaching of the church as it might 
 claim to do. On the contrary, its force has been 
 materially weakened by the weight of a mystical tradi- 
 tion, according to which a man is supposed to attain to 
 the vision and enjoyment of God by conduct which 
 stands in no necessary relation to moral purpose. To 
 souls smitten with this idea, that thought of .Jesus 
 seems to lack the warmth — they mean the imaginative 
 charm — in which for them lies the guarantee of truth. 
 And yet it should not be a difficult matter for any earnest 
 seeker after truth to yield assent, for every Christian 
 knows at heart that moral claims have the right to 
 overrule all others within him. Just here, then, is the 
 sign that we are to seek communion with God, not as 
 something alongside of devotion to what is good, but 
 only in this devotion. Indeed, every other impulse is 
 proved to be a clinging to what is temporal by the fact 
 that it must inevitably give way to the claims made on 
 us by an eternal law. We share therefore in the life of 
 a God who is above the world, and we are actually 
 lifted above the world ourselves only when our inner 
 life is moulded according to this law. Our aim must 
 be to live in that eternal thing which we human 
 beings can understand, namely, in the morally good. 
 Otherwise our desire for God lacks truth, for then 
 we do not seek God Himself at all, but only 
 His help in temporal matters. There is no true 
 search for God without those painful conflicts which 
 the desire to live in the Eternal causes every child 
 of the world, and if we have no joy in the sovereignty 
 of the Eternal over the temporal in the realm 
 
RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE 207 
 
 of moral conduct and order, there is no true finding 
 Him. 
 
 The Reformers advanced these same thoughts in 
 another form in their doctrine of repentance, and in 
 their principle that moral life in our ordinary calling 
 is an essential part of Christian perfection. The Re- 
 formers declared in that doctrine that the Christian faith 
 is not understood by those who are without temptation, 
 but only by those who know what agony of conscience 
 means ; and herein they imply that only amid the stress 
 of the moral life can we have the sure experience that 
 God helps us. This principle is clear, and we must not 
 let it be clouded by any discussion as to whether re- 
 pentance, as the experience of moral need, precedes the 
 rise of faith or follows its awakening. In any case, God 
 can only reveal Himself to those to whom He makes 
 clear what is good, and whom He causes to feel the con- 
 straint of the truth that the good alone has power, and 
 that they are sinners. From this it follows that the 
 Christian can only turn to God and experience God's help 
 while he is occupied in truly fulfilling his own moral 
 duties. The doctrine of the Reformers that repentance 
 is a necessary element in the Christian life is supple- 
 mented by their principle that the calling of a citizen is 
 no hindrance, but a positive necessity, to Christian per- 
 fection. Even if this principle were not expressly asserted 
 in the weU-known passages in the Confessions, countless 
 utterances by Luther would show how anxious he was 
 to impress it upon men's minds.* He insists unceasingly 
 
 * Cf. Erlangen edition, xxvi. 8f . ; xxvii. 49; also "Augaburg 
 Confession," viii. 26, 
 
208 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that " God will have Himself served in common life and 
 common circumstances not by fleeing from the same." * 
 And the argument for this is that it is just in the work 
 of his calling, whereby the Christian helps and serves 
 others, that he is a consecrated priest and bishop, and 
 therefore communes with his God.f When a man with- 
 draws from his worldly calling he ceases to take part in 
 God's eternal work, and puts a human work in its stead, 
 a human work that is worthless because it is arbitrarily 
 chosen, and lacking in all reverence for what is truly 
 necessary. "For who is the better for it,that thou enterest 
 a cloister, makest of thyself a thing apart, and will not 
 live like other men 't Who is helped by thy cowls, thine 
 austere countenance, or thy hard couch ? Who comes 
 thereby to the knowledge of God, or to comfort of con- 
 science ? Or who is provoked by these things into love 
 for his neighbour ? Nay, how is it possible for thee to 
 serve thy neighbour and show him love, humility, 
 patience, and meekness if thou wilt not live among the 
 people ? " " The Christian life, on the contrary, the 
 life of faith and its fruits, is, so ordered that all serves 
 to maintain love and unity, and further men in all 
 virtues." J 
 
 We do not see the full significance of these assertions 
 of Luther's unless we remember that their purpose was 
 to do away with the Roman Catholic ideal of Christian 
 devotion. Luther's opponents followed the rule that 
 everything which binds a man to the world, and there- 
 fore also the work of his calling, separates him from God, 
 
 * Erlangen edition, ix. 81. -f Hid, xxi. 283. 
 
 X Ibid. ix. 280-9 j cf. x 26, 413-4. 
 
REJECTION OF ASCETICISM 209 
 
 and therefore ought to vanish as far as far as possible 
 from the life of a perfect Christian. Certainly, when 
 Luther opposed that view by including in the require- 
 ments for Christian perfection that a man must have a 
 worldly calling as the only possible means of fulfilling 
 his moral duty, he did not mean that a Christian would 
 become more perfect if he allowed worldly affairs to 
 withdraw him for a time from communion with God. 
 His idea was rather that just in bowing to moral obliga- 
 tions we turn ourselves to the divine. Luther's intuitive 
 genius, which enabled him to grasp the original meaning 
 of the Gospel, and the greatness of the work he accom- 
 plished, are shown nowhere more clearly than at this 
 very point, where he certainly had not a clear insight 
 into the Scriptural ground for his ideas, namely, the 
 preaching of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God.* 
 
 In the Middle Ages the soul's craving for God had 
 found its nourishment either in thoughts on the In- 
 finite or in fanciful pictures of a self-abasing God which 
 invited a sensuous communion with Him. In both 
 these cases piety necessarily forbade as far as possible all 
 connection of man with the world, and therefore threw 
 off the moral tasks of life, except where these could be 
 regarded as ascetic mortifications of the flesh or as 
 praiseworthy imitations of the poverty of the Christ. 
 This kind of piety, intense and full of warm feeling, is 
 able to enchain and intoxicate men ; but it fails to create 
 any stronger bond of union between them than that of 
 an accidental similarity of emotions. Consequently its 
 
 * Cf. Ritschl. " Die Lehre von der Eechtfertigung und Vei- 
 Bohnung," Second edition, iii. II. 
 
 O 
 
210 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 experiences have no absolute validity, and therefore they 
 have none of the nerve of certainty. Continual fanning 
 of the feelings of such thoughts and emotions nurses in 
 quietness this form of piety, but without ever lifting the 
 soul into that realm of the Eternal where it knows itself 
 linked to all men. Ritschl's wonted expression, charac- 
 terising this Roman Catholic kind of Christianity, is 
 very apt; he says that it strives after an imaginary 
 private relationship with God.* Nevertheless he 
 misses the main point. It must be emphasised that 
 this sort of piety can never be communion with God 
 because it is disjunction from reality. It uses the 
 imagination not to convert what is real into a present 
 experience, but to overleap the bounds of reality. It 
 is, therefore, empty and imaginary piety. 
 
 Luther was well acquainted with the charms of this 
 Catholic piety, yet he did not " creep into a corner,'" but 
 remained, not merely outwardly, but with his whole 
 heart in the calling in which God had placed him. For he 
 knew that God was accessible for him only in that realm 
 of moral necessity where alone all men alike find them- 
 selves amid things that are eternal. Thus did Luther 
 remove the veil that hid the truth of Jesus' preaching 
 concerning the kingdom of God, and thus did he prepare 
 the way for a renovation of Christendom in its inmost 
 life. "We accordingly hold back from the sensuous 
 charm of that " private relationship with God." In our 
 turning to God we do not feel that we are isolated from 
 
 * Of course, in saying this Ritschl laid himself open to the mig- 
 understanding that he did not believe in God's care for the individual, 
 and of this hia opponents made abundant use. 
 
COMMUNION ONLY IN SPHERE OF DUTY 211 
 
 all other men, but rather directed towards fellowship 
 with them. We believe indeed that we are to look for 
 God's care for our individual lives, but only for that in 
 our lives which belongs to the moral brotherhood, and 
 not for that which refuses to enter such fellowship, and 
 so is cut off from the Eternal. Neither in what is op- 
 posed to morality, nor in what is morally indifferent, are 
 we able to, or do we want to, meet with God. And we 
 take this attitude although we, too, hold with Luther 
 that God means " to care for each soul separately, as 
 though there were only the one soul, and no other on 
 earth besides.* Here then at last is the definition of 
 the form of personal life in which alone a communion 
 with God can take place. As long as we are occupied 
 with a spiritual task which is not, so far as we are con- 
 cerned, in relation to what is morally necessary, so long 
 do we also keep our souls far from God. For the good, 
 or the morally necessary, is nothing else than the expres- 
 sion of the Eternal claiming our devotion, and calling us 
 to partnership. Thus, of a certainty, it is only in sub- 
 mission to moral obligations that we can turn towards 
 that God who seeks to help us to a life in the Eternal. 
 But this moral attitude on the part of men, this 
 
 * Eriangen edition, ixxvi. 42. Luther takes this expression from 
 Augustine [ef. p. 49) ; but from this presentation of the love of God 
 the two teachers derive widely differing views of religious practice. 
 Augustine derives from it that mystical communion with God which 
 can only be enjoyed in separation from the world, and it is only later 
 on that a soul is to be allowed to turn to the world in love, bearing 
 the divine secret in its heart. Luther, on the contrary, combines 
 with this idea a doctrine of communion with God, which bids the 
 Christian conceive of and realise all his relationsi to the world as 
 messages of God to his soul. 
 
212 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 recognition that all that is within us ought to yield to 
 the good, is only the presupposition necessary for the 
 religious act in which we commune with God, and is not 
 that act itself. The man who thinks of the good and 
 wills it, enters by so doing into that inner state wherein 
 he can see the God who is working upon him ; and yet it 
 is not in moral activity in itself that we rise to God, for 
 we may agree in spirit with what is good or morally 
 necessary, and try to follow it out without at the same 
 time having God in mind. 
 
 § 3. Our Turning to God begins in the Use of His 
 Act of Beneficence, that is, in Faith. 
 
 We are accustomed in common to call the lifting of 
 our heart to God " Andacht^ or devotion. This 
 expresses rightly our sense that there should be an 
 inward bringing of God before us, and a conscious 
 direction of the thoughts towards Him. But the 
 question arises as to how we actually bring this to pass. 
 We turn truly towards God only when we take and 
 use that beneficent act of His in which we experience 
 His working upon us. " Thanksgiving and the blessing 
 of God make our requests bold and strong ; prayer is 
 cold, listless, and difficult unless the heart be already 
 kindled by the coals of blessing." * But the blessing 
 or beneficent act which kindles that fire within us is the 
 fact that God comes near us in Christ. No other human 
 act has any place in our communion with God save our 
 understanding and use of this blessing from God. If 
 * Erlangen edition, vii. 130. 
 
FAITH 213 
 
 such religious significance be ascribed to any other 
 human act whatever, then the most fervent devotion 
 will become a species of denial of God ; for so soon as 
 we think that we can reach and influence God by what 
 we ourselves originate, we conceive under the name of 
 God a Being who belongs to the world, and can there- 
 fore be used as any other element therein. 
 
 The inner process moreover which makes us joyfully 
 conscious of this blessing from our God lifting us into 
 communion with Himself, and which extends the power 
 of that blessing to every relationship of our life, is 
 faiih. " It is not needful for thee to do this or that. 
 Only give our Lord God the glory, take what He gives 
 thee, and believe what He tells thee." * " Thou mayest 
 do no good thing for God, but only seek to obtain, to 
 pray for, and to receive good from Him through faith."f 
 " By no other work can we reach God or lose Him, save 
 by faith or by unbelief, by trust or by doubt. Of other 
 works no one reaches up to God." J All attempts on 
 our part to establish in us a meritorious piety prove 
 worthless when we come to know the real God who is 
 above the world. " Faith must do all that is to find 
 place between us and God." § All other human doing 
 will be taken up with the fulfilment of that law of duty 
 which points a man to his fellow men and says : Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Faith alone applies 
 to God, love to our neighbours. Hardly any other 
 
 * Brlangen edition, xviii. 20. 
 
 f IlicL. X. 25 ; xlix. 343 : " Here we are always wanling to turn 
 the tables and do good to that poor man, our Lord God, £rom whom 
 we are rather to receive it." 
 
 X Ibid. xvi. 142. § Ihid. x. 26 ; xv. 163 349. 
 
214 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 principle is so often emphasised in Luther's writings as 
 this terse description of the Christian life.* 
 
 As soon as we have once grasped the idea of the God 
 who is above the world, whom we cannot force into our 
 service, but by whose grace we live, it cannot be hard 
 for us to see that to commune with Him can be nothing 
 else than to receive and make use of what he gives us 
 when he comes inwardly near us. Fear of the Holy 
 One, indeed, forbids us that other kind of piety that 
 would strive to press upward to God by human en- 
 deavour, but much more are we kept from such a course 
 by our joy at the gift of God, that is something incom- 
 parably different from all that any human struggles 
 could work out. Nevertheless the proposition that faith 
 is the Christian's communion with God needs explana- 
 tion. For faith, wherein arises our knowledge of divine 
 things, might seem rather to constitute the pre-supposi- 
 tion on which communion with God is based ; and then, 
 when the Christian follows the knowledge he has gained 
 and turns actively towards the God who has laid hold of 
 him his action might seem to belong to another kind of 
 activity, which we distinguish from " faith " as " prayeh" 
 Luther's understanding of faith gives us all we need to 
 help us to a decision on this question. 
 
 § 4. Faith is not Experienced by the Renewed Man 
 
 as a Work of his Own. 
 
 We must first do away with the claim that faith, like 
 
 every other means whereby men seek to come to God, 
 
 * Of. Erlangen edition, xv. 547f. ; xlvii. 254 ; li. 403 ; ix. 273 ; 
 
 xi. 65, 350 ; xiii. 90 ; xvi. 332. In xv. 48, Luther reminds his 
 
FAITH NOT A "WORK" 215 
 
 is a human work. Had we to admit the unqualified 
 truth of this claim with regard to the faith of which we 
 speak, then even our faith would be an effort to lay 
 hold on God by human means. But it is just this that 
 we ought expressly to exclude from the communion of 
 the Christian with God. It is well known that in their 
 opponents the Reformers encountered the view that 
 faith is one among many human efforts all equally 
 necessary to union with God. " They think that faith 
 is a thing which it is in their power to have or not to 
 have, like any other natural human work; so when 
 in their heart they arrive at a conclusion and say, 
 " Verily, the doctrine is right, and therefore I believe 
 it," then they think that this is faith. Now when they 
 see and feel that no change has thereby taken place in 
 themselves and others, and that works do not follow, 
 and they remain as before in the old nature — then they 
 think that the faith is not enough, but that there must 
 be something more and greater." * Thus Luther knew 
 a kind of faith which a man himself begets by bringing 
 himself to assent to doctrines of some sort. Luther 
 calls such a faith worthless, because it gives us nothing. ■]■ 
 The same holds goods of acceptance of narratives of 
 sacred Scripture as true. This also is to Luther a 
 "natural work without grace ";| even Turks and 
 hearers that they have often heard him say the same before ; and in 
 xi. 349, he insists : " See thou to it that the works thou doest shall 
 not he for God, but for thy neighbour." 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xiii. 301. 
 
 f lUd. xi. 201 ; xv. 539. In xlviii. 5, we read as follows : " If 
 thou boldest faith to be simply a thought concerning God, then that 
 thought is as little able to give me eternal life as a monk's cowl is." 
 
 % Hid. X. 142. 
 
216 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 heathens may accomplish it.* He loves to show how 
 easy such a faith is. He says, indeed, concerning the 
 presence of the body and blood of Christ in the sacra- 
 ment, "Men are easily persuaded to believe this 
 article."! 
 
 § 5. Luther rises Superior to this Error. 
 We might be tempted to think that although this 
 opinion of Luther's may have been justified in his own 
 day, it will not apply to our present situation, since it 
 is now far more difficult than it was then to accept 
 such things. But even if we make such a distinction 
 between our own age and that of Luther, yet his 
 judgment still holds good. For without doubt it is 
 still possible, with the aid of human art and science, 
 to set about attaining and to fight out a belief in the 
 possibility and reality of such things as the presence 
 of the body and blood of Christ in the elements of the 
 Lord's Supper. Compared with such sort of convictions, 
 which it always remains possible to reach, the faith of 
 Luther is incomparably harder; not then alone was 
 it hard. For it is simply unattainable by any human 
 power. No insight, however deep, can found it ; no 
 will, however strong, can build it. " The true faith of 
 which we speak cannot be made by our thoughts, but 
 is purely a work of God in us, without any aid of 
 ours." X Indeed, Luther is speaking of a faith which 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xvi. 483 ; vii. 253. t -''*"'• xi- 198. 
 
 t lUH. xiii. 302 ; 1. 341 : " But simple dependence on Christ 
 through faith is not man's work but God's"; Ixiii. 126 : "For 
 as no one can give himself faith, so no one can remove his own 
 unbelief." 
 
LUTHER'S VIEW OF FAITH 217 
 
 makes man a new being ; which certainly therefore 
 cannot be experienced as the work of the man himself 
 who has not been made new. * If it be asked now 
 what kind of faith it is which a man must regard as 
 produced in him by God, we get Luther's answer 
 in passage after passage, but his answer has the 
 tendency to lead men back to the standpoint from 
 which he wishes to set them free. 
 
 Luther tells us very oftenf that true faith is not the 
 mere acceptance of the truth of any doctrines or 
 historical narratives, but that it is bound up with the 
 firm conviction that all these things have happened for 
 our salvation and are availing. It is clear that, viewed 
 in this way, another effort seems to be expected in 
 addition to the effort to hold these things as true, and 
 that the new effort is to produce the conviction just 
 named. It is in this perverted form that Luther's 
 doctrine has been handed down in Lutheran orthodoxy. 
 The orthodox theology holds firmly that faith consists 
 in notitia, assensits, and^ucia,t and so treats " assent," 
 or " the acceptance of certain things as true," as a work 
 that may be accomplished before "Jiducia " is reached, 
 and having its origin, either in a pure decision of the 
 will, or in considerations of some kind which appeal to 
 the reason. § But if we imagine that faith can so grasp 
 
 * Eriangen edition, viii. 226, 284 ; x. 173-4, 216. f C^. e.g., x. 142. 
 
 X Knowledge, assent, and confidence. 
 
 § Hence Quenstedt declares that the first element of faith is to be 
 found even in heretics, the second only in- the orthodox, and the 
 third only in those who are born again. He says also that each suc- 
 ceeding step in the process always implies the preceding one, but 
 that the reverse does not hold good. Clearly, then, it is conceived 
 
218 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 its object, then the "confidence" which make faith 
 complete must also take the character of a work 
 accomplished by man ; for the effort of the " assensus " 
 is continued all through this peculiar " confidence." 
 And even if it be added that the whole process is really 
 based on God's working upon men, this assertion has 
 nevertheless no value for the inner life of faith, for 
 according to the requirements of the doctrine, this life 
 is to reach its perfection in human efforts. And so 
 faith is experienced and counted none the less a product 
 of human effort: just as Roman Catholics regard theii 
 good works, in spite of the doctrine of " Gratia 
 operans.^ 
 
 Luther's real view was certainly different, as we see 
 from his sharp distinction between the faith which God 
 awakens and that produced by men. He is not 
 content to assert that faith has its origin in the working 
 of God upon men, but he describes the inner processes 
 which also the believer is to regard as a work of God 
 within him. In the following he describes, more fully 
 
 as necessary to faith to have an " assensus " which is not inseparable 
 from " fiducia," and therefore not produced by God's revelation of 
 Himself. Baier's definition sounds better : " Assensus cum fiducia, 
 seu fiducia cum assensu conjuncta ; ex quibus actibus velut uuitus 
 constat, et nunc illius, nunc hujus nomine appellatur, altero semper 
 connotato " (assent is bound up with confidence, or confidence with 
 assent ; of these acts, united as it were (faith) consists ; now called 
 by the one name and now by the other, both being always connoted). 
 Of, H. Schmidt, " The Dogmatic Theology of the Protestant Lutheran 
 Church." Sixth edition, 1876, p. 303f. But here also the main point 
 is lacking, namely, that the " assensus " in faith can only be regarded 
 as an element in the "fiducia " which God awakens by the fact in 
 which He reveals Himself, unless it is to become simply a fruitless 
 human endeavour that hinders faith. 
 
FAITH NOT ASSENT TO DOCTRINES 219 
 
 than his custom was, the difference between the faith 
 which makes men blessed and that which is worthless. 
 He says : " For when faith is of the kind that God 
 awakens and creates in the heart, then a man trusts in 
 Christ ; yea, he is then so firmly founded upon Christ 
 that he bids defiance to sin, death, hell, the devil, and 
 all God's adversaries ; and he fears no misfortune, 
 however hard and cruel it may prove. And that is the 
 nature of true faith, which is utterly unlike the faith of 
 sophists, Jews, and Turks ; for their faith simply lights 
 upon a thing with human thoughts, accepts it, and 
 believes that it is thus or so. But God has no dealings 
 with such delusion ; it is the work of man, and such 
 delusion comes from nature, from the free will of man, 
 so that, possessing it, they can say and repeat after 
 others : I believe that there is a God, that Christ was 
 bom, died, and rose again for me. But what such a 
 faith is, and how powerful it is, of this they know 
 nothing." * 
 
 It is noteworthy that Luther includes even those 
 words, " for me," in the possible contents of a false 
 faith. Above all, however, we must observe how far he 
 is from prizing that assent to doctrines and narratives 
 to which men force themselves, as if it were the 
 beginning or first step towards the true faith, for, says 
 he, " God has no dealings with such delusion." He by 
 no means calls us to such a work as to a necessary 
 preliminary to further progress, but he warns against 
 such a coui'se with earnest cry, saying, "Wherefore 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xv. 540 ; of, xvi. 442 ; and the " Latin Workg," 
 xxiii. 522. 
 
220 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 beware of that faith which is made and imagined, for 
 the true faith is not a work of man, and, therefore, 
 faith which is made and imagined will not avail in 
 death, but will be overcome and utterly upset by sin, 
 by the devil, and by the pains of hell. But the true 
 faith is the heart's utter trust in Christ, and God alone 
 awakens this in us. He who has it is blessed ; he who 
 has it not is condemned."* Luther was no doubt at 
 times overpowered by the weight of the tradition 
 which ascribed to "faith on authority," or, in other 
 words, to submission to doctrines not understood, the 
 power to open the kingdom of heaven to men. But 
 when he speaks out of his own faith, that faith in which 
 he knows that he has been lifted by God to God, then 
 he testifies with his whole soul that we do not come to 
 the true faith through works and doctrines,t and that 
 a " faith on authority," which our own resolve creates, 
 cannot help us one whit, since the revelation of God 
 which creates true faith works only upon the man who 
 understands it.t 
 
 Luther would not allow that a " work " of reasoned 
 and determined assent to doctrines and narratives is 
 real faith. Did he mean by this that the Christian 
 faith has nothing to do with any objective fact dis- 
 tinct from itself, and that it is simply a free motion 
 of the divine in the human soul .'' Most certainly he 
 neither meant that nor anything like it. " But faith 
 cannot be fed by aught save by the Word of God 
 alone." " For where there is no promise of God there 
 
 • Brlangen edition, xv. 542. 
 
 t Ibid. xiv. 46. J Ibid. xi. 176. 
 
TRUE FAITH 221 
 
 is no faith." * It is Luther's view of the matter that is 
 laid down in the " Apology " (II., §60-52), where the 
 promissio del and the fides of man are said to be 
 correlata and intimately related one to another. f 
 Luther's great and only aim was to keep faith free 
 from the " delusion of works "; but all the more closely 
 on that account did he connect faith with the fact 
 through which the creative power of the Almighty, the 
 Maker of all things out of nothing, lays hold on the 
 man who is lost to the world, in order to make him His 
 own child and supreme over the world. That fact, for 
 Luther as for us, was the historical figure of Jesus, 
 which makes clear to us our forlorn condition, and yet 
 works upon us as the promissio dei, the emancipating 
 revelation of God. 
 
 § 6. The Reappearance of the Catholic Idea in 
 Protestant Christianity. 
 But now if faith is so bound up with an objective 
 fact, it seems impossible to deny that if we are to have 
 faith at all, we must enter into a relation to this same 
 fact which shall express not rejection but acceptance. 
 In that case we should be once more on the standpoint 
 of that orthodox doctrine which plainly inserts between 
 the notitia, or acquaintance with the historical 
 report, and the fidutia, or religious realisation of the 
 fact reported, the assensiis as the requisite acknow- 
 ledgment of the reported facts. 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xxvii. 154f. 
 
 f (y. Erlangen edition, xii. 178, " Therefore on our side is nothing 
 eaveiifaith alone, and on His side only the Word and Sign." 
 
222 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Undoubtedly, among us all at the present time, this 
 
 course of thought is so universally followed that the 
 
 most widely different theological schools find themselves 
 
 at one on this point.* If we compare, however, the 
 
 discussion concerning faith in the "Apology " (as already 
 
 quoted), we cannot overlook an essential difference. 
 
 The "Apology" speaks only of a becoming acquainted 
 
 with the fact by which faith is kindled, and of that 
 
 appreciation of its contents in which faith consists ; 
 
 that is, it speaks only of notitia and Jlducia. No 
 
 mention is made of the necessity of a special assent to 
 
 the fact as such, apai't from its significance for the faith 
 
 which it awakens. Clearly the Reformers looked upon 
 
 the ground of their faith as an unquestionable fact, which 
 
 had b^ its very content the power to awaken the new 
 
 life of faith in any man who became aware of it. It is 
 
 quite true that the notion of the assensus as an act 
 
 which must be accomplished before the experience of 
 
 faith, has not been received into Protestant theology 
 
 without Luther's sanction ; for Luther preserved many 
 
 of the ideas of the old dogmatic without showing how 
 
 such ideas arise within the life of faith as that is created 
 
 of God. And ideas which are made the object of faith 
 
 without such understanding of them, certainly do, of 
 
 course, require the so-called act of assensus, for their 
 
 acceptance. All the same, Luther did not hark back to 
 
 the scholastic doctrine that assensus is the funda- 
 
 « Of. E. Konig, in " The Christian's Act of Faith," 1891. In this 
 hook the proposition is defended, that the Eeformers had no other 
 notion of faith than that of the Boman Catholic Church. Yet Frank 
 (" Neue Kirchliohe Zeitschritt," 1891, p. 555) praises " the true 
 Protestant tone and aim " of this treatise. 
 
RETROGRADE THEOLOGIANS 223 
 
 mental act to which the Jiducia or spes must be 
 attached. A stronger impulse in the direction was given 
 by Melancthon, whose followers enlarged their Protes- 
 tant theology by openly going back to the schoolmen. 
 J. Gerhard had no suspicion of the significance of the 
 step he was taking when he set out by laying down the 
 definition of Thomas Aquinas : * — " ad fidem duo re- 
 quiruntur : 1. ut homine credibilia proponantur ', 2. 
 assensus credentis ad ea, quae proponuntur,'" ] Cer- 
 tainly, when he did so, he was working with a concep- 
 tion of the object of faith which necessarily led on to 
 the scholastic conception of faith. He says, namely, that 
 the object of faith is, the coelestis doctrma, the heavenly 
 doctrine, which we must not only know, but assent to, in 
 order to attain to Jides, In this he is undoubtedly right 
 from his point of view as to what is the object of faith ; 
 for if the jiducia of faith is to apply to doctrine, then 
 that Jiducia can only arise when the doctrine has 
 received assent. 
 
 The so-called Lutheran finds this notion of an as- 
 sensus preceding Jiducia to be necessary, because he 
 has no longer in view the same object of faith as Luther 
 had. The fancy, of which people to-day can scarcely 
 get rid, that there must be an assensus before 
 4du£ia in order that faith may exist, arises from the 
 same deeply rooted presupposition that the object of 
 faith is a teaching concerning divine things. How 
 
 * (y. Erlangen edition, xlviii. 5 : " We say that this is faith ; when 
 I see what faith has to lay hold on and grasp." See also xii. 249. 
 
 f 'Tor faith two things are necessary : (1) That things be pro- 
 pounded which a man can believe ; (2) The assent of the believer to 
 what is propounded." 
 
224 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 powerfully this overlaying of the notion of faith oper- 
 ated in Melancthon's constitution of the Lutheran 
 church has been shown by Ritschl.* Even Luther, 
 who knew faith to be the work and gift of God, and 
 who found his freedom in that knowledge, did not 
 always assert it, but could continue to present the idea 
 that faith is an acceptance of prescribed doctrines.f 
 Already in the "Formula Concordiae" we find a contra- 
 diction of Luther's characteristic idea laid down as a 
 self-evident truth. It is there stated {Solida declaratio, 
 V. 20),$ that the Gospel is a doctrine, which teaches 
 what men are to believe that (i.e., in order that) they 
 may obtain the forgiveness of sins. Thus faith is here 
 looked upon, not as a confidence awakened in human 
 hearts by God's revelation, but as assent given to 
 doctrines to which a man must bring himself, and for 
 which he is to be rewarded by forgiveness. And how- 
 ever strongly it may be insisted alongside of this, that 
 faith is a work of the Holy Spirit, such a faith inevit- 
 ably becomes a work which the believer regards as an 
 achievement of his own. 
 
 § 7. We get Freejrom it hy Personal Forces. 
 We must break away altogether from this idea. And 
 to do so is no innovation of ours. We simply set aside 
 
 * Cf. Briegers " Zeitaohrift fiir Kirchengesohiohte," I., 89ff. ; alao 
 Gottschick " Die Kirchlichkeit der sogen. Kirchlichen Theologie " 
 (The churchliness of the so-called churohly theology). 
 
 t Cf., e.g., Erlangen edition, xiii. 190 ff. ; xi. 26S ; xix. 9. " Because 
 of such sayings, which cannot be attributed to man or angel, I must 
 believe that He was very God" ; xxix. 340 ; li. 122. 
 
 % The Completer edition of the "Formula." 
 
TRUE KNOWLEDGE INVOLVES FAITH 225 
 
 an idea which the Reformer's idea of faith has always 
 contradicted. Christian faith looks, in the first instance, 
 not to any doctrine, but to a fact which stands firm and 
 sure in the life of the man who is summoned to believe. 
 In accordance with this, iiotitia is certainly a neces- 
 sary condition for faith. The fact to which faith looks, 
 and on which it may be founded, must somehow or 
 other have come within oxu: circle of vision. But it 
 would be no confession of that fact's saving power, but 
 rather a confession of its impotence, if we should say 
 that, given the perceived fact, a human effort is then 
 needed which shall master the fact and make it the 
 basis of faith. They who do not know the divine power 
 of this fact, that is, they who do not believe in it, will 
 certainly judge in such wise as to the origin of faith ; 
 but the believer is necessarily certain that he himself 
 has been overpowered by it. Only when he has this 
 certainty does he actually see the reality of that power of 
 God which is the object of faith. And so that judg- 
 ment as to the origin of his faith is nothing else than 
 the faith itself ; that judgment is simply the expression 
 of the faith which cannot declare the reality of its ob- 
 ject in any other way. When a fact exercises such power 
 over our soul that it becomes for us the witness to the 
 reality of the God who is saving us, then we say that fact 
 wins our confidence. AU Christian faith is thus really a 
 confidence in an event which has taken place in the 
 Christian's own life. No discussions concerning the 
 credibility of a report or inquiries into the truth 
 of a doctrine can supply faith with its real object, 
 at least not that faith which regards itself as an 
 
226 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 experience of divine help, and not as simply the work 
 of man. 
 
 Now the event whose occurrence in our life is fraught 
 with such importance, is the fact that the portrait of 
 Christ is brought before us by the New Testament and 
 expounded to us by life in Christian fellowship. It 
 would be absurd to speak of some effort supposed to be 
 necessary to establish that fact. But since this event is 
 diiferent from everything else in our experience by its 
 power to give us the courage of a trust that there is 
 a God caring for us, all uncertainty as to whether 
 the figure of Jesus, which works thus upon us, belongs 
 to legend or to history, is in the nature of the case 
 impossible. The proof of the historical reality of Jesus 
 for a believer rests always on the significance which the 
 story of Jesus has gained for his life. It is only when 
 the Christian has taken this story to heart as an un- 
 questionable fact in his own life that all that testifies to 
 the historical reality of Jesus stands out before him and 
 is clearly and easily grasped. Thus the assensus to what 
 is historically reported, so far as such assensus has any 
 place in faith at all, does not precede the Jiducia as 
 a work of human effort, but is bound up with it as a 
 result brought about by the fact on which faith is 
 based. An assent produced in any other way to the 
 judgment that the Person of Jesus belongs to human 
 history, could not be so organically bound up with 
 religious faith as to form a unity; for a judgment 
 reached by a process of historical inquiry could not lay 
 claim to anything more than probability. But to 
 Christian faith it is a certainty that Jesus lived as the 
 
FAITH IS SUBMISSION NOT EFFORT 227 
 
 Man who opened up the possibility of an eternal life for 
 men by His Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and who 
 was at the same time conscious that the existence of 
 His Person in life and death would make that kingdom 
 real for all who did not pass Him by. The certainty 
 that these are not the features of an ideal adorning a 
 mythical figure, but the real claims of a man full of 
 peace and power, does not result from historical inquiry.. 
 Rather is it true that a view of history which shares 
 certainty springs up only in those who have felt, under 
 the influence of the story of this Man, what a signifi- 
 cance that story has for them and for all men. 
 
 Again, it is just as impossible to combine with faith 
 such an assent to the histoi'ical reality of Jesus as would 
 come of a simple resolve on man's part to believe it. 
 For such an achievement of defiant will-power would be 
 the exact opposite of that submission to God which is 
 characteristic of true faith. If we are to avoid botk 
 these by-paths, we must grasp and hold fast these two 
 things following : first, faith is trust in an event which 
 moves us so that we interpret it to mean that God is 
 seeking to admit us to His favour by this event ; and 
 secondly, for us this event is first and foremost the fact 
 that we are brought under the influence of the Christian 
 brotherhood, its life and preaching. We receive from 
 every side about us evidences of Christian faith and 
 Christian love, and so we are pointed to Christ Himself 
 and prepared to understand His Person. Thus, in spite 
 of all the darkness which sin causes amid our human 
 intercourse, we gain a vision of inward riches which 
 reveals to the raaturest intellect as well as to the child- 
 
228 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 like mind what is the perfect life of the spirit. Of 
 course, these experiences alone do not make any man a 
 Christian, but the condition of need into which they 
 bring us places us in a position where we can apprehend 
 the Person of Jesus to be, not a problem which per- 
 plexes us, but the fact in our own life that sets us free. 
 Through the historical influences gathered around that 
 personage which reach even to us through the con- 
 tinuous life and activity of the Christian brotherhood 
 there is awakened in us a longing for the perfect life of 
 the Spirit. When a man is burdened by this longing 
 for what seems impossible, then arises before him the 
 figure of Jesus, which appears to him no longer as an 
 ideal picture all unreal, but as the historical fact, which 
 marvellously and incomprehensibly justifies his longing. 
 The ideals of untrammelled love for what is good, and 
 of inward peace over against the world, which beam 
 down as the sunshine upon the life of the Christian 
 brotherhood, do not actually cause our faith in God, 
 but they do lift us into an inward condition where the 
 figure of Jesus, as history records it, touches us with 
 such power that it draws our confidence to itself as 
 a revelation of God. In its commencement and in all 
 its development alike, Christian faith is nothing else 
 than trust in persons and in the powers of personal life. 
 We begin to understand God's gift and God's help in 
 our religious intercourse with Christians, and through 
 our reverence for them ; then, when we have received 
 siich a training, the picture of that wonderful personal 
 life which the Gospels set before us, becomes an earnest 
 plea that we shall put our trust in it as testimony 
 
FAITH IS PERSONAL TRUST 229 
 
 concerning a Man whose existence in our world makes 
 us certain of God. When our eyes have once opened to 
 perceive what it means to us that Jesus is there for us, 
 and what we should be without Him, then we see also 
 the living naturalness of the historical portrait of Jesus, 
 and the impotence of any doubt as to its historical 
 truth. Only for one whose soul has not been so placed 
 that this historical phenomenon could awaken his con- 
 fidence has this doubt any power. And there is no 
 method, either of art or science, tliat can dispense with 
 that personal trust, or in any other way make it possible 
 to acknowledge that Christ is the revelation of God. 
 Possibly some sort of faith might be manvfa/dured by 
 such means, but we can become conscious of a faith 
 bom within us as the work of God only if the root of 
 that faith be the confidence by which we feel ourselves 
 swayed through the appearance of Jesus. In such 
 trust our own free will breathes and acts, and yet we 
 experience it as the doing and gift of One who is 
 stronger than we.* Hence, when Luther is seeking an 
 expression for faith as no work of man, but as that 
 wherein we know that we are being lifted up by 
 God to God, he can find none better than these 
 words of child-like simplicity : " a heartfelt trust in 
 
 Christ." t 
 
 • Cf. Erlangen edition, xxxv. 239i: " We honour God only by our 
 faith, and God rules in us by faith." 
 
 \ Cf., for inetance, Erlangen edition, xlvii. 12, 
 
230 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 § 8. The Relapse into the Old View Accountedfor hy the 
 Force of Criticism Inherent in Faith, Especially 
 in Regard to Miracles. 
 When we ask, why then have Luther's followers fallen 
 away from this emancipating knowledge, and burdened 
 themselves again with a piece of human workmanship 
 under the name of faith ? the answer is easy when we re- 
 member, in the first place, that even Luther himself did 
 not altogether give up the old traditional conception of 
 faith as a human act (see above, p. 224). The answer 
 is easy, again, when we remember, in the second place, 
 the fearless critical power which must come along with 
 this new understanding of what true faith is. When 
 faith insists on being nothing else save confidence in 
 Christ, then any element in the story of Jesus neces- 
 sarily becomes a matter of indifference, if, from its very 
 nature, it cannot satisfy the desire for a salvation which 
 means forgiveness of sins and life in spiritual freedom 
 as over against the world. In face of the seriousness of 
 such a desire for salvation, then the miracles reported 
 in the New Testament necessarily become of minor 
 importance, for in no case can we say of them that they 
 must be there in order that we may get help to this 
 sort of salvation to-day. All such things retire into 
 obscurity, but so much the clearer grows the one ground 
 of salvation, the Person of Jesus Himself, who lives 
 altogether for the Kingdom of God, and dies in the 
 certainty that He has brought sinners to God. It is 
 not a doubting intellect that makes this distinction ; it 
 
LUTHER ON MIRACLES 231 
 
 is faith. He who has found Jesus Himself to be the 
 ground of his salvation has no need of those miracles. 
 It is well known that Luther did not hesitate to say 
 this. Here are his words : " Even if there were no 
 miracles of Christ, and we knew nothing of them, we 
 should. still have enough in the Word, without which 
 we could not have life." * Again : " Those visible works 
 are simply signs for the ignorant, unbelieving' crowd, 
 and for their sakes that are yet to be attracted ; but as 
 for us who know already all we do know, and believe 
 the Gospel, what do we want them for ? " And again : 
 " Wherefore it is no wonder that they have now ceased, 
 since the Gospel has sounded abroad everywhere, and 
 has been preached to those who had not known of God 
 before, whom He had to attract with outward miracles, 
 just as we throw apples and pears to children.'" -j- And 
 yet again : " And what does it signify if He made a 
 score or two to see and hear, or even if He raised them 
 from the dead ? For such signs happened only to the 
 end that the Christian Church might be founded, 
 instituted, and received, along with that baptism and 
 preaching with which it was to be established." J No 
 one could declare more plainly that the miracles were 
 intended for the age in which they happened and were 
 meant for unbelievers then, in order to direct them to 
 Christ ; but that they no longer possess the same 
 significance for believers and for us, who do not see 
 them, but only hear about them. It cannot be denied 
 that the story of Christ's miracles does not give us now 
 
 • Erlangen edition, li. 327. 
 
 t Hid, xii. 236 f. J Ibid. xix. 169. 
 
232 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 the comfort that His words afford ;* or to quote Luther 
 again : " For I am not so sure of the grace that was in 
 the miracles and that was shown to others, as when I 
 have clear plain words for myself; and it comforts me 
 more to hear such friendly admonitions and persuasions, 
 than to hear preaching concerning miracles." f 
 
 In Luther's faith, the Person of Christ as being the 
 one miracle that can be grasped in personal experience 
 pressed aside the miracles reported by others, and a 
 clear example of this may be seen in his discussion of 
 the miracle of Christ's birth, where he writes : " Hence 
 we see that the dear apostles, Paul, John and Peter, 
 together with Christ Himself, do not say even one 
 single word concerning the mother, the Virgin, for the 
 greatest power does not lie in the fact that she was a 
 Virgin ; but everythmg depends on this, and for this 
 end everything else took place, that we should know 
 that the Child came for our sakes, that for us He 
 walked and stood, that He is our Lord and God, who 
 will receive and protect us." J Moreover, Luther's 
 faith did not find its interest in the fact that the Child 
 was bom, but in the Person of Christ in his life-work, 
 or in that which Christ did as Man : " The Scripture 
 does not make much of the birth and childhood of 
 Christ. Therefore the Evangelists write little concern- 
 ing His childhood, but hasten to His thirtieth year, to 
 describe His office whereto He came " ; " and there 
 {i.e., at Christ's baptism) begins the New Testament, 
 and not with the childhood of Christ " ; " and, to sum 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xv. 289. 
 
 t Ibid. XV. 290. J Ibid. xy. 165. 
 
FAITH IN CHRIST NOT IN MIRACLES 23S 
 
 np all, with His baptism begins His office — it is then 
 that He becomes our Christ, our Saviour, which He 
 came to be." * Luther will not have these miracles 
 despised, and he makes the customary allegorical use of 
 them ;t but it is clear to him that they cannot be the 
 basis and object of that faith wherein he knows himself 
 redeemed. It is simply inevitable that when we have 
 found redemption in confidence in Christ Himself, this 
 element of the tradition about Christ should be put on 
 one side ; for whether Jesus healed few or many sick 
 persons or none at all, whether or not He raised any from 
 the dead — all this can neither strengthen nor weaken 
 our trust in that Man who makes sinners certain of God's 
 grace, and who takes away from a soul all fear of fate. 
 Now, however, one who quite rightly remarks that 
 many of the most vivid features of the historical 
 portrait of Jesus depend on narratives of His miracles, 
 will naturally be inclined to link together as the object 
 of faith all that is linked together in the traditional 
 record, and so to regard the miracles as the objects of 
 faith equally with His Person, since they are recorded 
 of Him. It needs a very serious recollection of what is 
 the real basis of faith to enable one at such a point to 
 assert the truth as opposed to the claims of instinctive 
 piety. If this be considered, it will help to explain 
 how the notion of faith as awakened of God which 
 Luther had formed, has vanished again from Protestant 
 theology, though not indeed from the Protestant 
 Church. Of course, a conviction of the historical truth 
 
 • Edangen edition, xr. 238 f. ; xxxv. 208. 
 t lUd. XV. 290. 
 
234 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 of these stories of miracles may be appended to a real 
 faith without doing any detriment to the purity and 
 strength of the latter. Although the inner process of 
 actual faith is in no way dependent upon that convic- 
 tion, yet most of those for whom the Person of Jesus 
 has become the basis of a new life, would count it a 
 disturbance of their faith if one were to assail that 
 confidence in the stories which has grown in them with 
 their growth in sound religion. Nevertheless this 
 attitude, which is quite natural to many, and worthy of 
 every Christian's regard, is not without great danger 
 to clearness of faith and purity of conscience. For if 
 the inner life of the Christian never reaches such 
 seriousness and depth that faith on the one hand, and 
 the acceptance of those narratives as true on the other, 
 are seen to be quite distinct things, then even the faith 
 " which God awakens in the heart " is contaminated 
 and made impure by impotent human efforts. As soon 
 as acceptance of those narratives as true is honoured as 
 the most important element, or beginning, of faith, 
 then at once there will also appear the injurious con- 
 sequences of founding faith thus on human endeavour. A 
 faith in which there lurks an element so utterly different 
 from confidence is God is not felt to be a work of God, 
 however strongly it be asserted that He brings it about. 
 
 The objection has been raised that in order to get a 
 true portrait of Jesus we sitnply must believe pre- 
 viously in the miracles, since the disposition of Jesus is 
 manifested precisely by the way in which He per- 
 formed the miracles.* If this were true, then Christ 
 
 • A. Oppenrieder.inthe "NeueKirchlicheZeitsohrift,"1891,p. 312ff. 
 
JESUS' PERSONALITY SELF-EVIDENCING 235 
 
 would not be our Redeemer, but we should have to 
 redeem ourselves by our own resolve. No miracle of 
 which others tell us has of itself the power to influence 
 us so that it shall appear unquestionably real in our 
 eyes. For us everything depends on this, that some- 
 thing shall come before us which has not first to be 
 made a fact by our desiring to believe it, but which 
 simply is a fact. Such a thing alone can be to us the 
 ground of a faith wherein we shall be really redeemed, 
 that is to say, lifted away above all that we were before 
 or could make of ourselves ; and the Person of Jesus 
 can do this for us, because a clear vision of Him, and a 
 vision which commands our conscience, can rise up 
 before us from the records even though we hold the 
 miracles to be legendary. Indeed, I can conceive a 
 man getting a most vivid impression of Jesus' power, 
 just when he thinks he sees that His historical appear- 
 ance has been swathed in a thick mist of legends, and 
 that, nevertheless, the glory of His inner life breaks 
 through all these veils. A man who thinks he sees this 
 has, at any rate, a firmer ground for his faith than 
 another who determines to believe in the resun-ection of 
 Jesus in order that he may have his feet planted on a 
 fact that overcomes the world. The objection named 
 above misconceives the true ground and proper nature 
 of faith, for it supposes that we neither can nor may 
 come near to Jesus Himself before we are in a position 
 to hold as true such a matter as the resuri'ection of 
 Jesus. The traditional record may appear doubtful; 
 but the essential content of that record, namely, the 
 inner life of Jesiis, has the power to manifest itself to 
 
COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 the conscience as an undeniable fact. That means 
 everything. 
 
 § 9. Worldly Religion Hardens the Orthodox Notion of 
 Faith. 
 
 The orthodox notion of faith will always return 
 where men who appear to cling to religion are really 
 taken up with its outward advantages. For then 
 selfishness is sorely tempted to take pai-t in religion on 
 the easiest terms possible. The recipe for the process 
 is always the same. You take part in it outwardly, 
 but put it far from your heart. The kind of thought 
 and conduct which springs out of such a procedure 
 supplies all the forms of enjoyment of worldly mastery 
 and all the devices for making religion into worldliness. 
 The richer development of these forms is to be found 
 in Roman Catholicism. Protestantism has really only 
 one workshop for the skilful production of them, namely, 
 systematic theology. Even among Protestants this 
 study has, as a rule, been employed, not to serve 
 religion, but to secularise it. It weaves the broad cloak 
 under which all may creep who either do not know the 
 teiTors of religion, or who want to avoid them, but 
 would like to live in a religion of the human sort. 
 That semblance of scientific character which systematic 
 theology knows well how to assume is disappearing now 
 that even in theology a scientific work is beginning 
 which follows seriously those laws of investigation of 
 the truth which have been reasoned out in other spheres. 
 Even attempts to preserve that semblance of scientific 
 character by using the most dignified terminology 
 
WORK OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY 237 
 
 possible will make but little difference. But all the 
 while the disposition prevalent in this worldly pro- 
 cedure has been blossoming into a giant flower within 
 the Church itself. The desire has been to participate in 
 religion by merely getting one's religious ideas from 
 the sacred Scriptures, or from the traditional story 
 of Christianity in general ; and so participation in 
 religion is made easy in Protestantism. 
 
 But in order really to take part in religion we must 
 become certain of the Everlasting God, and that He is 
 commiming with us. This comes to no one sine magna 
 concussione animae. In order to this we must take to 
 heart the particular situation in which we stand, and 
 live that out in seriousness and truthfulness. If this 
 be true, then, the business of theology is to show that 
 the business of Christianity is to come to an under-, 
 standing and realisation of our present existence, and 
 then to show how that understanding becomes possible 
 for us if we take into account the appearance of Jesus 
 as the most important element of our existence. TTiat 
 is the task of a systematic theology which will really 
 serve religion. In that way the truth is established 
 that we become Christians, not by an acceptance of 
 thoughts which are strange to us, but by the revelation 
 of God to ourselves ; and that revelation alone, being 
 something that we expei'ience for ourselves, can change 
 our whole inner life. Our hearts shrink when we see 
 that the matter affects us so closely, and this shrinking 
 is rather encouraged by the systems of theology, for the 
 claim they raise that the thoughts of other men who 
 have been lifted into communion with God may be 
 
238 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 worked together into a system of divine truth, opens 
 & loophole by which we may escape from real religion 
 while we still preserve its appearance. 
 
 Of course, it is always insisted that a man must be 
 already renewed by the Spirit of God in order to be 
 able to grasp such ideas of other saints. But then the 
 systematic theologian proceeds to deny this admission 
 by the course he usually follows. It is admitted that 
 these thoughts stand in the closest union conceivable 
 with the personality in which they rise; they are 
 supposed to be movements of a new personal life which 
 receives from divine revelation the power to think such 
 thoughts. But then the very attempt to make a 
 system out of them is wrong. From the nature of the 
 way in which they are revealed to the new and growing 
 personality of the Christian, they are fragmentary; 
 hence they must be disfigured by any theological 
 attempts to form them into a system. The name, 
 systematic theology, is, nevertheless, appropriate, for 
 there certainly ought to be a system clearly mapped 
 out which should show the connection between revela- 
 tion and faith, and the rise of those Christian ideas. 
 But if we try to make a system, whose relationships of 
 part to part we thoroughly grasp, out of the thoughts 
 which the man renewed by the revelation of God finds 
 himself free to think, then we drag those thoughts 
 down into the very region from which they are to raise 
 us. This one consideration alone shows how in syste- 
 matic theology the tendency prevails to make a share 
 in Christianity easier in a way pleasing to the sinner 
 but destructive of the truth. 
 
FORCED SYSTEM ATISING OF THEOLOGY 239 
 
 But that tendency has still stronger support in 
 another practice, one which is held to be worthy of 
 the highest esteem, namely, the way in which loyalty 
 to Scripture is misconceived and practised by Protestant 
 dogmatics. Some individual and pleasing changes have 
 taken place in this respect, and in these the advances 
 made in exegesis have been taken in account. But 
 the chief point remains unaltered, namely, that loyalty 
 to Scripture is taken to mean that the thoughts recorded 
 in the sacred Scripture as possessed by its writers are 
 to be fitted into the system of dogmatics with the 
 utmost possible completeness. At this point Ritschl 
 and his opponents would fully agree. Nevertheless it 
 cannot be ignored that such an undertaking will always 
 lead to the legitimation of a faith which is nothing 
 more than a ready acceptance of unaccustomed thoughts. 
 For where lives the Christian who could with truth 
 presume to say that he treasures the thoughts of a Paul 
 as his very own ? Surely all of us read the apostle with 
 the feeling that he has a diiferent measure and a 
 different energy of faith from ours. If that be so, then 
 the dogmatic which undertakes to fit together and 
 give us as its own the apostle's thoughts with the 
 utmost completeness, serves corruption. If we adopt 
 such a view of the task of theology, we are proposing 
 for the sake of so-called loyalty to Scripture, to call 
 our own even those thoughts which still remain strange 
 to us ; and in that case we countenance the belief that 
 Christian character is to be established precisely by 
 accustoming oneself to use the thoughts of other 
 Christians. Wherever this belief is established, longing 
 
240 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 for true life dies out. He who thinks to gain help 
 in religion by a mere access of strange thoughts, wili 
 soon forget that he needs above all things to have 
 thoughts of his own. It has so fine a sound to say 
 decidedly that the task of theology is to include, as far 
 as possible, all Scriptural thoughts. But the inevitable 
 consequence of so doing is that we learn to be content 
 with a mere outward relation to such thoughts. True 
 loyalty to Scripture is quite another thing. We are 
 really on the path which the apostles trod when we in 
 our position become certain of God and of His grace in 
 the same way in which they in their position gained 
 that certainty, namely, through the Person of Jesus. 
 Thus we have the same faith that they had, and can 
 rise to the level of their thoughts. The thoughts amid 
 which their faith moves become, in such a case, no 
 longer a prescription which we are to try to follow out- 
 wardly, but a means whereby we may gain inward en- 
 lightenment. They are to be a help to us in that task 
 which is really incumbent upon us, namely, that we are 
 to live with a faith of our own ; they are not to be a law 
 which prevents us from seeing the one thing needful. 
 
 Still, it win always be the case that many who would 
 like to share in Christianity, will seek to attain 
 Christianity by a faith which follows this direction: 
 " Put thyself in accord with the thoughts of Christians, 
 and so shalt thou be a Christian." That is an easy 
 thing for them to do, and gives them that outward 
 appearance on which they put a value. It is uncommonly 
 hard to help such persons to real Christianity. You 
 may tell them as often as you can, and the Protestant 
 
FAITH AS COMMUNION Ml 
 
 theology does indeed tell them this faithfully, that a 
 man must become another being in order to become a 
 Christian. They can do nothing with such a counsel. 
 For they have robbed themselves beforehand by the 
 falsehood of their faith of that in which the new birth 
 should manifest itself, namely, the power of living in _ 
 the thoughts of all who are holy. Theology can, and 
 it should, at least avoid the error of leading such persons 
 on by its own conduct to a faith that seeks to make 
 Christianity easy for itself, but avoids the actual ex- 
 perience of religion. 
 
 We asked the question how it is that, in spite of 
 Luther's mighty struggle, the ready acceptance of the 
 thoughts of others is regarded even in the Protestant 
 Church as the beginning of faith and of Christianity. 
 The chief explanation is to be found in the fact that such 
 a conception of faith makes it possible for men to pass 
 for Christians who will not be at the trouble to seek God 
 Himself in their religion. 
 
 § 10. True Faith in Itself Covimunion with God, and 
 not merely a Preliminary Condition for Communion, 
 Only when we reserve the name of faith exclusively 
 for the trust which the picture of Christ awakens 
 in us, and the new purpose and comrage which are 
 born of that trust, is the notion of the faith given 
 us by God made quite definite and clear. For we 
 experience all that confidence and its fruits to be 
 the work of Christ, and we understand it to be a 
 gift of that God who turns to us through Christ, 
 If then, it be correct to say that the communion of the 
 
S42 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Christian with God can only be realised in a process in 
 which we know that we are raised by God to God, then 
 faith, when rightly understood, fulfils that condition. It 
 is not true that faith in this sense either can be or needs 
 to be supplemented by mystical excitements of any sort 
 whatever, in which the devout soul shall feel himself in 
 the very grasp of God. But we shall, of course, fall 
 into such a fancy if we lose sight of the faith which God 
 awakens, and put in its place a humanly wrought 
 acceptance of doctrines and narratives. Hence it is 
 easy to understand why such a lively sympathy with 
 mysticism is frequently met with in the Protestant 
 Church. The healthy religious instinct there, the longing 
 for life with God, runs in this direction precisely because 
 the faith which is consciously cultivated is usually an 
 impotent human struggle, and therefore is anything but 
 a life with God. Those who are fond of mysticism 
 furnish, on a smaller scale, the same spectacle as the great 
 schoolmen did ; they seek to rest from the work of their 
 faith in mystic piety. We get away from this evil only 
 by learning again to value faith in Christ as Luther valued 
 it, that is by finding in Him, not merely a necessary 
 condition for our communion with God, but that very 
 communion itself. Having thus described faith as 
 arising as a confidence in the historical phenomenon of 
 Jesus, we have now to point out the inner nature of such 
 faith, by which we recognise it to be actual communion 
 with God. 
 
DEPENDENCE ON GOD 243 
 
 § 11. Stibmission to God only in Pure Trust. 
 Only in entire submission to God can the Christian 
 commune with Him. Every act of the soul wherein we 
 think of offering God anything other than this acknow- 
 ledgment of His honour, and every sort of self-exalta- 
 tion to equality with God, must be regarded by the 
 Christian as a departure from his God. We have truly 
 reached God's presence only when, in the very depths of 
 our life, we are conscious of our dependence upon Him. 
 Therefore our communion with God can consist in 
 nothing else than the experience of dependence, for 
 every attempt to develop any other communion with 
 God must turn into an attempt to establish our own 
 independence as over against God, in such a way that we 
 really deny Him. Hence we may start with the pro- 
 position, as with an axiom, that the ideal of Christian 
 piety is an inward condition of soul in which everything 
 is blotted out from us that tends to hold aloof from this 
 dependence on God ; a condition, therefore, in which our 
 inextinguishable desire for life has found rest through 
 our experience of God's power over us. This proposition, 
 though not foreign to mysticism, is nevertheless insepar- 
 ably connected with the Christian conception of God's 
 nature: for that idea of the nature of piety can be 
 maintained only when we conceive of a God who is, as 
 Luther says, " nothing but pure love,"* or whose nature 
 is pure beneficence.f Indeed, the task of entire devotion 
 
 • Cf. e.g., Erlangen edition, xviii. 311-316. 
 
 t Ibid. vii. 168 ; xii. 354 ; iv. 532, 543, 545, 546. 
 
244 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 to God plainly presupposes the certainty that joy in 
 personal life, i.e., love, forms no subordinate element in 
 God's life, but is rather the controlling and unifying 
 element in His whole life and activity. It is only when 
 possessing this certainty that a personal spirit could, from 
 its very inmost living source, submit itself to God ; 
 whereas, if we felt compelled to think of some other 
 definite element or some hidden and nameless power as 
 the ruling feature in God, then the task of utter self- 
 surrender to Him would become an idle phrase. There 
 is only one way in which that surrender is possible, and 
 therefore only one way to God, and that is the experience 
 that the overwhelming impression of His love and faith- 
 fulness lifts us into a confidence that we are safe with 
 Him.* When our confidence is established in such a way, 
 then we are dependent upon God from our inmost soul. 
 We are brought to God, not by fear and terror, but by 
 a beneficence which takes us entirely captive, because it 
 increases wonderfully our desire for life, and at the 
 same time wonderfully gratifies it. Hence, to enter into 
 communion with God is possible only when such confi- 
 dence becomes powerful within us. " Now to come to the 
 Father is not to run afoot towards Rome, nor yet to 
 soar with wings towards heaven ; but it is to lean on 
 Him with heartfelt confidence, as on a gracious Father, 
 as the Lord's Prayer says at the outset. The viore such 
 
 * Cf. Luther, 0pp. var. Arg. IV. 299 : ' Cum Deus coli non possit, 
 nisi tribuatur ei Veritas et universae bonitatis gloria, siout vere 
 tribuenda est." (" Since God cannot be worshipped, unless truth be 
 ascribed to Hira, and the glory of universal kindness as is indeed 
 His due.") 
 
BY FAITH A NEW CREATURE 345 
 
 confideiice thrives m the heart the nearer do we come to 
 the Father.""* 
 
 If we are to commune with God we must learn to 
 know Him in His creative power ; and this is disclosed 
 in the effect which the revelation of God has upon 
 us. We find by living experience that that revelation 
 awakens a wonderful desire for life in the hearts of 
 men whose life is steadily passing away ; and the power 
 of His word turns our despair into confidence, and con- 
 verts the self-contempt of the sinner into a courageous 
 joy in what is good. But to see this is to recognise God's 
 creative omnipotence bringing into being something 
 entirely new, to wit, the inner life of the redeemed 
 man. Such a new creation of God is not the work of a 
 moment, it occupies the Clmstian's whole life ; and we 
 lay firm hold of its reality only when we add to our 
 experience of faith a judgment of faith regarding itself, 
 a judgment that is based on Christ, 
 
 Thus a communion with no imaginary picture of 
 God, but with God Himself in reality, takes place only 
 when we allow Him to make us new men with the 
 deepest need of our life satisfied. The stirring of this 
 new life, a life that is bound up with the consciousness 
 of its own divine origin, is communion with God : and 
 the life of the Christian, as it comes from God, is just 
 his faith, wherein, with new purpose and courage, he 
 remembers his sin and learns to love his cross.* The 
 
 * Erlangen edition, vii. 71 f. 
 
 f Of. Apol. for Conf. II. 62 and 63 : "Haec fides in illis pavoribus 
 erigens et consolans accipit remissionem peccatorum, liustificat et 
 vivificat, nam ilia oonsolatio est nova et spiritualis vita. Adversarii 
 nusquam possunt dioere, quomodo detur spiritus sanctns." ("This 
 
246 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 reason why Luther says with unceasing repetition that 
 God wants nothing from us except trust and faith,* 
 can only be that he knows that the living exercise of 
 faith is the actual communion of man with God. But 
 faith can have this significance only when, in the first 
 place, it is called forth by the impression made by the 
 revelation of God, and not by a human resolve, and 
 when, secondly, it is not an acceptance of doctrines as 
 true, but a trust in God Himself which He Himself has 
 awakened. The Reformers' expressions for the content 
 of this faith are often incomplete, since they emphasise 
 only the certainty of the forgiveness of sins, as, e.g., in 
 the passage in the " Apology " above quoted. But they 
 believed that the life of faith, which is a life with God, 
 contains mor'c than this, as maybe seen in the "Augsburg 
 Confession," where it is said that the knowledge of the 
 gracious God who forgives our sins is continued in con- 
 fidence in His care and providence, and therefore in 
 confidence in His help when confronted by the world. 
 
 § \% The Place of Forgiveness of Sw in the Life 
 of Faith. 
 
 It is a great merit of Ritschl's that he drew atten- 
 tion again to this declaration, for it follows that the 
 faith arising amid those fears, and giving comfort, receives forgive- 
 ness of sins, justifies and malies alive. For that consolation is a new 
 and spiritual life. Our opponents can never say in what way the 
 Holy Spirit is given.") Ibid. 68 : Haecdiximus hacteuus ut modum 
 tegenerationis ostenderemus." (" We have said these things so far, in 
 order to set forth the manner of regeneration.") 
 
 * Cf. e.g., Erlangen edition, x. 26, 108 : xiii. 205 ; xvi. 12, 16 : 
 xvii. 358 ; xix. 12, 51, 362 ; lii. 307. 
 
RESULTING CERTAINTY OF FORGIVENESS 241* 
 
 Reformers held that we are certain that God forgives 
 our sins only when we submit om-selves to the operations 
 of the gracious God with confidence in His help for 
 every situation in life. Certainty of forgiveness is no 
 doubt the first thing in Christian faith, in this sense, 
 that any Christian who is morally mature, will regard 
 it, and ought to regard it, as the clear pre-supposition 
 for all other experiences of God's grace ; but it is not 
 necessary that the certainty of forgiveness should always 
 come first in point of time in the life of faith. Still less 
 is it right to regard it as a thing apart from the rest of 
 that life. The network of facts which constitutes our 
 environment in the Christian brotherhood is all of it 
 certainly a declaration to us that God desires to for- 
 give us our sins ; but in that case it cannot be our 
 business to strive after a certainty of forgiveness as 
 something quite distinct from the other blessings of 
 faith. The facts which are all summed up in our en- 
 vironment by the Christian brotherhood are indeed the 
 ground of our certainty of forgiveness ; but they are 
 this because of that peculiar significance they have, 
 which gives us all our certainty of the reality of God 
 and of His grace. This significance of the facts 
 whereby God lifts us to Himself is of such a nature 
 that if it has given us a heartfelt confidence in God's 
 love and care, it will also in due time give us experience 
 of God's forgiveness. Indeed, it is self-evident that the 
 same facts which convince us in any way of God's love 
 must also set forth His willingness to forgive our sins. 
 Through the objective forces which work upon the 
 Christian he finds himself in such a position that he has 
 
248 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 access to the Father. Necessarily he will see that his 
 very understanding that this is his actual position implies 
 the further fact that God is ready to forgive him his 
 sins. If therefore our faith means that we understand 
 the God who is speaking to us through those forces, 
 then the forgiveness of sins is implied in the very 
 foundation of faith, and is as sure and real to faith as 
 faith is itself. 
 
 This is denied in effect when it is said to be man's 
 task, through a special agony of penitence to reach the 
 certainty of the forgiveness of sins. Rather is it the 
 case that in the way the Christian obtains it this certainty 
 can arise only by our taking to heart what God has 
 already done for us. Luther taught this connection of 
 forgiveness with the very foundation of faith after he 
 had as a monk learnt to know how fruitless is the longing 
 for a forgiveness which should show itself by signs in 
 the soul that has wrestled in penitence and prayer. For 
 the Christian the only source of forgiveness is the com- 
 prehension of the revelation of God. " If thou dost 
 not seek forgiveness in the Word it is in vain that thou 
 shalt sigh to heaven for grace, or, as they say, for inward 
 forgiveness."* This Word comes to us through the factors 
 of redemption, which are all included in the Christian 
 community^ It must make the Christian realise with 
 fear his sin and its consequences, but not so that he may 
 be kept for a longer or shorter time in remorse and 
 doubt, but so that he may see clearly in all its reality 
 the grace of God that constrains him even in spite of his 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xxxi. 171. 
 
FORGIVENESS THROUGH THE CHURCH 249 
 
 sin.* For a man who stands within the Christian com- 
 munity is by virtue of that fact under the forgiveness 
 of sins.f The unbeliever may certainly deny what the 
 Christian community brings to him, but ' he will in 
 time experience how certainly his sin has been forgiven 
 him even before he was willing to believe it.' " J 
 
 When a Christian becomes inwardly aware of the 
 forgiveness which is bestowed upon him, this forgiveness 
 is not conceived by him as a single act wrought by 
 church officials ; Luther warns us to beware " of thinking 
 that the act of forgiveness refers only to a single 
 moment, when the absolution is pronounced." § Luther 
 sees the forgiveness of sins in the whole Kingdom of 
 Christ, " which lasts for ever without ceasing. For just 
 as the sun shines and illuminates none the less brightly 
 when I close my eyes, so this throne of grace, or this 
 forgiveness of sins, is always there, even although I fall. 
 And just as I see the sun again when I re-open my 
 eves, so also I have forgiveness of sins once more when 
 I look up and come back to Christ. Wherefore we 
 are not to measure forgiveness so narrowly as fools 
 dream." il We belong, by baptism and Christian 
 
 * Of. Erlangen edition, xxxi. 182, 183 (1530 A.D.) 
 
 -f- mi. xxii. 21. I telieve that in that community, and no- 
 where else, is there forgiveness of sins, and that outside of it 
 nothing, no good works, however many or great, can bring about 
 forgiveness. And within it, it does not matter how much, how 
 greatly, how often a man may sin, the forgiveness of sins stands sure 
 whenever and so long as this community enduresi 
 
 % Ibid. xxxi. 172. 
 
 § Hid. xi. 319. 
 
 II Ihid. xlv, 294; the same simile occurs in xi. 320f.,l^and in 
 xl. 312 f. 
 
250 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 training, to the brotherhood which Christ adorns with 
 His love ; herein, then, we have before us the fact that 
 God desires to forgive us. 
 
 Of course, it is essential that we do not regard our 
 connection with the Christian brotherhood merely as a 
 course in life that has valuable consequences, but that 
 we understand it as a message of God to us. When we 
 do so understand it, then we necessarily place ourselves in 
 that relation of dependence upon the Christian brother- 
 hood which Luther describes by the well-known expres- 
 sion in the Greater Catechism, where he says that the 
 Church is our mother. Ritschl adopted this idea' as 
 the principle which every churchly theology must main- 
 tain against separatist endeavours ; but for doing so he 
 frequently had to endure the reproach, even from 
 "churchly" theologians of our time, that this was a 
 relapse into Roman Catholic ways of thinking. But in 
 spite of this, it should not be difficult to see the difference 
 between the doctrine inherited from Luther and upheld 
 by Ritschl on the one hand and the Roman Catholic 
 doctrine on the other. According to the Cabholic 
 conception, the essential thing is to suffer or have 
 imposed on us a state of dependence on the Chui-ch, 
 and to submit to her summons to obedience to her 
 laws. According to the conception followed by Ritschl, 
 the essential point is that in the light of our knowledge 
 of Christ we should understand our dependence on the 
 Christian brotherhood to be the expression of the grace 
 of God that is turned towards us. If our souls have 
 attained this attitude towards the Christian brother- 
 hood, then we can indeed regard the forgiveness of sins 
 
GOD'S MESSAGE OF GRACE 251 
 
 as an unchanging blessing that is given to us as the 
 sun that shines above us, as the firmament that is 
 vaulted broad and far above us, or the covering that 
 enwraps us.* Luther used all these pictures to express 
 the fact that the forgiveness bestowed upon us is con- 
 tinuous, that it is implied in the basis of faith, and 
 that, therefore, it is an indwelling element in every phase 
 of faith. 
 
 God's way of turning to us in Christ lifts us into 
 communion with Him because the perception of this 
 fact enables us to set the certainty of reconciliation 
 over against the feeling of our guilt. Therefore we 
 are not to behave as though that had not happened for 
 us, but we are to open our eyes to see what God has 
 done for us. We are to ask daily forgiveness from 
 God, as the Father "who does not deal with us in 
 severity, but can indeed bear with us somewhat, and 
 can overlook much that we do." f And yet in such 
 case it might seem as if forgiveness were a mere matter 
 of course in a Christian's eyes. The fact is rather 
 that to every one who really experiences it, forgiveness 
 comes as an astounding revelation of love. This 
 reflection, correct as it undeniably is, has caused much 
 confusion. For it may easily seem that in such case 
 the Christian, in seeking forgiveness, must first forget 
 all the evidences of God's love that he presently 
 possesses. But is it really so, in personal intercourse, 
 that all the bonds of confidence between two persons 
 must be broken before the one can experience forgive- 
 
 * Cf. Erlangen edition, xiv. 213 j 1. 249 ; « Latin Works, iv. 143." 
 f Erlangen edition xii. 186. 
 
252 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 ness from the other ? It is certainly quite otherwise. 
 So also in our communion with God, the convincing 
 power of His revelation may abide with us, even 
 although we sin, and may prevent the trouble caused 
 by our sense of guilt. And yet in each case we only 
 find anew how God is stronger than our heart. The 
 impression, indeed, that God's love seeks us out in spite 
 of our sinning will not cease ; it will never grow old, 
 but will constantly open afresh to us the gates of a new 
 life. So we are not by any means to push away from 
 our hearts all belief that God is gracious to us, and 
 deliberately try to work up a deep sense of God's anger 
 against us, with the idea that only so do we treat our 
 guilt seriously, and only so can we receive forgiveness. 
 Rather must we sincerely live our life in the reality 
 amid which God has placed us, and obey the obligations 
 in which this reality is realised. It may be the case 
 that a Christian does believe that he feels all the awful 
 anger of God, because he feels deeply the burden of 
 his guilt, and looks forward to a desolate life in the 
 unavertable consequences of his sin. If he remains in 
 that condition and so perishes inwardly, he does indeed 
 fall before the judgment of God, who is a God, not of 
 the dead, but of the living. But when, on the other 
 hand, in this state of mind the grace of God in Christ 
 wins power over his heart he undergoes the miraculous 
 experience of redemption, of rescue from the anger of 
 God. It can never be the duty of a Christian to work 
 himself violently into a feeling that he has been rejected 
 by God. 
 
GUILTY FEAR 253 
 
 § 13. Repentance as an Element in the Life of Faith. 
 Certainly all experience teaches that on the other 
 hand no Christian is able to maintain himself unwaver- 
 ingly at the purest altitude of childlike trust in God. 
 Even he who is preserved from grosser sins will never- 
 theless feel within him that self-condemnation which his 
 moral short-coming keeps before his eyes, and he will 
 feel it more and more keenly just as he grows more 
 and more sensitive to the weight of moral obligations. 
 It is inevitable also that the difficulties of life will at 
 times overmaster feeling so seriously that the weary 
 soul will let go all that it has hitherto gained of 
 Christian joy in life. Luther's words hold good, there- 
 fore, of the most advanced of Christians : " It is not 
 necessary that he should be altogether without fear. 
 For nature always remains within us, which is weak, 
 and cannot stand without fear of death and Christ's 
 judgment." * Luther does not indeed mean for a 
 moment that everyone must fight the same inner battles 
 as himself. " God holds the measures here, so that 
 He will lay upon each one his cross according to his 
 own person, according as he is strong and able to carry 
 it." t Thus he says that God sometimes tries His great 
 saints, and exercises them with the desertio gratiae 
 (deprivation of grace), " and then a man feels in his 
 heart just as though God and His grace had deserted 
 it, and would no more of him, and wherever he turns 
 he sees naught but anger and terror only. But not 
 * Erlangen edition, x. 77 f I^<^- i^- 87. 
 
254 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 every one suffers such great trial, nor does any one 
 understand it save he who experiences it."f Luther 
 admits to himself, too, that such inner battles may 
 have their cause in imperfect Christian knowledge; 
 they were experienced " especially in the blindness and 
 darkness of the Papacy, where they had little true con- 
 solation." f But, above all things, Luther saw in these 
 circumstances only a suffering which the Christian can- 
 not avoid, and not an achievement which he is to accom- 
 plish. It is only in lives of thoughtless pleasure that 
 such suffering can possibly be entirely absent. " There- 
 fore such fearsome persons are indeed nearer their 
 salvation than the reckless and wilful who have neither 
 fear nor care for comfort all day long." J 
 
 But as we ought not to pray for trial but to be kept 
 from it,§ so also it is folly to count it a duty to have 
 trials, wherein we lose sight of God's grace. When- 
 ever Christians search earnestly what is the basis of the 
 assurance of faith, or whenever they come to serious 
 knowledge of duty, they are met by the contrast 
 between their own unworthiness and God's unhesitatinar 
 love. But the Christian is not to aim with conscious 
 purpose at having this experience of remorse. He is 
 rather to aim always and only to do the positive duties 
 of the Christian life. Only amid the light of that life 
 does a true repentance arise out of and instead of the 
 languid discomfort of the sinner. The sinful will never 
 brings forth such regret by any process of its own.|| 
 Hence repentance does not mean purposed self-chastise- 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xi. 21. -f- lUd. ix. 87. 
 
 t lUd. X, 76. § Tbid. ix. 88. || Ihid. xxvii. 392. 
 
REPENTANCE LOOKS FORWARDS 255 
 
 ment, but, as Luther says, " a real bettering and 
 change of the entire life.* Similarly, " if thou wilt 
 confess sin, then have a care that thou lookest and 
 thinkest far more on thy future than on thy past life," 
 "For it is easy to forgive that wherein thou hast 
 sinned already. Therefore must thou see to it how 
 thou mayest begin another life, and that thou feelest 
 in thy soul that thy former life irks thee, and that thou 
 hast had enough of it."f Amid such endeavours the 
 Christian will and ought to find that he cannot help 
 himself by any mere straining of his own will, but that 
 he draws strength from his experience of God's love. 
 "This despairing and seeking of grace is not to be 
 something that lasts for an hour or a time and then 
 leaves oiF; but all our work, words, and thoughts, while 
 we live here on earth, tend to nought save increase of 
 distrust of self, of abiding rest in God's grace, and of 
 desire and yearning for Him." t On the other hand, 
 Luther says that a wish to stay in the despair of 
 remorse and in fear because of sin is an abuse of that 
 fear. The longer a man thus keeps looking at his sins 
 " the worse things become, and the man lives in con- 
 stant doubt." § That carefully purposed regret which 
 the sinner seeks to bring about of his own direct 
 resolve needs to be unmasked, says Luther, for it is 
 the mistaken effort of man to set himself right again 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xi. 290. f Ihid. xi, 211. J Ihid. xv. 442. 
 
 § Hid. xvli. 434 ; cf. xlix. 12 : "It would be well indeed for us if 
 we could only learn and take well to heart how Christ says and 
 testifies with His own mouth that it is against His will, and hurts 
 Him when any Christian's heart is sad or fearful." 
 
256 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 in the eyes of God.* He says that the man who uses 
 fear and repentance unwisely " only increases them and 
 remains in them, as though he would purify himself 
 from his sins by doing so ; but nothing comes of it." t 
 On the contrary, the Christian should set it clearly 
 before himself what God has given him. For it is 
 God's doing that he finds himself within the sphere of 
 the Christian brotherhood, where he meets with Christ, 
 and where he is trained to understand Him by innu- 
 merable influences of Christian ways of thought and 
 Christian conduct. These facts are to be to the 
 Christian God's declaration of His gracious intention 
 towards him, and when he reflects upon them he is not 
 to think, if he falls into sin, that " therefore God has 
 forsaken him and cast him away as a worthless tool " ; 
 but he is to take comfort in the thought " that he is 
 in the Kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of that grace 
 which is mightier far than sin." J 
 
 § 14. Tlie Element of Contemplation in Faith. 
 In this faith we are lifted up to God, and because 
 of its objective basis this faith is essentially a faith 
 in reconciliation, although it may not from the 
 beginning, or at every moment, take on the form 
 of certainty of forgiveness. Now it would be a 
 strange proceeding for a Christian who had grasped 
 that fact to aim nevertheless at devising for himself 
 some additional special communion with God, and 
 
 * Cf. my essay, "Eepentance in the Protestant Christian." 
 " Zeitsohrift fur Theologle imd Kirche," 1891, p. 37 ff. 
 t Erlangen edition, x. 76. J Ibid, xii. 318 ; of. xvi. 139. 
 
FAITH NOT IDLE CONTEMPLATION 257 
 
 at bringing about the same by some special effort. 
 The real man of faith does not creep into the corner 
 of lonely contemplation in order to gaze on divine 
 things as on a quiet picture ; * he rather seeks experi- 
 ence of God, and to be aware of Him in His activity 
 as the almighty and life-creating Spirit. Hence the 
 Christian who has any care to remain in that union 
 with God which God Himself has begun with him, will 
 turn his attention to those experiences in which this 
 faith affects all relationships of life, and proves itself to 
 be the power of God making a new man of him. 
 " Throiigh faith shalt thou experience the might and 
 mercy of the Father, and experience Him to be a Com- 
 forter and Life-giver." f -" To name God outwardly 
 with thy mouth, or to pray to Him with kneelings and 
 postures, all this is not having God; but it is when 
 thou trustest Him heartily, and when thou lookest to 
 him for all goodness, grace, and favour, whether in 
 doing or suffering, in life or death, in love or sorrow." % 
 " To have a God at all means to trust God." § " And to 
 
 • Erlangen edition, xv. 186 : "Tlie clergy, especially those who stick 
 in the monasteries, boast that they live a life of contemplation ; they 
 know just as much of a contemplative life as a goose knows of the 
 Psalter. Wherefore let that go ; our Lord God has not commanded thee 
 to sit and gaze luxuriously up into lieaven as they do who fancy that such 
 is a contemplative life." " Faith is a thing of such a sort that it sets 
 one right everywhere and in all affairs. This is the truly contempla- 
 tive life." " Therefore all this sort of faith comes to pass without 
 any work of ours, and it is not my work but God's j nothing is neces- 
 sary to make it save the Word which creates faith in the heart." 
 " That is a truly contemplative life ; it consists not in fleeting 
 thoughts, but in a certain knowledge." Cf. xliii. 41f. 
 
 •j- Ibid. XV. 329. t ^^'■^- ^^^- 131 ; ef. xi. 337. 
 
 § Hid, lii. 301. 
 
 R 
 
258 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 hang upon Him with the heart is nothing else than to 
 trust one's self utterly to Him." * 
 
 What else, then, can communion with God mean if 
 it be not to have Him, to feel His power, to hang upon 
 Him with the heart, " since He is the one eternal 
 Good, the eternal well-spring running over with pure 
 goodness and flowing with everything that is or is called 
 good " ? f Instead of giving ourselves up to a luxurious 
 contemplation, in which, after all, one only busies him- 
 self with his own fancies, we are to live the life of faith 
 which arises within us by our contact with God through 
 that almighty fact, His own word. J As we apply this 
 faith to every kind of situation in life, and win from it 
 our view of the Whole of things, we receive gifts from 
 God, and we answer Him by joy in that power of His 
 which renews us marvellously, and makes us free men as 
 over against the world. The right contemplation is 
 life in the " freedom of a Christian man." § 
 
 § 15. Faith Fleeing the World. 
 
 A coming to God which did not include at the same 
 
 time a new valuation of what we experience and of 
 
 what we are in the world, would not be a coming to 
 
 the God revealed in Jesus Christ, but to the hidden 
 
 God of mysticism. It would therefore be a kind of 
 
 piety which no Protestant need feel it his duty to 
 
 possess. It belongs to the Roman Catholic way of 
 
 thinking, which resists the view of the world which 
 
 * ".Greater Catechism," 1. 15 ; cf. section 28. t Hid. section 25. 
 X Erlangen edition, xy. 432. § Ibid, viii. HI. 
 
MISTAKEN PATH OF ASCETICISM 269 
 
 God desires to see in His own children. " Now if a man 
 have a wife, or a wife is occupied with her child and 
 tends it, the Roman Catholic teachers say that these 
 have not pure hearts because all this cannot happen 
 without thoughts that attach to such things. For it is 
 necessary to think, yea, daily, of food, of money, of 
 work, of other things ; yet these are things from which, 
 as they say, we ought to be quite free, so that we may 
 have no thought but to sit and speculate on heaven, 
 and meditate on nothing else than God." " Thus have 
 the blind guides led us, and they have written countless 
 books full of such speculation as to how men are to 
 become free from things." * If Christ Himself were 
 measured by the standard of this kind of piety, even 
 He, as Luther properly remarks, would appear to have 
 no perfect communion with God ; for His calling 
 bound Him to the world, and "whei-e then did His 
 heart remain the while and his thoughts, that ought, 
 forsooth, to be absorbed with God alone .'' " " To 
 have nothing to do with outward, worldly matters and 
 things, but to li\ie, cut off from all these, a life of 
 spiritual contemplation ; this is not a guiding and a 
 teaching according to faith." f Thus such sort of flight 
 from the world seems to Luther not only an abandon- 
 ment of moral duties, but also a hindrance to faith or 
 the right communion with God. 
 
 The Christian certainly does know one kind of flight 
 from the world, without which he could not come to 
 God ; if Christianity did not share the tendency of all 
 
 • Erlangen edition, li. 290. 
 
 t Ihid, xli. 150 ; cf. ix. 81, 280-81 ; x. 416. 
 
260 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 genuine piety to flee from the world, then the spread of 
 mysticism in the Church would be quite inexplicable. 
 But Luther felt that he had really found a deeper 
 significance and a more powerful method for Christian 
 denial of the world than the older Church had done. 
 The tendency of the religious nature to forsake the 
 world reaches its perfect satisfaction exactly when the 
 Gospel, as Luther understands it, lets us find our God 
 in the midst of our relations to the world and our 
 energetic action therein, and lets us enjoy communion 
 with God as Him who thus makes us blessed. Hence 
 Luther demands, first of all, faithful work in a worldly 
 calling as a part of the priestly duty of the Christian, 
 and therefore as necessary to his communion with God. 
 From this follows Luther's opposition to the Catholic 
 idea of fleeing from the world. " They do not forsake 
 or flee from the world (as they dream). Thou mayest 
 be in whatever position, life, and existence thou 
 choosest (for thou must indeed be somewhere, since 
 thou livest on earth) ; in none of these does God sever 
 thee from the people, but rather places these among 
 them ; for every human being is created and born for 
 the sake of others. Where thou art now (say I), and 
 in whatever position thou mayest be found, there art 
 thou to flee from the world."* Here Luther expounds 
 the true flight from the world in this sense, that while 
 the Christian lives amid the arrangements of the world 
 
 • Erlangen edition, viii. 272 ; cf. 1. 218. To become holy is said 
 to mean to be withdrawn from the world. But " the holiest rank or 
 life on earth is nothing else than the ordinary Christian rank." Qf, 
 xxix. 327. 
 
IN THE WORLD YET NOT OF IT 261 
 
 and enjoj-s its good things, he does not pin his heart to 
 it,* but uses it as a means for eternal bliss. 
 
 In another passage he writes : " See, this is to die to 
 the world and to be without fear, namely, to be troubled 
 about nothing save what God wills, to speak nothing 
 save what pleases Him, and what I know are His words ; 
 in short, that I so live and so do, that I know the works 
 are His works, and that I am certain that my whole life, 
 inward and oiitzvard alike, is His ; then I am cut off 
 from the world and still am in the world." f Thus 
 Luther recognises the world-flight in the longing of the 
 Christian for an eternal good which is not to be found 
 in the world, and in the fact that in spite of this he 
 seeks and finds God in all that he does and suffers here 
 " in his ordinary life and rank." The former makes us 
 strangers in the world, but the latter sets us free from 
 that inner bondage to the world which is rendered all 
 the heavier by our longing for a bliss that is above the 
 
 * (y. Erlangen edition, xxxv. 220 : " Hence the world is to tlie 
 Christian sheer night and darkness which faith malces since it clings 
 to the blood of Christ alone, and neither regards nor pays heed to 
 aught else." Thus, when the Christian asks what is the ground of 
 his hope of life, the world fades away for him in darkness. That is 
 the world-flight of faith, In which we recognise and seek for Christ 
 alone as our Helper. <y. the description of the Christian's indepen- 
 dence of the world, xxxv. 247. 
 
 f Erlangen edition, xv. 412. We read in this passage also : " No 
 one is less in the world than a Christian, and no one is more worldly 
 than a Christian." This sentence would make an admirable summary 
 of all those thoughts of Luther's which we have just expounded ; but 
 just at this point, in the second half of the sentence, Luther lets the 
 main point escape him. For he goes on to say : " That is, the world 
 observes him more, and the devil fights harder against him than 
 against the heathen." 
 
262 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 world. The first is in a sense the natural instinct of all 
 genuine religions to flee the world, the second is that 
 inner deliverance from the world which our faith effects 
 by letting the Christian find his God amid his earthly life. 
 We are truly cut off from the world only when we learn 
 to " use it " aright, i.e., when we rule it through faith. 
 
 Of course, since the Christian breaks loose from the 
 world in this way, he misses the reputation for piety 
 which those who forsake the world in the usual way take 
 to themselves and easily gain from people around them, 
 who say : This man does not live like a common man, 
 wherefore he must be a saint." * " For the truth does 
 not so shine and glitter, because she does not make 
 herself plain to calculation. For example, when an 
 ordinary Christian hears the Gospel along with others, 
 believes, uses the sacrament, lives spiritually at home in 
 his house with wife and children, that does not shine 
 like the fair and clever lies of a holy Carthusian or 
 hermit, who lives apart from the people and claims to 
 be a holy servant of God."t Yet without doubt there is 
 a greater depth and strength of world-abnegation in that 
 achievement of faith which makes us feel free from the 
 mastery of the world even when actually in its power, 
 and which makes us feel the limits and sufferings laid on 
 us by the world to be a very help and a blessing. For 
 we could not be more deeply separated than this from 
 what the world is to the natural man, the basis of his 
 hopes of life, the sovereign before whom he bows, the 
 blind force before which he trembles. But again this 
 overcoming of the world which Christian faith works is 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xx. I. 18. f ^^'^- ^- 81 ; cf. xlix. 303-306. 
 
CHRISTIAN LIFE IN THE WORLD 263 
 
 certainly much harder than that contempt for the world, 
 " which makes itself plain to calculation," or, in other 
 words, follows nothing but the very illuminating prin- 
 ciple that God is something other than the world. A 
 man can accomplish this latter of himself, but not the 
 former. " Only try it with earnestness, and with true 
 wrestling of conscience, then shalt thou surely know 
 it." * It is only by stern fight that we can secure this 
 inner freedom from the world, and this peace " that can 
 still the heart, not when there is no misfortune, but in 
 the very midst of it." f So Luther had to say concerning 
 himself : " At times I believe, at times I do not believe ; 
 at times I am joyous, at times I am sad." | And yet he 
 can say of this mood of freedom from the world that 
 faith brings : It is a true and continual peace, which 
 abides for ever and is invincible," § because the inner 
 state is no product of human reflection, but comes only 
 of the revelation of God which continues in imperishable 
 power. "As the joy of the godless never rightly reaches 
 the heart, so also the sorrow of the Christian never goes 
 to the bottom of his heart." || All the sum of that which 
 the world can give or take away could never, taken 
 altogether, suffice for a foundation for a joy that should 
 so outweigh all our soitow. We do not create this 
 foundation for ourselves ; but we receive it when we find 
 God in Christ. 
 
 Thus we may put away from our thoughts all temp- 
 tation to seek, in utmost disregard of the world, for 
 
 * Eriangen edition, xii. 153 ; cf. xvi. 165 ; xviii. 300 ; xix. 17, 18. 
 f md,. xl. 362. X Ibid. xix. 76. § lUd. xi. 353 ; I. 231. 
 II Ihid. XV. 108 i cf. vii. 116. 
 
264 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 fellowship with a God whose revelations come only to 
 solitary souls, and that within the realm of their 
 imagination. For inward freedom from the world is 
 indeed sought for in this way, but never found. We 
 have communion with God — He works on us, and we 
 turn to Him — when we receive from Him the strength 
 in which we overcome the world, and when with joy and 
 gratitude we use the same. If we are in contact with the 
 living God, we must necessarily experience His creative 
 power ; hence our communion with Him comes to perfec- 
 tion only when, face to face with the world, we experience 
 that God is making something different of us. Were 
 our God something inert, then we might be able to 
 enjoy the bliss of communion with Him in a world- 
 foi'getting contemplation. But since He is the Living 
 Power which presses in upon us through all the com- 
 plexity of our lives, we must let Him lift us in and by 
 means of that complexity if we would enjoy the bliss ot 
 a real communion with Him. Our turning towards God 
 comes to its perfect fulness in our gi-ateful joy at what 
 God makes of us. This normal attitude of Christian 
 piety is classically described in Luther's treatise, " On 
 the freedom of a Chiistian man," * and it is Ritschl's 
 great merit to have brought this ideal of Chiistian piety 
 once more to the front as the practical principle of the 
 Reformation, and to have taken up once more the corre- 
 sponding renovation of theology which the Reformers 
 left incomplete. 
 
 * Qf. EitsoU's "Doctrine of Justification and Atonement." Second 
 edition, i. 181 1. 
 
CHRISTIAN FREEDOM 265 
 
 § 16. Lidher's Idea of the Freedom of a Chrhtian 
 
 Man. 
 In that treatise Luther describes the inner life of the 
 Christian which springs from redemption. It is in 
 essence nothing other than Christian freedom, i.e., faith.* 
 From this faith are excluded all speculationes, medifa- 
 tiones, et quidquid per animae studia geri potest ,-t it 
 is nothing but the cognitio Chiisti Jesu, that under- 
 standing of Christ with which the Sacrosanctum Dei 
 verbum (the most sacred word of God), the gospel of 
 Christ, makes us rich and blessed. J Through this faith 
 we enter into that wonderful fellowship with Christ 
 through which our sin becomes something that belongs 
 to His Person, and His relation towards God and 
 towards the world becomes our own. The taking and 
 giving in which this fellowship consists is realised in our 
 understanding of the Person of Christ that is in the faith 
 which He awakens in us and which we base on Him.§ 
 And the riches we thus receive constitute the whole 
 inner condition of the believer, in which he finds himself 
 brought into the same attitude towards God and towards 
 the world as Christ. When we recognise in Christ the 
 God who desires to reconcile us to Himself, we are 
 
 * Cy. Lutlier, 0pp. var. arg. iv. 266: "Haec est Christiana ilia 
 libertas, fides nostra." 
 
 ■f Speculations, meditations, and whatsoever can be carried ou by 
 eifort of the soul itself. 
 
 t Ibid. 221-223. 
 
 § Hence marriage is but a poor copy of that fellowship ; <•/, the 
 same, p. 227. 
 
266 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 ourselves raised to the priestly dignity of Christ. Per 
 spiritvmjidei, by the spirit of faith, that is amid those 
 inward experiences that the comprehension of Christ 
 awakens in us, we gain courage to come so near to God 
 that we see in Him really a Father who clasps us to His 
 heart.* In proportion as God is present to us in Christ, 
 and we can lay hold on Him there, we have this priestly 
 freedom of communion with Him. But while Luther 
 declares this priestly power of the believer to be the 
 greatest good we have through Christ, f yet he prefaces 
 his exposition of this by a description of the believer's 
 hmgli/ power, and returns to this latter idea at the end 
 of it. He does so for this reason, that the same under- 
 standing of Christ, the saxaejides which makes us priests 
 before God makes us kings over the world. For the 
 believer who has come to understand that God turns to 
 him in Christ cannot enjoy that communion with God 
 without being conscious that therewith a change has come 
 over his whole being. The exercise of his priesthood 
 necessarily implies that in his communion with God he 
 is spiritually lord over those very things which have 
 caused him suffering in the realm of worldly things, for 
 although he still feels their bitterness, he nevertheless 
 understands them and uses them as God's gift to bring 
 him blessedness. This spiritual kingship enjoyed amid 
 subjection, free and powerful amid overwhelming trouble, 
 is unattainable by the man who has not been brought 
 near God through faith, and just as impossible is it for 
 a man to enjoy that nearness to God without feeling 
 
 • Hence marriage is but a poor copy of that fellowsliip ; cf. the 
 fame, p. 232. -j- JUd. 231. 
 
CHRISTIAN HUMILITY 267 
 
 and acting as a new creature over against the world, as 
 the wonderful impulses of this great power beat within 
 him. Any other supposed communion with God and 
 Christ but this experience of what God means to make 
 of us in Christ, lacks that humility in which the soul 
 really yields to God. If, then, we turn to the Redeemer 
 only in the sense that our human sympathy is stirred 
 for Him, in love and sorrow, then Luther did not speak 
 one whit too strongly when he said that such ways 
 are puer'tlia et muUebria deliramenta * (childish and 
 effeminate hysterics). Instead of such feeble artifices, 
 which are always a practical denial of the Deity of 
 Christ, we are to recognise God in Christ and to 
 become free men by utter submission to Him.f 
 
 § 17. Christian Humility. 
 The Christian's submission and his freedom are both 
 inseparably included in his communion with God, yet 
 at any given moment we may prefer to call the whole 
 by either name. Our communion with God is, first of 
 all, utter submission to His majesty. But submission 
 is possible only when God makes us certain of Himself 
 and of His grace, or, in other words, when He is present 
 
 * Luther, 0pp. var. arg. iv. 233; cf. "Kritische Gesamtausg," 
 I. 341. Erlangen edition, x. 155 ; xi. 154f. 
 
 t This topic, handled in " De Libertate Christiana," is also fully 
 discussed in Erlangen edition, xv. 262 ff.; xxxv. 246 f.; li. 398. The 
 idea of the believer's spiritual lordship over the world is very often 
 taken up. Cf. e.g., x. 257 ; viii. 141 ; xi. 207 ; xii. 282 ; xiv. 338 ; 
 XXXV. 130 ff. On the other hand, Luther speaks of " the priestly power 
 of believers," generally in the sense that they have received power to 
 open the kingdom of heaven to others. 
 
268 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 to us and comprehensible to us in the historical figure 
 of Christ. It is only when our surrender is joyful that 
 we do fully submit ourselves. The attitude of the heart 
 which finds compensation for all life's burdens in a 
 conscious submission to God's guidance has been pointed 
 out by Ritschl as the same as that gladsome lowliness 
 manifested by Jesus Himself.* 
 
 This religious lowliness, or humility, as Luther trans- 
 lates it, is experienced in the first place as a condition 
 in which God places us, although there is bound up with 
 it the consciousness of the freest self-determination. For 
 that joy in God which is essential to a true submission 
 to what He may ordain is awakened in our hearts only 
 when God becomes an objectum amabile (a lovable 
 object) to us by some actual proof of His love.f The 
 heart does not become " a quiet, humble dwelling-place 
 of God" until we are able to recognise Him as our 
 Father ; " for when I come to know that, then I let 
 Him rule as He will, and take Him alone as all in all." \ 
 The man who tries to svibmit to or to humble himself 
 before God in any other way than under this touch of 
 God Himself achieves only a hypocritical humility, and 
 remains inwardly far from God.§ For the more and 
 the worse a man tortures himself to obtain eternal life, 
 
 * Of. Eitsohl. "Lelire von dei' Rechtfertigung und Versolinung." 
 Second edition, iii. 587. 
 
 + (y. "Apologie der C.A." iii. 8. % Erlangen edition, xii. 288. 
 
 § Hence it is tliat only the mistaken, " manufactured " humility is 
 self-conscious. "True humility never knows that it is humble." 
 " Humility is so tender and exquisite that it cannot hear the sight of 
 itself." Erlangen edition, xlv. 236 ff. "It is a secret of God's," 
 viii. 78. 
 
HUMILITY MEANS CONFIDENCE IN GOD 269 
 
 the less He attains to it. He must be humbled, and 
 must crave the Spirit of God alone. The man who 
 means to make himself blessed by works is the deviPs 
 own for ever.* 
 
 Secondly, that humility through which we stand in 
 the right relation to God is always likewise a corre- 
 sponding behaviour towards the world in which the 
 salvation God has given is enjoyed. t For joyful self- 
 surrender to the living God means willing submission to 
 those laws and arrangements by which He works on us 
 on every side and actively influences our life to its very 
 depths. That man alone is humble who finds in pros- 
 perity God's great claim upon Him, who sees in the 
 boundlessness of things God's almighty wisdom, and 
 who finds in incomprehensible suffering God's love : for 
 then only is the man submissive to God in respect of 
 the actual facts of Tiis existence. But when this is the 
 case, the man does indeed possess that spiritual sove- 
 reignty over the world which gives him a share in the 
 Kingdom of God and makes him blessed. Hence Luther, 
 in the passage quoted above, J after describing humility 
 as a heart that is quiet and contented before God, 
 straightway goes on to say : " It must come to pass 
 that the heart recognises God's glory, God's power, 
 God's wisdom. For then it lets God rule all things; 
 it knows that all things are works of God, and therefore 
 it can be terrified at nothing." " Thus there grows in 
 xis undaunted defiance against all that exists on earth, 
 
 * Eriangen edition, xvi. 468. 
 
 t Cf. Eitschl, in tlie volume quoted above, 692, 
 
 X Ei-langen edition, xS. 2S8, 
 
270 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 for we have God, and all that is God's ; wc do all that 
 we are to do, and we are not afraid," * It is the same 
 power that works for us, although in another direction, 
 when humility guards a man who has reached the 
 pinnacle of success and is enjoying earthly riches, from 
 losing the inner freedom of the children of God, and 
 setting up a mistaken independence. Humility then 
 overcomes that pressure of the world which threatens 
 to drive men into a narrow trust in self, and so it 
 proves itself to be a real communion with the life- 
 giving and liberating God. 
 
 § 18. The Fear of God. 
 Another expression for that inward submission in 
 which we commune with God is " the fear of God." To 
 the Christian this fear is not a momentary horror at the 
 mysterious power that is over his life.f It is always 
 possible for the creature moved by its love of life to 
 escape from this emotion into renewed calm forget- 
 fulness of God. But the Christian fear of God is rather 
 that deep and joyful acknowledgment of God as the 
 only mighty and living One, which we may and ought 
 always to feel. " It is thus we must understand the 
 fear mentioned in the Scriptm-es ; it does not denote a 
 fear or a terror lasting for an instant, but it is our whole 
 
 * Similarly he describes (Ei-langen edition, xi. 337) the thoroughly 
 humhle heart which God desires by saying that it is nothing other 
 than trust and confidence in God, without whose sole help and 
 deliverance man can do nothing. 
 
 ■j- With this fear is combined the " optare non esse deum " (the 
 wish that God did not exist), var. arg. i. 69. 
 
THE RIGHT FEAR OF GOD 271 
 
 life and being, walking in reverence and awe before 
 God.* " What we, following the Scriptures, call the fear 
 of God, is not terror or dread, but an awe that holds 
 God in reverence, and that is to remain in a Christian, 
 just as a good child fears its father." f Thus the 
 Christian's fear of God is the reverence of the child for 
 that Father within whose mighty care it feels itself still 
 sheltered. | The Christian fears the Father whom he 
 recognises in Christ, " not on account of the pain and 
 punishment, as unchristian men and the devil fear 
 Him," but because he sees before his eyes the actual 
 power of God giving him blessing ; and he fears to take 
 one step beyond the sphere of that blessed }jower " as a 
 good child fears, and will not arouse its father's anger, 
 or do anything that might not please him."§ Here 
 again we see that the communion of man with God can 
 take place only as an experience caused in the man by 
 God Himself. For any one can work up for himself 
 those feelings of horror that arise from a sense of inevit- 
 able dependence on a power we dread ; and such feelings 
 are to be found, too, in any Christian life, for no 
 Christian is perfect ; || but, on the other hand, that fear 
 of God which looks at God Himself, and is therefore 
 
 * Erlangeu edition, xxxiv.ll74. if Hid. xviii. 349. 
 
 I Ihid, Ivii. 56. § IMd. li. 365 ; cf. xvi. 187. 
 
 II But " Sine timore inferni nuUus est nee esse debet nisi sit per- 
 fectissimus. Ideo justorum timor semper est mixtus sancto et servili, 
 sed proficinnt de servili magis magisque ad sanctum, donee nihil nisi 
 deum timeant." Var. arg. i. 73. (" No one is free from fear of the 
 Infernal one, nor ought we to be so, unless we be utterly perfected. 
 So the fear of the just is always a mingling of the devout and servile. 
 But they go on from the servile more and more to the devout, until 
 they fear nothing except God.") 
 
272 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 true communion with Him, arises only in the soul that 
 experiences the emancipating power of the Gospel amid 
 contact with the Christian brotherhood, through Chris- 
 tian training, custom, and preaching. But it is only 
 complete when we have found in Christ the God that 
 draws back to Himself even those who feel deeply 
 estranged from Him by the sense of their own guilt.* 
 Inward trembling before the holy power of the Good 
 can never cease to be part of man's communion with 
 God. If we cease to fear God, we have lost our inward 
 relation to Him. The communion of the Christian with 
 God never succeeds in overcoming the inner opposition 
 between fear and love. 
 
 § 19. Love to God or to Christ. 
 In Jesus' combination of the two sublimest com- 
 mandments of the Old Testament, He described the 
 normal attitude of the human soul towards God as 
 love to Him. Nevertheless, He and the apostles rarely 
 used that expression in their testimony concerning 
 their own communion with God; and this makes us 
 see that its use may easily lead to error.f It is 
 
 * There can be no communion with God without awe under the 
 sense of the holy power of goodness ; when that awe ceases, com- 
 munion with God ceases also. {Cf. Luther, Erlangen edition, xi. 
 248) : " We have prophets in this country, up and down, who teach 
 the people a courage that is all too free, and bid them talk with the 
 High Majesty as with a cobbler's lad. These impudent and haughty 
 souls no man should follow, if he love himself." {Cf. the same 
 volume, p. 194). 
 
 ■f Cf. Eitschl. " Lehre von der Kechtfertigung und Versohnung." 
 Second edition, vol. ii. 99f. 
 
LOVE TO CHRIST 273 
 
 especially instructive in this connection to note how 
 seldom the Epistles of the New Testament speak of a 
 love to Christ. The reason why the expression is thus 
 avoided is explained by Ritschl in the following passage : 
 " That formula does not indicate whethei-, in our love 
 for Christ, we set ourselves on equality with Him or 
 subject ourselves to Him. But the expression, 'faith 
 in Christ,' implies confession of His Deity and of His 
 sovereignty, and therefore excludes the possibility of 
 equality with Him." * The expression for communion 
 with God most frequently used in the New Testament 
 is that of "reverent trust in Him," and the reason, 
 doubtless, is that just such reverent trust fulfils the 
 command to love God. If we are not merely specu- 
 lating in general concerning love to Him, but thinking 
 of that particular form of it which is prescribed by the 
 nature of the God thac Christ reveals, then it is not 
 difficult to see that to have faith in the ti'ue sense is to 
 have love to God. We may by no means lose sight of 
 the high command, " Love God," but, at the same time, 
 this is not to be abused by reading into it an arbitrary 
 meaning, and calling the play of human imagination 
 with its own dreams a holy thing. 
 
 Luther once casually defined love thus : " To love 
 means to can-y a good heart, and to favour all that is 
 good ; to be heartily kind, helpful, and sweet to every 
 man, and not to laugh at his sorrow or misfortune." f 
 
 * <y. Eitschl. " Lehre von der Eechtfertigung und Versohnung.'* 
 Second edition, vol. iii, SS2. It is remarkable that in spite of this 
 true observation, Bitscbl wished to understand by the Godhead of 
 Christ only what might also be predicated of the Christian community. 
 
 f Erlangen edition, zliii, 152, 
 
274 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 It is clear that we can love men in this way ; but we 
 cannot so love God. If this were all of love, then we 
 cauld love God only indirectly, namely, by making 
 God's purpose and work our own through willingness 
 to help our neighbours. In that case love to God 
 could be carried out only in the form of love to our 
 neighbours, as Luther frequently declares. He puts 
 the question : " How may love of a neighbour be the 
 fulfilling of the law, when we ought to love God above 
 all things, even above our neighbours .'' Answer : 
 Christ Himself solved this, for He says, in Matthew 
 xxii., ' The second commandment is like unto the 
 first,' and He malces of love to God and love to one''s 
 neighbour an equal love. And this for the reason, first, 
 that God does not need our work and kindness, but 
 thus points us to our neighbours that we may do for 
 these what we desired to do for Him. He wants 
 nothing more than that we trust Him and hold Him to 
 be God. For even the preaching of His glory and 
 our praising and thanking Him take place on earth in 
 order that our neighbours may be converted and brought 
 to God thereby. Ana yet all this is called love to God, 
 and is done from love to God, yet really to the use and 
 profit of our neighbours only." " It is thus we are to 
 find and love God, thus are we to serve Him and do 
 Him good if we wish to serve Him and do good to 
 Him : and so the command of love to God is brought 
 down altogether into love for our neighbours." * And 
 Luther says in paradoxical fashion that God would 
 
 * Erlangen edition, viii. 65f ; cf. x. 109 ; xv. 401 1 xxii. 332 ; xvji. 
 860-3l 
 
LOVE GOD BY SERVING MEN 275 
 
 rather forego our service of Himself than our service of 
 our neighbours,* and he insists earnestly that when we 
 find some work that we wish to do for benefit to God 
 and not for our neighbours alone, then are we to count 
 that work an evil thing.f And starting from this 
 argument, too, he went on to utter his disapproval of 
 misleading ideals set up in the mystics' theory of love 
 to God ; he says : " Here now is a check given to those 
 slippery and high-flying souls who seek God only in 
 great and glorious things, who thirst after His great- 
 ness, who bore through heaven, and think that they are 
 serving and loving God by such noble ways, while all 
 the time they are betraying Him and pass by Him in 
 their neighbours here on earth in whom He desires to 
 be loved and honoiured." " For therefore did He put 
 from Him the form of God and put on the form of a 
 servant, that He might di-aw our love for Him down 
 and fasten it on our neighbours, whom we leave lying 
 here, and gaze the while into heaven thinking to show 
 God great love and service." J 
 
 Yet Luther knows also of a love to God which is 
 rendered directly to Himself, and this is joy in God.§ 
 All love is joy in personal life ; joy in our neighbour's 
 claim upon us is love for our neighbours ; joy in God's 
 claim upon us is love to God. And as we are to show 
 the former when our neighbour is in trouble, so the 
 latter is manifested amid troubles of our own. Joy in 
 God, the " tasting and seeing how gracious the Lord 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xiii. 168 ; of. xiv. 155. 
 t IU&. xiv. 59 ; x. 25, 146 ; xvii. 152. J lUd. viii. 66. 
 
 § mi. xvii. 257-60 ; v. 205 (heartfelt contentment, pleasure, and 
 love to Him). 
 
2T6 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 is, " all this does faith that is tried bring to us at the 
 end of our travail. For so long as the strife and trial 
 last faith is in travail, and all is hard and bitter : we 
 neither taste nor see any sweetness in God. But as 
 soon as the evil hour is past, if we endure it and abide, 
 then comes God's sweetness, and God becomes so dear, 
 so pleasant, and so sweet to the heart that we desire 
 nothing more than more strife and more trial and 
 travail." * Thus love to God springs from the experi- 
 ence that He comes personally near to us, that He lifts 
 us inwardly above our trouble, and lets us find peace and 
 blessedness amid conflict and suffering.f This assist- 
 ance in life is never ending, for it helps us not simply 
 in this particular or in that, but makes entirely new 
 men of us, and in our joy over this we love God as He 
 would have us love Him. 
 
 The love for God thus awakened may be required of 
 us by a commandment, because necessarily it is a kind 
 of regulative of our behaviour, so that we willingly 
 acquiesce in what God commands and enjoins. "A 
 true love to God says from the heart, ' Lord God, I am 
 Thy creature ; do with me what Thou wilt, it is all 
 the same to me ; I am indeed Thine, and I know that." J 
 But these two things, the love God awakens and the 
 love He claims, are together clearly nothing other than 
 that true faith which is an actual communion with the 
 Living God. Luther says, after discussing at some 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xlv. 77. 
 
 t Ibid. ix. 38. " Love to God is nothing else than gratitude for 
 unspeakable kindness received." 
 t Hid. xlv. 172 ; xvi. 426. 
 
FAITH IS LOVE TO GOD 277 
 
 length the impossiljility of our fulfilling this chief com- 
 mandment if we love God only as a thief could love 
 the hangman : "Just as God is satisfied with my faith, 
 with my love for Him as a gentle God and a merciful 
 Father of whom I love to hear, so He desires also that 
 I aim all my works earthward and toward my neigh- 
 bour only."* This view of the identity of love to God 
 and faith is expressed in the countless passages in which 
 Luther says God wants nothing of us save trust and 
 faith ; or, that faith is to be exercised towards God, 
 and love towards our neighbours. And so, seeing that 
 love to God is the joy caused by His coming near to us, 
 Luther is able to say that love does not exactly result 
 from faith, but it is the chief element in faith itself. 
 " Now we have said above that such confidence and faith 
 bring with them love and hope ; hut if we rightly consider 
 it, love comes first, or at the same moment with faith. 
 For I could not trust God if I did not think He desired 
 to be favourable and gracious towards me, whereby I 
 may become gracious towards Him, and may be moved 
 to trust Him heartily and to expect from him every 
 good thing.t Thus the Christian's love to God does 
 not move in an atmosphere of contemplation of inactive 
 beauty. It arises when we actually experience the 
 Living and Working God, manifesting His love and 
 making us understand it, and so turning the rebellion 
 
 • Eriangen edition, xvii. 260. 
 
 •j- Ibid, xvi. 131. The same connection of thpuglit occurs in 
 V. 204 : " For no one can love Christ unless he trusts Him and 
 takes comfort in Him." "Thus does the lioiA desire us to think 
 of Him, that we love Him, aiiA set owr hearts upon. Sim." 
 
278 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 and despair of our hearts into humility and con^- 
 solation. The blessedness which gi'ows up out of this 
 spiritual and true contact with God is that joy in Him, 
 which we call love for him. Hence true love to God 
 is widely different from the tenderness we are wont to 
 manifest when some peculiarity of a stranger awakens 
 in us a natural inclination towards him. Our spiritual 
 personality has to be rescued and kept free from the 
 fetters of such natural love. Love to God is quite 
 different, and arises as we feel the freedom into which 
 God's own act emancipates us. 
 
 It may now seem that what we have said is contra- 
 dicted by Luther's use of the features of natural love 
 as illustrations of the Christian's love for God. And 
 even if his doing so had meant that he had relapsed 
 into the practice of Papists and sectaries who " talked 
 and dreamed of trafficking with God," * it would not 
 be strange to find even in Luther such a sign of the 
 powers of the past. We find him saying concerning 
 the prophet of the Roman Catholic love for Christ : 
 " Saint Bernard I hold very dear as the man among 
 all those writers who preaches of Christ most sweetly ; 
 I follow him when he preaches Christ, and in the faith 
 wherein Saint Bernard prayed, do I also pray to Christ." f 
 But it cannot in the least be affirmed that with all this 
 attachment to Bernard, Luther ever allowed himself to 
 be won by him to that love for God and Christ which 
 
 * Erlangen edition, li. 290. 
 
 ■j- IHd. xlvi. 243 ; of. on the other hand, xliv. 73 ; xlvii. 23, where 
 he directly reproaches Bernard for having fled from God in Christ 
 and for having resorted to a communion with the Virgin, which was 
 gimply human tenderness. 
 
ERROR OP MYSTIC LOVE TO CHRIST 27^ 
 
 only a monk can show. Indeed, in the very passage 
 quoted, he adds immediately that he does not follow 
 that revered man in anything which would make it 
 appear that persons engaged in their worldly callings 
 could not be perfect Christians.* But it is still more 
 important to note how Luther developed his compar- 
 ison of love to God and Christ with bridal love ; for 
 then we may see plainly that Bernard's heartfelt yet 
 effeminate piety acted only as an occasion for setting 
 in motion thoughts of Luther's own which he derived 
 from his own correct understanding of the Revelation 
 of God, 
 
 Luther refused to know anything of any sort of con- 
 templation save that which is incumbent upon every 
 Christian without exception. Faith is to him the true 
 life of contemplation.^ He does indeed compare faith's 
 love towards God with the love of a child for its 
 mother, and even with that of the bride for the bride- 
 groom ; but by these pictures he illustrates simply the 
 strength of the love,I and the confidence with which the 
 believer can turn to Christ his Redeemer, who makes 
 the believer owner even of His own great Kingdom. § 
 When Luther speaks of love to Christ as the Bride- 
 groom, he is thinking of the believer's endowment with 
 the riches which Christ has bestowed upon the brother- 
 hood, and not at all of an interchange of sensuous 
 tenderness between Chi-ist and the individual soul ; and 
 so he says U is the Christian brotherhood that is the 
 Bride of Christ : " In this faith we are all one Bride, one 
 
 » (y. also Eriangen editioD, xliii. 43. f ^^^- ^^' 187. 
 
 t Ibid. XV. 189 ; xiv. 15. § Hid. xv. 543. 
 
S80 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Christian church of this Bridegroom Christ." * That 
 bridal love to Christ which Luther means is nothing 
 else than the faith which relies upon Him utterly, 
 and joyfully acquiesces in His will. " He will have me 
 say from the depths of my heart ' I am thine.' But this 
 union and this mariiage come about through thejaith 
 where I rely upon Him freely that He is'mine.'" f How- 
 ever tender our love for Christ might be, if it claimed 
 to be anything else than thankful trust in the God who 
 turns towards us in the Redeemer,^ Luther would regard 
 it as a devotion invented of men and savouring of the 
 flesh. § He knows indeed a love to God and Christ 
 which God Himself awakens in us by making us happy 
 and blessed through Christ. But the very earnestness 
 of this experience makes him repudiate what is called 
 the contemplative love of God in bitterest language: 
 he says : " It is sheer hypocrisy for a man to creep into 
 a corner and think ' Oh, I will love God. Oh, how 
 dearly I love God, He is my Father. Oh, how affectionate 
 I am to God,' and so forth." || Ritschl has shown how 
 
 * Enlangen edition, xv. 547. Luther closes these discussions con- 
 cerning love to Christ the Bridegroom with the characteristic turn : 
 " The whole of the Christian life consists in these two things : Believe 
 in God and Christ His Son ; help thy neighbour ; the whole Gospel 
 teaches this." Of. xlvi. 154 ; 1. 253 ; xxxv. 209. 
 
 t Ihid. xir. 229 ; of. Eitsohl, " Geschiohte des Pietismus," II. 32, 
 and III. 212. 
 
 t Qf-^ passage quoted above, ix. 38. 
 
 § Erlangen edition, xlvi. 247. 
 
 II Ibicl. xiv. 172 ; ef. xxxv. 334. " No one shall taste Deity save 
 as He wills to be tasted ; and thus He wills : to wit, that he shall be 
 looked upon in the humanity of Christ. If thou dost not find the 
 Deity thus thou shalt never rest. Hence, let them go on speculating 
 and talking about contemplation, how everything is a wooing of God, 
 
IMAGINATIVE CONTEMPLATION 361 
 
 soon the tendency arose among the imitative followers 
 of Luther to find the Reformer lacking in this respect, 
 and to turn back to the pseudo-Augustinian writings 
 of the Middle Ages for more satisfying food, Ritschl 
 has proved this so thoroughly that his opponents con- 
 tradict him in general, but they do not try to confute 
 him in detail.* 
 
 § 20. The Historical and the Exalted Christ in the 
 Life of Faith. 
 
 It is clear that Luther knew the error of misusing 
 what was really the strongest possible expression for the 
 act of faith, namely, love to God and Christ, by making 
 it an expression for something that was utterly worthless. 
 This utterly worthless thing was the so-calied "con- 
 templative life," which Luther had found to be the 
 highest spiritual enjoyment which monastic life knows. 
 It is not of course difficult for an imaginative person so 
 to conjure up the Person of Christ before himself that 
 the picture shall take a kind of sensuous distinctness, 
 and then the ground is ready for the contemplative 
 love to Christ. Some one thinks he sees Jesus Himself, 
 and conseguentli/ begins to commune with Him. But 
 what such a person communes with in this fashion is 
 not Christ Himself, but a picture that the man's own 
 imagination has put together. It is of no use to object 
 
 and how we are always having a foretaste of eternal life, and how 
 Einiitual souls set about their life of contemplation. But do not thou 
 learn to know God thus, I charge thee." 
 
 * Cf. Eitschl, " Geschichte des Pietismus," II, 1 ; IV. passim. 
 
282 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that the imagination itself is led and is made fertile by 
 what has been given to the soul by the Christ of history. 
 No doubt this is often the case with those who cultivate 
 this contemplative love. And indeed it is quite true 
 that every Christian who is united with Christ through 
 experience of God's love does find such a picture arising 
 in his mind; and the picture is also something traly 
 sacred to him as a fruit of the new life which Christ 
 has created within him. But such a picture does not 
 bring us the possibility of communion with Christ. 
 
 For, first, life is not in this picture, but in" the 
 historical Christ. It is in this latter that we trace the 
 power which makes us certain of God and shows itself 
 to be the working of God upon us. Even if there 
 arises a picture of Christ in our minds in consequence 
 of this experience, we are not to detach the picture 
 from its foundations and look to it independently for 
 the bestowal of divine life. Such an undertaking would 
 be nothing else than man's flight from God's presence. 
 It is not the product of our imagination that has power 
 over us, but that portrait of Jesus the form of which 
 He Himself has fixed in the faith created by Him and 
 handed down to us in the New Testament. From 
 that alone does the Redeemer's power proceed, laying 
 hold upon lis, so that we are compelled to recognise in 
 Him the God full of love and faithfulness, who is thus 
 seeking us out in our earthly abandonment. Of course 
 I can also say concerning my dead father that God 
 sought me out and blessed nie richly in all that He gave 
 me through my father ; and yet of a surety I should 
 not have seen the hand of God in that if my Christian 
 
RIGHT CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST 283 
 
 training had not shown me the historical Christ, and 
 set free my innermost life. Of this Christ that tradi- 
 tion hands down to us, we can say "In Thy light do we 
 see light." His appearance is for us the fact which 
 makes this world God's world, and we can say that of 
 nothing else. In Him alone does that God come to 
 meet us, in the knowledge of whom we can understand 
 for the first time the divine significance which all other 
 facts have for oui* life. 
 
 But all this of course appears but a poor affair 
 to those who follow the monastic sort of worship of 
 imaginative pictures of Christ. They desire, they say, a 
 personal relation with the Christ who is personally 
 present to them now. So they object that the historical 
 Christ is separated from us by many centuries, and that 
 we come into immediate contact only with the after in- 
 fluences that He has left ; hence towards Him we can 
 only feel that quiet gratitude which we feel towards all 
 human greatness in the past. To this we reply that 
 this is simply the plea of unbelief, whose dim vision 
 sees only the natural in history, and not the God who 
 is now laying hold of us in that history. At the 
 moment when our understanding of the historical 
 Christ makes us see the Living God, we certainly do 
 not think of the centui-ies that intervene between our- 
 selves and the earthly life of Christ. That is the true 
 presence of God in our hearts when we experience how 
 the tidings He gives us through Christ place the world 
 and our sin beneath our feet. And this is the presence 
 of Christ which we can experience in true communion 
 with God, when His appearance in history comes home 
 
284 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 to our hearts as the most important thing in all the 
 world. We Christians cannot experience any other 
 presence of God and Christ, and we desire no other. 
 
 Of course, we may be reminded of those hymnsiwhich 
 tell of the " sweetness of Jesus," and which certainly 
 seem to point to a presence of Jesus in quite another 
 sense, and to a much closer communion with Him ; and 
 Luther himself spoke of what it is " to taste the sweet- 
 ness of God." But Luther by no means understood by 
 this some quite peculiar enjoyment which we are to get 
 by sore striving after it in addition to that inner 
 redemption which the understanding of God's revelation 
 gives us in our troubles; he meant rather just this 
 experience of struggling faith.* God becomes sweet to 
 him ; that means that the Christian trusting in Him 
 has no more fear, and so knows that he has been 
 delivered by Him from all his trouble.f In the same 
 way, then, must we expound the expression "the 
 sweetness of Jesus," whenever the Reformer uses it ; he 
 means by it joy in Christ the Redeemer. At the 
 foundation of all this lies the experience that our 
 recognition of what His actual appearance in history 
 means to us makes us new men. Luther can never 
 have meant by that expression any tender communion 
 of mere imagination with the " most beauteous of the 
 children of men." If we seek God or Christ in our 
 imagination, then we deliberately withdraw ourselves 
 from that reality in which God desires to meet us. 
 Such flight from the Living God was no worship of 
 
 * Cf. Briangen edition, xiv. 77 f. 
 t (y. xiv. 85 ; also xv. 107. 
 
COMMUNION WITH CHRIST 285 
 
 God in Luther's opinion. It is a mistake to suppose 
 that Luther sought to have such a personal relationship 
 to the exalted Christ. So far as I know, there is 
 no single sentence where Luther says anything of the 
 sort. On the contrary, there are numerous passages in 
 which Luther discusses the lordship of the exalted 
 Christ within His own people as something removed 
 far above the sphere of mere emotion, and where he 
 describes it as the object of the reflective thought of 
 faith.* 
 
 * To give a small selectioa, we draw the reader's attention to a few 
 of Luther's discussions on the following subjects : Seeking Christ : 
 Erlangen edition, xlviii, 316, 321 ; z. 189. Receiving Christ : vii. 
 156f. ; xii. 73 f. ; xv. 155 ; xvi. 432. Putting on Christ : vii. 39-42, 
 316 ; 1. 136. Having Christ : xvi. 494 ; x. 256 ; xiv. 335. Christ's 
 life in us : viii. 39 ; xi. 5 ; xvi. 435, Christ's dwelling in the heart : 
 ix. 272 ff. ; xii. 162, 288, 813 ; xlix. 313. Christ's rule within us : xvi. 
 470 ; viii. 193 ; x. 12 ; xii. 179, 203 ; xv. 25-32, 188, 230 ; xxii. 66 ; 
 xviii. 39 J xi. 80 ; xii. 47 ; xvi. 318. A feast with Christ and Christ's 
 bride : x. 145 ; xi. 204 ff., 231 ; xiv. 257 ; xv. 135 f., 155, 374, 490, 494, 
 543 f., 554. Fellowship with Christ : x. 256 ; li. 361, 474. 
 
 In these discussions it is clear enough that Luther was very far 
 from thinking of what men nowadays say they prize as a personal 
 relationship with Christ. And Luther recognises the presence of the 
 Christian brotherhood only, "where there are such people as hold it 
 for truth that Christ is so near to us that He talks and deals with us 
 through the Word and the sacraments without my seeing it, and yet 
 while I see clearly the manner of life that is learned there " (Erlangen 
 edition, xx. 1, 510). But such "holding as true" follows for Luther 
 from the significance which the historical appearance grasped in faith 
 had gained for him. None of the expressions which Luther uses to 
 show how near Christ is to His own, mean that the Christian per- 
 ceives His nearness as he perceives that of a man who is present to 
 his senses. They are not expressions used to describe an experience 
 coming to us with sensuous evidence ; but they express rather a 
 thought which arises as we reflect accurately concerning faith ; and 
 the particular thought here concerned arises from the experience we 
 have as we come into relation with the Christ of history, 
 
286 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Of course, it may be said that surely a man's inner 
 life belongs as much as anything else io the reality by 
 which he is affected, and that it is, indeed, the most 
 important element in that reality ; that consequently 
 we may regard a meeting of the soul with God which 
 takes place entirely within the inner life as the most 
 important experience of a pious soul. But our inner 
 life consists in working out and realising the value 
 of our relationships to the actual world, and, above all, 
 of our relationships to other men and to that historical 
 course of events to which our own existence is due. 
 Our consciousness is real in any case only as a power 
 which orders the various circumstances around itself. 
 In the same way the inner life of the personal spirit, 
 founded as it is upon the idea of an unconditioned 
 value, is real only when it has spiritual sovereignty 
 over the existing worldly situation. It is in that kind 
 of life that we must find God ; and Christians find Him 
 first of all in the appearance of Christ, and then in 
 all events which help to build up our inner life. The 
 man who seeks for an inner life of some other sort 
 is seeking to withdraw himself from reality into the 
 realm of imagination. This may be permissible to 
 other devout persons, but to the Christian it is for- 
 bidden. For him the power which decides his fate is 
 and acts in the real world. The unbeliever, indeed, 
 may talk slightingly of our historical relation to Christ, 
 but the believer sees therein the Almighty arms with 
 which God lifts him to His heart. If there be any 
 Protestant Christian who is inclined to seek the joys of 
 so-called contemplative love to Christ, even he will hardly 
 
" THEN, FACE TO FACE " 287 
 
 deny, on a little reflection, that he has an incomparably 
 higher experience when he sees God coming to save us 
 in the historical event of Christ's life in the real world, 
 than when he cherishes nothing more than an indefinite 
 feeling of God's nearness, or has his emotion roused by 
 a picture of Christ created by the imagination. The 
 life-creating power which we need daily does not come 
 from a picture in our imagination, but forces itself 
 upon us from the real world in which God has placed 
 us, and which we are to understand and take to heart. 
 
 We find, then, that such sensuous contemplation turns 
 its back on the real Christ. But, in the second place, 
 that contemplative love to Christ which is supposed to 
 gaze on Him as something alive and present, takes away 
 from the Christian hope of a future perfection. The 
 Christian lives by faith and not by sight. He may have 
 a strong desire to depart and be with Christ ; hence he 
 is aware that Christ is not visibly present to him now. 
 The picture which we are able to make of Christ now, 
 exhibits only faint traces of that glory which we shall 
 some time see in Him. Therefore we will not cling to 
 that picture, but hold fast by the power which the Christ 
 of history has to set free our souls, so that we become 
 aware of God. That work of Christ upon us fills with 
 the longing to come some day nearer to Him. If any 
 assert that they have already this sort of communion 
 with Christ, and that they cling with all their love to a 
 Christ whom they can already see as with bodily vision, 
 then we cannot but have the impression that these good 
 people are injuring their Christian hope for the future. 
 What the Christian can see at present points always to 
 
288 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 something away beyond itself, The Christian's life of 
 faith does not culminate in a sensuous vision, but in 
 thoughts which point to a future of immeasurable glory. 
 Thirdly, this contemplative love to Christ refuses to 
 find in Him that very blessing by which alone He 
 becomes our Redeemer, namely, the way to the Father. 
 It is true that all who fasten such "contemplative" 
 affection upon such a picture as they have made of 
 Christ, may also at the same time preserve a proper 
 attitude towards Christ Himself. But as far as the 
 production of that contemplative love is concerned, it is 
 not Christ whom they allow to lead and redeem them. 
 That sort of love to Christ has nothing to do with what 
 He Himself desires to work in us. Instead of being 
 lifted up by Christ to the God who at once humbles us, 
 and makes us free by reliance on His love, we remain 
 clinging, with tender feelings, natural and easy to us, 
 to something which was given us only in mder^^^Jead"" 
 us forward. We may deck our picture of Jesus with 
 the predicate of deity, but that makes no difference ; for 
 whenever we seek in Him something other than that- 
 Almighty Will and Love which actually makes us free, 
 then we cling to the human in Jesus and do not come 
 to God. " Although Christ Himself is truly God, and 
 is enough for the man who relies on Him, yet He alwayi 
 leads us to the Father; so that no one may remain 
 clmging to the humanity, as the disciples did before His 
 Passion, or be unmindful of the deity above the humanity. 
 For we must let Christ in His humanity be to us a way, 
 a sio-n, a zvorJc of God, through which we come to God.""* 
 * Krlangen edition, tU. 73. 
 
GOD IN THE CHRIST OF HISTORY 289 
 
 Do we not then believe that Christ lives and rules ? 
 And if we do believe this in real earnest, must we not 
 then suppose that we can commune with Him ? And if 
 we may have this communion, who would forbid a Chris- 
 tian aspiring to attain the same ? When now we come 
 to discuss this simple and yet most pressing question, 
 we must first of all be careful that we be loyal and that 
 we hold to the way of faith. We must not be troubled 
 by hearing it often said in the Church and by Christians 
 whom we cordially esteem, that the most important 
 thing is that every man come into personal relationship 
 with the living Saviour and so commune with Him. If 
 we were to follow such teachers implicitly, we should be 
 the slaves of men. We have rather to ask how it is 
 that our own faith comes to conceive of Jesus Christ as 
 living and present with us. 
 
 Our faith combines the certainty that God touches 
 us in the Christ of history with inward surrender to the 
 God who thus reveals Himself to us. The exercise of 
 this faith implies, then, that God is communing with 
 us, and we with Him. But God is present to us only 
 for this reason, that we see in Him the Father of Jesus 
 Christ. As soon as we try to find our way in the world 
 without Christ, we have no clear conception of God's 
 nature and become uncertain of His reality. Only when 
 we are in the grasp of Christ are we powerfully impressed 
 with the sense that God is working upon us. Of course 
 we may be aware, even apart from Christ, that we are 
 dependent upon an infinite Power ; but without Christ 
 we should not be lifted to the certainty that within this 
 force dominating all things there dwells the will of One 
 
290 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 who is a God who makes strong man''s feeble craving 
 for the riches of personal life and leads it to its goal. 
 We reach that certainty only when we discover the inner 
 life of Jesus and find therein that Power which inwardly 
 overwhelms us, making us despair of all our old gods, 
 but making us trust Him instead. We find ourselves 
 in the presence of God, because we cannot think of the 
 personal life of Jesus as something that could ever be 
 given over to annihilation. God is to us the Will 
 which lives in and moves all that is real ; and that 
 Will shields the person of Jesus and His hopes of life 
 with a Father's love. But now, if the true work of 
 God be to bring the Person of Jesus to perfection, then 
 the same faith which sees that God is present, must 
 also grasp the thought that Jesus lives now, perfected 
 and freed from all earthly limits. He is now in perfec- 
 tion all that He desired to be, namely, our Redeemer 
 by the power of His personal life over ours. On this 
 thought rests the Christian's belief that he sees the 
 hand of Christ in everything which this Power causes 
 him to experience ; and hence also springs his convic- 
 tion that the exalted Lord knows how near we have 
 come to Him, or how far we are from Him. 
 
 But Christ, even as the exalted Lord, still remains 
 our Mediator. Hence the thought that Christ lives 
 and rules now is based indeed on our faith, but it must 
 be controlled and regulated by consideration of those 
 means by which we are led to God. If any man does 
 not so use the thought of Christ's presence, then it is 
 certainly not a thought born of his own faith, but 
 something that has been borrowed from others and 
 
THE RISEN CHRIST IS HIDDEN FROM US 291 
 
 that he is using improperly. But if, on the contrary, 
 this idea is simply the legitimate outcome and comple- 
 tion of our faith in God as the Father of Jesus Christ, 
 then our confidence grows all the stronger in the Power 
 that came into history with the life of Jesus. That 
 saving Power stands in continual conflict with all that 
 tends to injure or oppress our personal life. And even 
 when, at times, we see no victories or no results from 
 this conflict, we are able to endure because we remember 
 that the Lord, who has overcome, is still with us with 
 all His human sympathies. When once the thought 
 has taken root in us that He makes our affairs His 
 own, and that we belong to Him, as the members of the 
 body to the head, then that thought opens up in us a 
 channel for all the true power of redemption ; it suffers 
 the personal life of Jesus to have free course in us. 
 Nevertheless all is subordinate to the great end, namely, 
 that we come to God ; in whose presence we receive 
 power to overcome the world and to live in the eternal. 
 We desire to commune with God ; the way to that 
 communion is to hold to the Christ of history and live 
 in the confidence that the exalted One is with us. 
 
 A second consideration, however, must be added. 
 We cannot speak of a communion with the exalted 
 Christ. Nor do we find such communion spoken of in 
 the New Testament, apart from the visions therein 
 recorded. We can commune with God because He 
 touches us and reveals Himself to us in definite facts 
 whose contents have the power of creating faith in us. 
 God is revealed to us ; the risen Christ is hidden from 
 us. We do think of Him, indeed, as taking part in our 
 
292 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 battles and victories with all His human sympathy and 
 power, but this is strictly only a thought of faith. 
 There is no actual fact known to us which could pro- 
 duce this faith by its undoubted reality and its power to 
 convince even one who had as yet no faith. It is not 
 right or wise to say that the resurrection of Jesus is 
 such a fact for us who live to-day. It comes to us 
 altogether from the report of others. It is just as use- 
 less to appeal to the power which the spirit of Christ 
 exercises in history. For the purpose of oin* present 
 discussion that is a poor staff on which to lean. For 
 what we observe in the great process of the world's 
 working, or at the death-bed of a Christian, are things 
 which do indeed quicken a believer, but certainly they 
 have not power to disclose to a man the exalted Christ. 
 Those who see in these things manifestations of the 
 exalted Christ, must be already in possession of the 
 faith which gives birth to the thought that Christ lives 
 and rules. Thus we can grasp the thought that the 
 exalted Christ is working upon us only when our faith 
 is already fully matured. 
 
 Quite otherwise do we think of God Himself, the 
 God who reveals Himself through the Christ of history. 
 For the personal life of Jesus can be grasped as a real 
 fact in bistory by a man who has no faith, or even after 
 the power of faith has been extinguished in such a man. 
 And it is because the invisible God uses this fact to 
 make men certain of Himself, that we can say. He 
 communes with us. In this fact of self-revelation He 
 reaches down into the realm of our earthly experience. 
 But we cannot say that of the exalted Christ. Hence 
 
FAITH HERE, SIGHT HEREAFTER 293 
 
 the believer must not try to fly beyond those limits 
 which are drawn around him while as yet his faith has 
 to conflict with earthly experiences. He must admit 
 that the risen Christ is still hidden from him. He may, 
 indeed, express a thought of his faith by saying that 
 Christ lives in him ; but unless, like Paul, he can appeal 
 to visions, he may not say that he experiences the com- 
 munion of the exalted Christ with himself.* 
 
 It is right for the believer to say of his ordinary con- 
 scious life within the limits of earthly experience : " So 
 far, however, as I still live in the flesh, I live in Jiiith in 
 the Son of God." And it is just when we admit these 
 limits to our present experience, that our hopes for the 
 future become so strong that they hold the sovereignty 
 over our hearts in spite of the attractions of all eai-thly 
 comforts. The personal life of Jesus has then so worked 
 upon us that it has made us see the love of God in the 
 power of the real : and this makes of all that seemed 
 liefore to be utterly controlling us a means for our 
 eternallife. But if the personal life of Jesus has had this 
 influence upon us, then the thought that He lives and 
 rules in perfect bliss fills us with the longing to see Him 
 some time otherwise than as we see Him in the miiTor 
 of history, and with other eyes than we see with to-day, 
 while the spirit still struggles to rise above the earth. 
 
 * No commentator worthy of mention has ever ventured to say 
 that the words "Tour life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 3), 
 were written by their author concerning a communion with the 
 exEdted Lord. These words express the idea born of faith, that the 
 life of the Christian, in consequence of his union with Christ, has its 
 hidden roots in God, and rests all its expectation of future glory on 
 Him. 
 
294 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 This is the meaning of the Christian's hope in the 
 future so far as we can understand it now. If we have 
 felt how it fills us with a sense of freedom to see clearly 
 the divinely marvellous character of the person of Jesus, 
 then the prospect that some time we shall experience 
 His power in unrestrained and immediate personal 
 communion with Him will release us from our bondage 
 to all earthly troubles and pleasures. It makes no 
 difference in this respect, whether the Christian expects 
 the second coming of the Lord as the primitive Chris- 
 tian brotherhood expected it, or whether his hope is, as 
 ours must be, the prospect of being taken up to Him. 
 Every Christian needs, for the sake of his inner life, 
 that his hope in the future shall be rich and clear : in 
 this good hope, which we can understand although it 
 concerns life beyond this life, and which comes close to 
 our hearts, there lies a power which we cannot do with- 
 out while we stray and sorrow in our Christian life here 
 on earth. What God gives us in Christ is meant to 
 render us so peaceful and glad that we get free from all 
 anxiety about our life, and hence can live in true 
 righteousness ; and part of this gift is the fact that our 
 faith assures us of the prospect of future enjoyment of 
 personal fellowship with Jesus. And when the Chi-istian 
 experiences the elevating influence of this desire for the 
 risen Lord and finds how he is relieved from his burdens, 
 and yet pledged to duty by this confidence in future 
 fellowship with Him, then he understands how Christ 
 has risen for our justification. 
 
 Such then is the relation with the risen Chi-ist 
 into which we are actually brought by our faith. The 
 
WE KNOW ONLY THE HISTORIC JESUS 295 
 
 relation comes to us through faith, not through ex- 
 perience. We shall never share in the emancipating 
 power of the thought that we are united with Christ in 
 this way, if we try to get it simply by deduction of the 
 idea from particular passages of Scripture, and by then 
 deliberately asserting that it is an actual objective 
 experience, and that we really feel something which all 
 the time can as yet be only a belief. And yet the pre- 
 vailing theology of our time seeks to lead us to practice 
 both these evils. Most men, indeed, only get as far as 
 using the phrases of this cultus, while their imagination 
 is not strong enough to realise its fancies. Unfortu- 
 nately, it is certain that there is also another and an 
 appalling result : truthfulness is blunted, and men are 
 learning to forget that the] most important matter, 
 and the hardest, is to become certain of communion 
 with the living God. On the other hand, it is also 
 perilous for theologians to try to describe very exactly 
 the exalted life of Christ for the sake of checking 
 mere sensuous sharpness of conception. However ten- 
 derly this may be done,* it leads us aside from the 
 main point, namely, that we must hold fast to the 
 clearest possible representation of the personal life of 
 Jesus which we have got by study of the Christ of 
 history, for that is the power which redeems us. 
 There is no need for toiling to define how Jesus 
 rules as the exalted One with almighty power; a 
 thing that can be attempted only by negative state- 
 ments, for it is beyond our grasp; the all-important 
 
 • Cf. especially A, Schweizer's "Christian Doctrine of Faith" 
 (" Christliche Glaubenslehre ") li, 1, 226. 
 
296 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 point is that the vision of His person shall lift us up 
 to God. 
 
 § 21. Communion with God as an Experience 
 and as an Act. 
 All these forms of piety already considered first gain a 
 Christian meaning when they become an exercise of the 
 feith awakened in us by God, through His revela- 
 tion, by which we are made new men ; and it is clear, 
 from every point of view, that we cannot commune 
 with God in what we ourselves initiate, but only in 
 receiving and enjoying what God gives to us. Indeed, 
 He draws us to Himself just by giving us the mastery 
 over those things which, without His help, would de- 
 press and destroy us. We receive from Him our 
 strength for such sovereignty by coming to understand 
 His revelation, i.e.. His turning towards us. Our act of 
 receiving this gift takes place when we consciously turn 
 towards God, and when we understand the tidings He 
 gives us ; and then we remain in fellowship with Him 
 by making use of the gift we have received. The re- 
 ceiving is utterly inseparable from the use of what is 
 received. If the divine gift were a power we did not 
 know, which worked upon us with some concealed power 
 of nature, then, in the first place, our reception of it 
 would certainly be no communion with God. We should 
 rather have to distinguish that communion with God 
 in which our own personal will takes its share from this 
 strange process wherein we should thus be supposed to 
 undergo unconsciously something we could not compre- 
 hend. And, secondly, the use of such a divine gift 
 
THE ACTIVITY OF FAITH 297 
 
 would certainly be quite distinct from its reception. 
 But, in reality, since we come into a right state of 
 dependence upon God by our understanding of His act 
 of self-revelation, we receive a gift that we possess only 
 when we make use of it. Such an attitude towards 
 God implies that purifying and freeing of the inner life, 
 that new purpose and courage, which Luther calls faith. 
 But this gift of faith is always also the life and activity 
 of the man who receives it. We cannot stand in the 
 inner attitude of God-given faith without setting to 
 work at once to get for ourselves a clear conception as 
 to how the love of God is seeking to bless us by the 
 very condition in which we are situated at the moment. 
 Clearly, in this case, no line can be di-awn between our 
 reception of the divine gift and our use of it. Faith, then, 
 is of a truth ours only when it concerns the realities 
 amid which we live, and, of course, as soon as it thus 
 becomes ours, we have evidently already begun to work 
 out the faith, and to reap its fruits. Our communion 
 with God, then, gains in intensity, according as he 
 makes us richer, and we receive more from Him ; and 
 this is illustrated in the fact that if we will apply our 
 faith to all the various relationships of life, and let it 
 establish us more and more firmly in the world, then all 
 the more closely does it bring us into fellowship with 
 God. If our trust in God's Fatherly Providence helps 
 us to find our way through the world, then the fact 
 that we are in the world does not separate us from God, 
 but just this fact brings us into His Presence. If we 
 resard the cai'es which befall us as the cross He lavs 
 upon us, and so bear them patiently, then surely this 
 
298 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 conduct cannot be called renunciation of the joy of 
 communion with God, but we are rather led by those 
 very cares into His very Presence, to find Him the 
 source of a peace which passeth all understanding. We 
 are only too apt to imagine that in order to commune 
 with God we must become ghosts, as it were, half with- 
 drawn from the world. But God's way to lead us to 
 Himself rather leads us right into the reality in which 
 for His own ends He has placed us, and in which He 
 desires to make us free and blessed. 
 
 § 22. Moral Activity in Communion with God. 
 If, then, joy in God's gift and the thankful exercise 
 of the inner freedom it furnishes us lead us into the pre- 
 sence of God, then the moral activity of the Christian 
 forms part of his communion with God. For the 
 Christian such occupation is not a foreign service, to 
 which God sends him out and away from His Pre- 
 sence; it is, itself, worship. We must make clear to 
 ourselves this characteristic of Christian morality which 
 Luther was never tired of dwelling upon. We have 
 already seen (pp. 205-212) why the Christian can com- 
 mune with God only when he desires what is good. 
 He must seek to live in the Eternal, or he does not 
 turn sincerely to the God who desires to bring men to 
 eternal life. But we also observed that simply to 
 desire the good cannot of itself be counted communion 
 with God. But if the Christian's active interest in his 
 duties puts him only in the attitude where it is possible 
 for him to find God, this very activity, especially as 
 
COMMUNION IN ACTIVE DUTY 299 
 
 related to the world, being not itself communion with 
 God, seems therefore to interrupt this communion; and 
 so Christian morality seems to be a special sphere of 
 life alongside of Christian piety, but not identical with 
 it. So it comes to this, that in his communion with 
 God the Christian is supposed to experience depend- 
 ence upon God, while when he faces the duties of his 
 calling he is brought rather to the consciousness of his 
 own freedom. We are warned, however, against such 
 a separation when we bear in mind that we are united 
 to God in inward submission to Him only when our will 
 lives in His will. For only in the inward attitude, 
 whereby he seeks to fulfil the command to love his 
 neighbour as himself, does a man live under the 
 Fatherly rule of God or commune with Him. In 
 such activity the Christian must lose the impression 
 that the law is a burden, and feel that duties are rather 
 a gift from God which makes his heart rejoice. The 
 preaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God 
 results directly in the propositions of the First Epistle 
 of John, namely, that he who has true love stands 
 in conscious communion with God through that very 
 fact, and knows Him and abides in Him. But we use 
 these testimonies to the unity of Christian life aright 
 only when we seek to understand, them in their truth. 
 Now although Luther so often referred to these truths, 
 and came back upon them, yet he never attained such 
 an understanding of them as would have enabled him to 
 make a clear theological statement concerning them.* 
 
 • Luther himself frequently admitted this to be the case. Cf. 
 Erlangen edition, XY. 392, 417ff; xlix. 327; xiii. :98; xviii. 58ff. 
 
300 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 But he set down many vigorous thoughts on the 
 matter, which may put us in the right way of solving 
 the question. 
 
 § 23. Faith as the Power to Will the Good. 
 In the treatise "On the Freedom of a Christian Man," 
 the discussions in part second, concerning the moral 
 activity of the Christian, are far less clear and sure than 
 the magnificent description of the riches of faith in the 
 first part. Indeed at the beginning he even infers the 
 necessity of good works for the Christian from con- 
 sideration of his earthly imperfection.* Still he has 
 much to say on the thought that good works are the 
 fruits of faith ; f and later on he constantly repeats 
 this. This gives a satisfactory answer to the question 
 as to what significance the moral activity of the 
 Christian has for his faith, or for his communion with 
 God. Only we must beware of the remarkable one- 
 
 • Of. 0pp. var. arg. IV. 235 : " Si fides omnia facit, et sola ad 
 justitiam satis est, cur ergo praecepta sunt bona opera ? Otiabimur 
 ergo et nihil operabimur fide content! ? " Bespondeo : "Yere quidem 
 sic haberet res ista, si penitus et perf ecte interni et spirituales essemus, 
 quod non fiet nisi in norissimo die ; donee in corpore virimus, non 
 nisi iucipimus et proficimua, quod in f utura vita perficietur. Ad banc 
 partem pertinet, Christianum esse omnium servum et omnibus sub- 
 jectum." (If faith does all, and alone is sufficient for justification, 
 why, then are good works required 1 Shall we be at ease and do 
 nothing, content with faith 7 I reply, so should it be, indeed, if we 
 were deeply and perfectly spiritual at heart, as we shall not be until 
 the Last Day ; while we live in the body, we only begin and carry out 
 that which shall be perfected In the future life. Hence, it is our 
 Christian task to-day to be servant of all and subject to all.) 
 
 t Hid. ailff. 
 
IMPOSSIBLE DEMANDS OF THE LAW 301 
 
 sidedness to which Luther let himself be kept subject 
 in his discussion of the thought. 
 
 If perfect moral conduct, or actual desire for what 
 is good, is a fruit of faith, then faith must give men 
 the power to submit with joy to the claims of duty. 
 On this point Luther was quite clear. He not only 
 asserts that true love is impossible to the natural man,* 
 but he is also able to tell us what separates men from 
 what is morally good. "Now this is the sum of the 
 law, thou shalt be friendly, sweet and kind in heart, 
 words, and works ; and if one should even take thy life, 
 suffer it nevertheless with goodness, and thank thy 
 Lord." f But a man fulfils this law only when he does 
 his work for the sake of the pleasure he has in it.J 
 Otherwise his heart is not in it. But the law desires 
 to have the heart, and where it is not fulfilled heartily, 
 such fulfilment does not hold good before God. § The 
 law is to be fulfilled freely; but freely here merns, 
 " without any expectation of obtaining anything 
 thereby." II We are to desire only the realisation of 
 the good itself or the manifestation of love. The 
 man who turns good work to his own profit does no 
 good work at all.lT All this shows clearly that the law 
 demands from man what is impossible. For however 
 sincerely a man may acknowledge that the moral law has 
 a right to unreserved obedience, yet in his secret 
 desires he follows that vital instinct which compels him 
 to take circumstances into account and to estimate the 
 
 * Cf. Erlangen edition, xiii. 176 ; xlvi. 262. f Ihid. xiii. 177. 
 \ Ihid. X. 94 i mi. 285. § Ibid. xlv. 174. || Ihid. xii. 348. 
 t Ihid. vii. 176, 29Sf 
 
302 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 profit and loss of his conduct. And seeing that he is 
 always trying to gain satisfaction for this vital instinct 
 amid the world with all its power over his fears and 
 hopes, he learns to look on love as a duty that he 
 cannot understand, for he is told it is to be shown to 
 his neighbour free and for naught. We see what a 
 man makes of the command to love under such circum- 
 stances, when we observe how he endeavours to pur- 
 chase God's love by fulfilling his commandments. 
 Luther ruthlessly lays bare the moral deadliness of 
 such an endeavour. A fulfilment of the law in this 
 sense is sheer hypocrisy. By the good works we do as 
 a service to God, and therefore as a foundation for our 
 own blessedness, we turn our backs on all that is good 
 and destroy the life of the soul. " Dost thou find in 
 thee some task, whereof thou thinkest thou needest it 
 for the soul's salvation, then tread thou that underfoot. 
 Be glad you do this as if you were treading down all 
 devils, and rest thou not until thou dost get free from 
 all such nature and work. Strive that thy life may be 
 of comfort, profit, and service, not to thyself but to 
 thy neighbour alone. Accursed be the man who lives 
 and works Jor himself ; for Christ Himself would not do 
 His own will, or live to Himself." * 
 
 But how are we to get free from the power of that 
 natural instinct which compels a man to live for him- 
 self? Were there no such deliverance, then we could 
 indeed see what was morally necessary, but we should find 
 it to be a power which only repelled us. In Luther's 
 view the man who has found Jesus Christ and undei"- 
 * Erlangen edition, xiv, 59. 
 
FAITH AS RENEWAL OF THE WILL 303 
 
 stood Him as the message of God to morally impotent 
 creatures is lifted above such a fate. For the redemp- 
 tion which follows from the understanding of Christ is 
 able also to do away our natural opposition to what is 
 good. The thought that man must be redeemed and 
 restored to pxu-e love by the grace of God was an 
 element, perverted indeed, yet present, in the tradition 
 of the Church in which Luther grew up. But up to 
 that time this thought had been developed only in the 
 direction of inquiries as to the relation between renew- 
 ing grace and the free will of man. It had not yet been 
 perceived that all such inquiries are necessarily pro- 
 fitless.. Even Luther himself did not see this ; but he 
 was saved from troubling about such necessarily fruit- 
 less questions by the simple fact that his eyes were 
 always open to the real need of earnest men, and he 
 saw clearly what sort of powers could give a man 
 deliverance in such cases. He had no time to discuss 
 the simple question how renewal of grace is possible 
 without injury to the freedom of the human will, 
 because he had to show, as he was able to do, how this 
 renovation actually takes place. He was the first to 
 describe this, and thus he led the way for Protestant 
 theology to knowledge which it is certainly a harder 
 task to gain than it is to thread the riddles of that 
 other old scholastic question. 
 
 We know that the ordinary instinctive way in which 
 men seek the satisfaction of all the needs of life makes 
 it impossible to submit honestly to the demands of 
 duty, and we see also the falsity of the childish idea of 
 the mystics that this instinct should be extirpated ; it 
 
S04 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 follows, then, that we can only seek moral deliverance 
 in a true and perfect satisfaction of our craving for 
 life. If we do good only when we do it " without 
 fear of punishment and without seeking regard," * then 
 the man who is to be morally free must have his heart 
 so placed that he shall be beyond all fear or desire, and 
 especially that he neither fear the world,t nor depend 
 upon it.| For so long as we remained in such bondage 
 to the world we should necessarily seek our own advan- 
 tage. But we must thus become rich and strong, if we 
 are to be able to love our neighbours. § And it is only 
 a quiet and peaceful heart that has the true power to 
 work.ll Now if a man can learn to rejoice in God and 
 to be satisfied in His grace,1[ then that will be a receiv- 
 ing of just that inner treasure through which he can 
 live freely for others. " Thou must first have heaven 
 and be thyself already richly blessed, ere thou canst do 
 good works." ** Works that are really good are done 
 "free and for naught, as by those that are already 
 blessed and possess already for themselves the inherit- 
 ance of God through faith." ft Now such a feeling of 
 perfect inner contentment is possible to the Christian, 
 only in so far as he understands that God turns to him 
 in Christ. The hour when we enter into such com- 
 munion with God gives us an inner freedom wherein 
 we desire nothing more than what we already have.|t 
 
 * Erlangen edition, x. 96. f nid. xvi. 216. 
 
 t Ibid. viil. 266 ; xlvii. 24. § IMd. si. 181. 
 
 II Ibid. ix. 72L f Jiid. vii. 169. 
 
 ** Ibid. vu. 174. if Jbid. X. 213. 
 
 tt Ibid. XT. 42. " If thou linowest how thou hast through Christ 
 a kind and gracious God, who desires to forgive thy sins, and to 
 
FAITH GIVES JOY IN LIFE 805 
 
 Here then the Christian faith proves itself to be the 
 power necessary for moral conduct. Being real com- 
 munion with God, it brings such a joy in life that we can 
 feel ourselves to be redeemed. For we have in it a 
 realm of peace wherein we can take refuge from every 
 disquietude ; and in whatever circumstances we may be 
 we enter this realm whenever the fact that Christ is 
 there for us rises in our mind and comes home to our 
 hearts. We comprehend that in this fact the Power 
 which is over all things touches and blesses us ; and at 
 this touch there flies away that ban of the world 
 against which the natural man struggles in vain, the 
 necessity, namely, of looking on the world's gifts as the 
 only means to life. This is redemption, that Christ 
 creates within us a living joy, whose brightness shines 
 even in the eye of sorrow, and tells the world of a 
 power it cannot comprehend. And the power that 
 works redemption is the fact that in our world there is 
 a Man whose appearance can at every moment be to us 
 the mighty Word of God, snatching us out of our 
 troubles and making us feel that God desires to have 
 us for His own, and so setting us free from the world 
 and from our own natural impulses. Then, when we 
 have been made so rich and strong, we may aflFord to 
 forget all about that " sought-for love " which likes to 
 recline amid the sweetness of things, and may busy 
 ourselves with that outflowing love that shares its 
 inner wealth with the needy and undeserving.* The 
 remember them never more : and if thou knowest how thou art now a 
 child of eternal bliss, a Lord with Christ over heaven and earth, then 
 has thou nothing more to do but to go on and serve thy neighbour." 
 • Brlangen edition, xviii. 282-6, 
 
 V 
 
806 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 redemption given in Christian faith can bring a man 
 even so far that "divine love begins to well up and 
 out from within him." * The " Augsburg Confession " 
 (Art. XX. 36) does not say too much when, replying to 
 the objection that the Protestants hinder good works, 
 it says that Protestant teaching shows how we are able 
 to do them ; for the command to love can only be ful- 
 filled in a moment of religious exaltation ; in other 
 words, in the state of faith. The old Church used to say 
 that the grace of God renews a man by filling him with 
 divine strength, and this is not untrue ; but it is too 
 indefinite. It is now replaced by this full expression of 
 the Christian's actual experience : "The divine birth is 
 nothing other than faith." f 
 
 § 24. Faith as the Impulse to Will the Good. 
 
 Luther is able to show, then, that faith gives us the 
 power to will the good, and he shows us how it does so. 
 But with this declaration he has not yet shown us all 
 that is implied in the thought that good works are the 
 fruit of faith ; for if this thought be true, then there 
 must lie in Christian faith, not only the power to will 
 what is good, but also the impulse to do so. The real 
 interests of faith find satisfaction only in moral activity ; 
 otherwise, indeed, good works would not be the fruit in 
 which the proper instincts of faith reach their goal. 
 Now the highest interests of faith are expressed in the 
 words : " Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is 
 none upon earth that I desire beside Thee " ; that is, 
 
 • Erlangen edition, xi, 339. \ Ibid, x, 216 1 vii. 178 ; xlvii, 375, 
 
FAITH AS MOTIVE TO ACTION 307 
 
 faith seeks simply communion with God. But if it 
 could not be shown that this longing, when rightly 
 understood, impels us to moral eifort, it would be an 
 admission that the moral activity of the Christian 
 actually interrupts his communion with God, just 
 because it does not arise out of faith. 
 
 Has Luther also made clear such an impulse to moral 
 action ? Usually he traces back the joy which the 
 believer has in the fulfilment of the Divine commands 
 to thankfulness to God and Christ. This can be in- 
 terpreted as if the content of His commands had no 
 significance for faith, but only the fact that that content 
 is ordained by God. But Luther did not fix himself to 
 this perverted conception. According to that view good 
 works which were foreign to the Christian in his natural 
 condition are a divinely pointed out way of paying God 
 back. This idea is just what Luther warns men against. 
 We are not to do this or that work in order to pay God 
 back for His love, "but only by believing on Christ 
 does man step out of his lost condition." * God desires 
 nothing further for Himself than that we trust Him 
 and accepts what He gives, f " Thou durst do God no 
 good, only take good from Him." % Yet he does say, 
 too, that thanksgiving is the sacrifice and only work 
 that we can and ought to do towards God.§ Thus 
 everything depends on a right understanding of thanks- 
 giving. The ideas of Luther which have just been 
 cited raised this question. But in this connection so 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xlvii. 19. 
 
 •f Ibid. X. 108 ; xlii. 205 ; xviii. 20 ; xix. 12 ; li. 362 ; ii. 307. 
 
 t lUd. X. 25. § IMd. viii. 90. 
 
308 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 far as I know Luther lias not done what was needful. 
 I know no discussion in Luther in which he guards the 
 impulse to thanksgiving against the conception that it 
 signifies the desire to requite God, to do Him good. 
 Nor has this point been treated in later Protestant 
 ethics in connection with the customary use of the 
 thanksgiving motif. But we only thank God aright 
 when once we have let ourselves be united to Him 
 through what He offers us in Christ. The proper 
 thanksgiving is joyful turning to God. Even in respect 
 of other men, we do not thank them by trying to pay 
 them back for their kindness. Such requital can always 
 look like wishing to be quits with them, to be under no 
 obligation. We are really thanking them only when 
 we begin to kindle with desire for that thing which 
 their love was seeking, namely, personal fellowship 
 between us and them. We show them real thanks 
 only when we put ourselves to trouble and self-sacrifice 
 in order to come into inward communion with them. 
 
 Thus the whole moral activity of the Christian must 
 proceed under the form of thanksgiving such as that. 
 In it the Christian must seek God Himself; in his 
 loving intercourse with his neighbour he must be con- 
 stantly filled with the thought that_he is thus coming 
 near to God. Then only has it a meaning to call his 
 action a thanksgiving to God. And at the same time 
 it is clear that a moral activity that has this origin is 
 truly a fruit of faith. It springs from the natural 
 impulse of faith and has its place within the life of 
 religion or the communion of the Christian with God. It 
 is, however, a vital question for Protestant Christianity 
 
MORAL ACTIVITY AS THANKSGIVING 309 
 
 whether or not this is the actual character of the moral 
 activity of the Christian, For the fundamental propo- 
 sition of Protestanism is that faith, this new attitude 
 of man towards God, itself signifies redemption. This 
 assertion obviously can be maintained^only if the moral 
 strength and freedom into which we are said to be 
 redeemed, grows out of faith or is to be understood as the 
 development of that religious experience. If that is 
 not so, then one cannot say of redemption that it consists 
 in God through His revelation bringing the sinner to 
 deiiy himself and to trust Him. If such faith is really 
 to make us new creatures, to make us redeemed men 
 instead of men lost in the world, the natural impulse 
 of faith must culminate in a Will in which is overcome 
 the old powerlessness against the world and the law. 
 Religious experience must come to its natural comple- 
 tion in the moral will. This connection between 
 religion and morality is at least asserted by Protestant 
 Christianity when moral conduct is called thanksgiving 
 for the grace that has been experienced. Apart from 
 this idea redemption has always to be conceived again 
 in the manner of the Romish church. The two ideas 
 that stand side by side there, then inevitably come to 
 the front. In the first place, the Divine power that 
 gives the Christian a tender heart and a strong will 
 is looked for not in religious experience but in inde- 
 finable forces which remain something external to the 
 inner life of the spirit that is set free by God's revela- 
 tion. Redemption is then a magical process, and not 
 the new purpose and courage that is born in the 
 Christian when he meets with God in Christ. In the 
 
310 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 second place, when the moral will cannot be compre- 
 hended as an expression of religious desire, there is 
 always a return to the idea that after the help of God's 
 grace has been received a man is, of himself, as a being 
 independent of God, to bring to pass what is good. 
 Protestant Christianity has found its safeguard against 
 these two representations, the one magical, the other 
 co-operative, in so far as it sees in the longing of faith 
 to thank God the fulfilment of the law, and the will 
 that produces the miracle of self-denial. 
 
 § 25. Luther is Defective as Regards this Point. 
 
 But here there lies yet another task, in carrying out 
 which Protestant theology has perhaps been hampered 
 by the enduring impression of Luther's personality. 
 The thanksgiving with which we turn to God would be 
 ingratitude if it expressed anything else than desire 
 for fellowship with Him. If, therefore, the moral con- 
 duct of the Christian is to take the form of thanks- 
 giving to God, the question arises whether we can make 
 it clear that the religious desire for God expresses itself 
 in the moral conduct of the Christian. Luther certainly 
 described the religious meaning of Christian morality in 
 its various colours with all the variety that he knew 
 from the experiences of his own rich inner life.* But 
 he did so casually. He did not make a special theo- 
 
 » C/. K. Thieme. "Die Sittliche Triebkraft des Glaubens," an 
 investigation of Luther's theology. Leipzig, 1895. This book has 
 done the great service of showing for the first time with what a wealth 
 of imagination Luther has grasped this inner process of moral 
 liberation. 
 
WORKS SPRING FROM FAITH 311 
 
 logical problem of the matter. On the contrary, his 
 casual allusions to that important fact are cast entirely 
 into the shade by the energy with which he opposed 
 his own view to the former conception of Christian 
 morality. 
 
 " Just as a living man cannot keep himself alive without 
 moving, eating and drinking, and doing things, and 
 because he is living it is impossible that such acts cease 
 so that he has not to be ordered ov driven to do such 
 works, but does them just because he is alive ; so also 
 nothing more is required for the performance of good 
 works except to be told ' Only believe and thou wilt do 
 all naturally of thyself,' Therefore, it is not to be 
 asked whether or not good works are to be performed, 
 they are done spontaneously." * This is the most im- 
 portant of Luther's ethical ideas. To this he was 
 fondest of coming back when he touched on the probleni 
 of good works. What is in itself impossible to man, 
 the fulfilling of the law, follows naturally when he has 
 received in faith a new inner life, a new nature with 
 impulses that are divine. It is therefore not at all 
 needful to inquire how it happens that the heartfelt 
 turning of the Christian to God passes over into will 
 and action directed towards the world and towards 
 men. A reflective theory of the inter-relation of 
 spiritual experiences seems to be unnecessary when 
 moral action is springing by a natural necessity from 
 the inner life of a redeemed man. If faith gives the 
 power to do good works it gives the impulse too. So 
 
 • Erlangen edition, xii. 175-6 ; other references in Thieme, " Die 
 Sittliche Triebkraft des Glaubens," pp. 88, 243-6, 262-3, 
 
312 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that to distinguish between the power and the impulse, 
 as we have done, has no meaning to the Christian. 
 Both are one in the blessedness which faith brings with 
 itself. 
 
 Is this, however, really an adequate description of 
 the inward connection between Christian faith and 
 Christian morality ? It would be were the moral 
 activity of the Christian the effortless expression of his 
 inward insight and strength. But in truth, so far as 
 it springs from conscious will, that activity is a struggle 
 with the constantly expanding moral task. Only when, 
 as a whole, the life of the Christian is a struggle, do there 
 come moments of effortless accomplishment. But these 
 moments remain hidden from himself. Others rejoice 
 in the involuntary expression of his sincerity and love. 
 He himself can perceive such a revelation of God's 
 spirit only in others. Without doubt Luther is right 
 in regarding the good act that proceeds involuntarily 
 from the believer as his highest and most effective 
 moral achievement. But this strength of moral beauty 
 will only be his whose life is an effort, who is oppressed 
 by his duties. The good that comes freely from the 
 heart is possible only as a fruit of faith. But this 
 fruit ripens only in a faith that drives the whole 
 conscious life into the channel of earnest moral en- 
 deavour. Thus when a special kind of moral conduct 
 grows out of faith it is nevertheless something quite 
 different from a process of Nature. The fruit of faith 
 results from spiritual experiences and spiritual endeavour, 
 so that it must be possible to make clear how the 
 religious wealtli of the Christian passes over into the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN MORAL LIFE 313 
 
 soul-constraining knowledge of moral duty and the 
 heartfelt desire to play one's part in life and minister 
 to the needy. It must be possible to show to what 
 extent the moral will of the Christian is sincere 
 thanksgiving, that is, a desire for God that He Him- 
 self awakens, and therefore an element of religious 
 experience. 
 
 § 26. The Inner Connection between Love to God ajid 
 Love to our Neighbour. 
 
 If, however, we wish to show how the moral will and 
 achievements of the Christian lie within the sphere of 
 his communion with God we must be able to set aside 
 one weighty consideration. Is the Christian, then, to 
 quench in his soul his inward sympathy for his work, 
 for the object of his work, for the neighbour whom he 
 serves ? That certainly was not Luther's meaning. He 
 called Christians who so understood the all-embracing 
 command of love to God foolish saints, and held up to 
 them the example of Christ who went about among 
 men with love in His heart, who rejoiced in God's 
 creatures, and shrank with horror from death.* Luther 
 sees in the indifference to the world, cultivated by 
 monks and nuns, a woeful perversion of human nature, 
 which is the very opposite of the perfection to what 
 God desires to lead us.f K. Thieme \ has rightly found 
 fault with the discussion in the former edition of this 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xxxiv. 259-261 ; li. 200. 
 
 t Ihid. li. 438-9. 
 
 J " Die Sittliche Triebkraft des Glaubens," 1895, pp. 20, 298, 
 
814. COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 book for not guarding sufficiently against this distortion 
 of the moral ideal. But the method of doing so which 
 he suggests I consider to be a theological blunder, one 
 which is often made, and always with the result of pro- 
 ducing the reaction of mysticism in the Christian 
 community. 
 
 " If the Christian is to love his neighbour then there 
 must be inward and outward activities in which he 
 thinks not of God but of his neighbour."* This is 
 Thieme's leading idea. He wishes to show " that the 
 command to love God with all the heart and with all 
 the soul and with all the mind is compatible with love 
 to one's neighbour." We may rest assured that we are 
 agreed on this, that as Christians we are convinced that 
 love to God and love to our neighbour go together. 
 But the question is how ? Thieme holds that it is only 
 the case if there are moments in which it is not love to 
 God that fills the inner life of the Christian but the 
 thought of our neighbour, sympathy with his need, 
 delight in his existence and prosperity. Love to God 
 and to our neighbour are to alternate in the heart. 
 Communion with God cannot be continuous. It is 
 inevitably interrupted by the claims our earthly environ- 
 ment makes upon our sympathies. God does not 
 grudge us our joy in the world, least of all our delight 
 in our neighbour. But, on the other hand, the Christian 
 interrupts his communion with the world as regularly 
 as possible by moments of religious reflection in which 
 he experiences anew his relation to God and brings this 
 expressly into consciousness. The experience of Pro- 
 • Thieme, op. cit. p. 26. 
 
MISTAKE OP QUIETISM 815 
 
 testant and Catholic Christians alike proves, as Thieme 
 rightly says, that God desires two kinds of conduct 
 from us which are not to be confused one with another, 
 and the interchange of which constitutes the rhythm of 
 the Christian life. 
 
 But is it possible that this rhythm should be 
 constituted by the succession in the waking life of con- 
 sciousness of moments of conscious communion with God 
 by moments devoid of all conscious relation to God ? 
 This is Thieme's view, and in support of it he appeals 
 to those words of Luther directed against the Romish 
 kind of devotion. But as it seems to me, in this point 
 Thieme rather runs into danger of siding with Luther's 
 opponents. What Luther contends against in these 
 words is nothing else than an artificial kind of devotion, 
 a piety which thinks it necessary to dislocate Nature in 
 order to win access to God. The religious contempla- 
 tion of which he speaks in the most disparaging terms 
 is not for this reason distasteful to him, because in it the 
 Christian sets aside times of quiet in order to call his 
 thoughts together in the presence of God. For he him- 
 self would not have been able to live without getting 
 free in his inner chamber from the weight of his burdens 
 and receiving continually new power to overcome. That 
 contemplation is an abomination to him because it is 
 an invention of men, and a product of the human heart, 
 because in it God and His creation are not recognised ; 
 that is to say, the reality amid which God has set men 
 is despised and denied.* The piety of the imagination 
 which thinks to fly to heaven by casting the world out 
 * ErlaDgen edition, xliii. 38-47. 
 
316 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 of the heart, is, according to his harsh expression, sitting 
 in the dirt. But this kind of piety is nevertheless 
 simply to caixy out with full religious energy the 
 idea that Thieme considers true and thinks he finds 
 in Luther. For if moral endeavour really interrupts 
 the communion with God, it will become something 
 distasteful to one who has discovered that it is worth 
 while to sacrifice everything for the sake of having God, 
 Even if he is bound by fetters of law to such endeavour, 
 his heart will not be in it. In short, if the religious 
 longing is strong within him, it will draw him to the 
 habits of monasticism. He is bound to feel in the 
 claims of the world upon his sympathies a power 
 that seeks to keep him apart from God. This was not 
 felb by Luther. And so he was entirely out of sym- 
 pathy with the saying of the monk : " To him who goes 
 about with men the angels cannot come." Luther's 
 heartfelt joy in the world was however, possible, only 
 because he felt it to be religiously justified. And the 
 pious man can feel that joy in the world is religiously 
 justified only if he realises that even communion with 
 the world has a religious significance. ' 
 
 It is therefore false, and certainly not according to 
 Luther's meaning, when Thieme asserts that the Chris- 
 tian must have his communion with God interrupted 
 by moments of moral endeavour or of communion with 
 the world, in which there is no seeking or finding of 
 God, but only surrender to the world. Whenever 
 Protestant piety is so understood, mysticism — ^that is, 
 Catholic piety — is in the right in its opposition to ft. 
 For it is a defect to be willing for the sake of the world 
 
RELIGIOUS MEANING OF COMMON LIFE 317 
 
 to restrict the impulses of religion. Assuredly that is 
 not the intention. Hence the Protestant attitude to 
 the world must be that the morally ordained communion 
 with things visible is to be lived in as a necessary move- 
 ment in the process of communion with the invisible 
 God. God certainly demands two kinds of conduct 
 from us which are not to be confused. We are first to 
 turn towards the revelation we have received. We are 
 secondly to stretch out for the revelation of God that 
 waits beyond the goal of moral self-denial. The moral 
 conduct of the Christian is not something else alongside 
 of his religion, but is a particular form of his religious 
 conduct. 
 
 § 27. Tlie Foundation of a Christian System of Ethics. 
 
 To make this clear is a most necessary task. Not to 
 have carried it out is a theological defect in Luther, one 
 we have no desire to reproach him with, but one which, 
 nevertheless, we must not, like Thieme, ignore. It is 
 not enough to say that love to our neighbour springs 
 up naturally from the blessedness which the Christian 
 has won by his faith. It has rather to be shown how 
 truly faith itself gathers together all its own impulses 
 into one energetic desire to love its neighbour. He 
 who is truly blessed in his faith never wishes to get 
 away from God. Conduct that is not a seeking for 
 God would not be capable of being understood as an 
 expression of his inmost motive, but only as an un- 
 accountable lapse from his true ideal. Thus it must be 
 clearly shown how far the natural impulse of one who is 
 blessed in communion with God, is following the 
 
318 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 tendency towards that which makes him blessed when 
 he gives himself in hearty surrender to his neighbour. 
 This, as it appears to me, will let us see for the first 
 time the characteristic meaning of Christian morality. 
 Then at last a Christian system of ethics, to which the 
 Reformation opened up the way, will come within the 
 bounds of possibility. 
 
 But it is not sufficient to bring together a series of 
 motives coloured by religion which are present and 
 and active in Christian action. That has indeed its 
 own worth and importance, and Thieme has rendered 
 good service in showing us so clearly in what profusion 
 such motives were present in Luther. If a person through 
 faith takes up the right attitude to reality, then there 
 presses in on his heart the fulness of all that God is 
 desirous of saying to him through that reality. But 
 these motives become non-religious if they are isolated, 
 instead of being continuously referred back to the one 
 fundamental motive, namely, the Christian's desire to 
 be with God and to receive at His hands. For if the 
 inward process is not regarded as having this form, the 
 Christian is setting himself up as independent of God 
 in so far as he keeps himself apart from Him. This is 
 the case even in the simplest of all these motives, one 
 in which the religious sense seems to be most secure^ 
 namely, in the impulse to thank God for His benefits 
 that we have received. If that is anything else than an 
 expression of longing after God Himself, it makes God 
 a Being on an equal footing with ourselves against 
 whom we desire to assert our own independence. The 
 irreligious nature of this attitude is increased when in 
 
CONDUCT THE EXPRESSION OF FAITH 319 
 
 such circumstances the further idea enters that we will 
 do good to other men because they belong to God. 
 "For God's sake" expresses a religious motive only 
 when it means that I see in the need of my neighbour 
 the nearness of the God whose holy power sets me 
 a-tremble, and in whom I seek satisfaction for my 
 hunger after strength and life. On the other hand, " for 
 God's sake " is a phrase leading to godlessness if it does 
 not glow through and through with the feeling that 
 here I have to do with my inmost self and with that 
 power over my life that I cannot escape. If this sense 
 is lacking, the idea takes the form that I will be careful 
 to give God due consideration. But this means to 
 think of God without realising what He is for me, 
 the highest good, and the power upon which I alto- 
 gether depend. When I I'eilect on that, and so take up 
 a religious attitude, it will not occur to me to want to 
 pay God His due regard, but rather with my whole 
 heart I will seek Him alone and bow in submission to 
 Him. Thus it is clear how easily an apparently religious 
 motive of conduct can become a denial of God. Here, 
 as elsewhere, there is a danger lest in the use of means 
 to religion, religion itself may find its grave. 
 
 We must break completely with the idea that in his 
 moral conduct the Christian is forced to an activity 
 which is something different from the expression of that 
 impulse that controls faith and presses on to its own 
 goal. That erroneous conception yields the formula 
 faith and love. But the true formula is faith working 
 through love. The former is the Catholic thought, and it 
 has had a great past. The latter is the truly Christian 
 
320 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 thousht, before which there lies a limitless future. 
 It died out soon after Paul. It was revived by the 
 Reformers. To-day it is the pressing duty of Chris- 
 tendom to work out more distinctly and clearly the 
 peculiar character of the moral conduct which is 
 Christian. 
 
 If we endeavour now to answer the question how it is 
 that moral conduct proceeds from faith, we are now in 
 the position to see how this is to be understood. Moral 
 conduct must be capable of interpretation as an activity 
 which is not merely a consequence and a suspension of 
 religious experience, but which itself belongs to the 
 communion of the Christian with God. 
 
 § 28. Eternal Life m Bearing the Cross and in One's 
 Moral Calling. 
 
 How then was it impossible for Christians like Paul and 
 Luther to see the consummation of religious experience 
 in the enjoyment of emotions and moods of the moment. 
 They must have observed that it did not correspond to 
 the truth when a man who had nothing more than these 
 inner experiences thought that he was having com- 
 munion with God. They did not seek to supplement 
 communion with God with something else as if a man 
 might be too pious. Rather was it their only care to 
 reach true communion with God Himself. Their con- 
 viction is this : A man has found God Himself only 
 when, through the influence of what he has laid hold of 
 as God's revelation, his own existence in the world has 
 become serious and important to him, and his neighbour 
 
GOD FELT IN THE WORLD OF REALITY 321 
 
 has drawn close to his heart. Only when these impulses 
 to take the world seriously and to serve our neighbour 
 arise within us do we receive from God the highest good, 
 elevation into a Divine life — a life in and with God — 
 By turning in this manner to the world and to other 
 men, we turn to God Himself, and come to a life 
 common to ourselves and Him. Thus, through the 
 heartfelt desire for God that is kindled by His revela- 
 tion, the Christian is driven to commune with the 
 world in work and in service of his fellows. The 
 Christian learns to know how strong joy in the world 
 can be, and how tender love to other men, when every- 
 thing else in him has been swallowed up by the longing 
 after God. 
 
 But why can it not be true that one communes with 
 God Himself unless the experience which is given this 
 interpretation is the beginning of a hearty turning 
 towards the world, and of energetic action. If a man is 
 really happy in God, he has the blessing of hope. We 
 can never measure by the present what God is to us. 
 The revival, the higher life that He bestows on us, 
 always leads to the impression that we are at the 
 threshold of happiness still hidden from us. Thus to 
 our life's hopes there is opened a limitless horizon. 
 God gives us a future. But at the same time we feel 
 Him to be the Power which rules the facts of life and 
 surrounds us in the actual relations in which we exist. 
 Thus the reality amid which we stand becomes for us 
 rich and full of promise. The state of strain into which 
 we are transferred lets us look with earnestness and deep 
 desire into the depths of things and their relations. The 
 
COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 meaning of God's purpose with us presses in upon our 
 soul. Thus, to revel in emotions and to fly away beyond 
 reality into a purely imaginative communion with God 
 is contrary to the instinct of the truly pious man. The 
 genuine religious desire clothes itself in the less magnifi- 
 cent guise of exploiting, with earnestness and sincerity, 
 the reality in which we are placed. One who is 
 seeking God will not merely endure the compulsion of 
 the relations that he sees clearly controlling him ; he 
 will understand them as God's summons to him. He 
 hears in them his vocation. The consciousness of this 
 God-given vocation is true communion with God. The 
 same holds true of work in the regular course of one's 
 calling. For such work is supported by the confidence 
 that God is to be found in it, and it is therefore a 
 turning of the soul to God. 
 
 "The contrast between the mastery over all things 
 that we exercise through faith in God's fatherly guidance, 
 and the bondage to all things which we gladly, and in 
 love, take upon ourselves, Luther explains by showing 
 that in its freedom and joy, in its independence from 
 considerations of merit, thanksgiving, results, deserts, 
 that is in its universality and its abounding nature, 
 Christian love bears the stamp of liberty and of likeness 
 to God's love, and means therefore, in spite of its formal 
 contrast to faith, an abiding in God and in His love. 
 And in the same way he goes on to show that just 
 through love we show ourselves to be God's, because, in 
 it we answer to the Divine Nature, which has love and 
 sincerity not as attributes, but as its very essence, and so 
 we are the tools of love, and by its supernatural strength 
 
THE MORAL GOAL EVER RECEDES 323 
 
 do that which no mere creature can." * This is doubt- 
 less liUther's thought. But there is no answer to our 
 question there, Gottschick shows rightly how Luther, 
 in this way, made it clear that in the Christian man 
 religious experience and moral energy are two forms of 
 the same etei-nal life. On the other hand, it would be 
 false were we to hold that, in this manner, we can clearly 
 show the process in which religious experience passes 
 over into moral activity of the will. One could only 
 think so if one held that the spiritual good that lies 
 away beyond in the active sphere of moral enei'gy 
 could, at the moment of moral decision, be com- 
 pletely visible to us, rousing our emotion and drawing 
 us upwards. But the human morality that we know 
 shows another course, even in the Christian. Even 
 if in certain directions it becomes more and more an 
 effortless accomplishment of the good, it remains on the 
 whole a struggle. The task of attaining moral mastery 
 over the situation of each moment in all its relations is 
 always too much for the strength we have hitherto won. 
 For the good that is to come to us through the accom- 
 plishment of the good lies beyond the horizon of our 
 inclinations, and, therefore, of our practical reason. The 
 moral task, therefore, when it is completely understood, 
 always produces once more the impression of being an 
 impossibility. And so, indeed, it must be if the moral 
 law is to elevate our existence, and if through the 
 narrow gates of the law we are to enter into a life, the 
 glory of which is at present beyond our ken. It can 
 
 * Gottschick, " Kateohetische Lutherstudien," ZeitsohriftfurTheo- 
 logie u Kircbe, 1892, p. 453. 
 
324 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 become clear to us how the problem lying here is over- 
 come through religious faith only if we see how faith 
 becomes the impulse to moral decision. In order to do 
 so we make a starting-point of a familiar series of 
 religious thoughts. 
 
 " The life of the Christian is nothing but an abiding, 
 and awaiting, and a longing for the revelation of that 
 which is within us, and that we may lay hold on what 
 has laid hold on us ; as St. Paul says : — ' I press on, if 
 so be that I may apprehend that for which also I was 
 apprehended of Christ Jesus ; ' that is, that I may yet see 
 what riches are laid up for me in the treasury of faith." * 
 These words refer, first of all, to the Christian's longing 
 for a revelation of that bliss which he abeady possesses, 
 yet which he cannot experience fully until after the 
 death of the body. Luther explains in the following 
 words that the Chi-istian who looks so confidently 
 towards future bliss is to experience in this present life 
 also that gracious power which comes to him thi'ough 
 his faith. "Our awaiting and living on here after 
 baptism is ordained for the chastening of our body, 
 and that we may prove the power of His grace in the 
 fight against the flesh, the world, and the devil." 
 Through the renewal which is in faith, it comes to pass 
 " that a new man, a new species, a new creature comes 
 into being, one that thinks quite differently, loves, lives, 
 speaks and works quite differently from before." In 
 Luther's view the language we use concerning the new 
 birth shows the nature of faith, to wit, " that we at 
 once receive grace fully, and are made blessed;" and 
 • Eilangen edition, vii. 174. 
 
ACTIVITY AND PATIENCE 325 
 
 such grace can be, and is to be, experienced by the 
 believer. " God's grace is indeed something strong, 
 mighty and active ; it is not something that lies inert 
 in our souls as those dream -preachers pretend, some- 
 thing that slumbers, or is borne about, just as a painted 
 board bears its colours. Nay, not thus; it carries, it 
 leads, it drives, it draws, it travels, it does everything 
 in a man : it does indeed make itself felt and experi- 
 enced. It is hidden, but its works are not hidden." 
 The believer who has really had this experience will 
 always long for its repetition. The Christian " has no 
 joy higher than this treasure, that he knows Christ." 
 Hence the Christian's spirit is "restless amid the 
 highest rest, that is, in God's grace and peace ; so that 
 he cannot be quiet and at leisure."* The motive to 
 activity which is inherent in the Christian's faith con- 
 sists in his longing to submit himself to the circum- 
 stances wherein he has experienced the power of God 
 acting upon him. 
 
 This condition is always a state of suffering. " There- 
 fore also it comes about that those who truly believe 
 must suffer much, and even die, so that grace may 
 manifest its nature and presence." f Hence, impatience 
 under the cross, or the endeavour to escape the natural 
 claim of the world upon us is opposed to faith. For 
 our own fancies concerning divine things might indeed 
 bloom amid such comfortable rest as has thus been 
 gained ; but the power of the redeeming God and a 
 real communion with Him are to be experienced only 
 by bowing calmly to the inevitable. In death the Word 
 * Erlangen edition xlix, 113. t Iliid- vii. 180. 
 
326 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 of Life can show its power. *' This is the reason why 
 God lays the cross on all believers, that they may taste 
 and try the power of God, which they have grasped 
 through faith." * 
 
 Exactly the same holds good, and in greater measure, 
 concerning submission to moral necessity. For, on the 
 one hand, the constraint under which we lie at each 
 moment is intimately connected with the moral demand 
 the moment brings, and, on the other hand, duty is part 
 of the Christian's cross, which he has to bear. Faith con- 
 cerns invisible things, and so also the command to love 
 sets the realm of the invisible before us, and it is from 
 this that our lower nature shrinks. We are bound to 
 exercise self-denial : yet self-denial is not something 
 self-evident, even to those who have already reached a 
 high moral level. As we solve each moral problem, 
 there is an instant when we certainly see the necessity 
 of what is good, but in which we nevertheless have to 
 admit that we are not at home in it, but that it seems 
 cold and unwelcome to us. Now our faith carries us 
 through this inner trouble. It tells us that the same 
 Will who is claiming our obedience, and so letting us 
 feel how far we are from Him, becomes comprehensible 
 to us in Jesus Christ as that Power over all things which 
 desires to lift us to Himself, and while our faith shows 
 Hs this fact, it makes us also grasp the hand of the 
 redeeming God even in the unwelcome call of duty, and 
 teaches us that He lets us feel the strange sublimity 
 of what is necessary and eternal only in order that 
 
 * Erlangen edition, li., Hi; ef. xv., 432 : "Faith is an almighty 
 thing like the Eternal God Ilimself ; therefore God seeks to prove 
 and ti-y it." 
 
"THE PROMISE IN DISTURBANCE" ^1 
 
 we may see how little we understand of the wealth He 
 has still in store for us. Hence the very hardness of 
 duty, which hurts the feelings of the natural man, 
 becomes to the Christian a promise of hidden riches 
 which awaits him in endless profusion. But when we 
 recognise in each call of duty the Ood whom Jesus 
 Christ reveals, we experience a joy that makes us 
 morally free, for it identifies the vital instinct in us 
 which longs for bliss with our indelible knowledge of 
 the necessity of the Good. In our struggle with moral 
 problems, a struggle always too great for us, we find 
 that we are lifted away beyond ourselves by our con- 
 tact with God, in the faith He awakens and maintains. 
 Duty seems to Mil all the joy of life ; but certainty that 
 we are in tlie grasp of God turns this pain into a 
 promise of life. 
 
 In such deaths and resurrections we havecommunion 
 with God, the Creator of life. Therefore faith, whose 
 only interest is to receive such a gift from God, must 
 for its own sake, desire moral activity. Faith does not 
 seek that cross which consists in painful combinations of 
 earthly relationships, but if the cross be there, faith still 
 patiently pursues its desire to commune with God. On 
 the other hand we are always confronted by the demand 
 that we shall gather what our duty is from the situation 
 of the moment. Just as incessantly does faith insist 
 that in moral conduct we receive God's blessing. So we 
 may see how good works are really the fruit of faith. 
 Faith loves what is good because it finds God there, and 
 experiences God's redeeming power amid moral conflicts. 
 V\'e can reply now to the question whether the moral 
 
328 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 activity of a Christian interrupts his communion with 
 God, that on the contrary that activity itself belongs to 
 that communion since faith finds therein the experience 
 of God's life-giving power, and communion with God is 
 only experienced when we thus receive life at His hands. 
 Of course it goes without saying that all who are inclined 
 to mysticism will tell us that this inclusion of moral 
 activity in communion with God is simply dry morality ; 
 but on a little reliction they will, nevertheless, have to 
 admit that we can have no more intimate communion 
 with God than the experience of being actually touched 
 by Him and brought into a life in the eternal. The 
 thankful joy we feel in such experiences is true love to 
 God,* and this is the only worship that truly honours 
 Him. He who has this joy keeps perpetual Sabbath and 
 has the peace of God — the peace which abides through 
 all unrest, f 
 
 § 29. The Consequences of this further Development of 
 Luther's Ideas. 
 We have now reached a point where we must neces- 
 sarily carry the description of Christian piety further 
 than Luther has done. Our discussion thus far may 
 indeed claim to be in essential accord with Luther, for 
 it is nothing else than a thorough explication of the 
 thought that good works are the fruit of faith. Good 
 works may be described as good only when they satisfy 
 faith's instinctive desire to find God Himself. But the 
 fact cannot be ignored that Luther remains on the lines 
 
 * C/. Erlangei; edition, xii. 285 ; xvi. 177, 182f. 
 t Ibid. viii. 83 ; vii. 132f. 
 
FAITH INSPIRES LOVE AND GOOD WORKS 329 
 
 of Roman Catholic tradition in so far as he usually 
 speaks too indefinitely of the way in which good works 
 proceed from faith. It was indeed a mighty step forward, 
 a mighty turning towards reality, when the Catholic 
 expression that true love is wrought in men by grace 
 was replaced by the new doctrine that love proceedsyVom 
 faith. For the work of grace in men is just the faith 
 which God awakens in them, and so the new doctrine 
 shows more plainly than the old what is the actual 
 renewing which the Christian experiences. But now, if 
 we wish to travel still further along Luther's road, then 
 we must seek to unfold in clearer language those inner 
 processes in which the life of faith expands into moral 
 activity. Luther's imperfect solution of this problem 
 has produced in his church a further development of the 
 hurtful idea that some impersonal force, supposed to be 
 concealed in faith, gives us the faculty of willing what 
 is good. But it is really the Personal God, touching us 
 in the historical Christ, who, as soon as we come to 
 know Him, gives us the power and impulse to will aright. 
 If this be clear, then it follows that the Christian 
 Church must not try to discover the ground of redemp- 
 tion in doctrines concerning the Person and Work of 
 Christ, but must find that ground in Christ Himself. 
 And then we shall come to understand that our spiritual 
 possessions are the product of Christian faith, and that 
 this actually gives us a new life of inexhaustible richness. 
 This must help Christian theology to the only purifica- 
 tion of its tradition which is possible and healthy. The 
 more our thoughts are absorbed by the mighty fact that 
 we commune with God in our faith, the more surely, 
 
330 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 even if imperceptibly, will those theological figments 
 disappear which help us to see clearly neither the God 
 who turns towards us nor the faith which receives His 
 gifts. Our inner concentration on the one thing needful 
 will set us free from the morbid craving for such things 
 as the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the 
 Lord's Supper,* without at the same time arousing in 
 us the equally unhealthy clamour against them. The 
 
 * lu the sermon which was first printed in 1523, and reprinted in 
 1532, but which is not given in the summer division of the sermons 
 on the Gospels in the " Kirchenpostille " of 1543 (Erlangen edition, 
 xi., 197ff ), there is an excellent exposition of the conditions on which 
 this idea may have a place in the proper use of the sacrament. 
 Luther says, first of all, it is easy to persuade a man that the body 
 and blood of Christ are in the sacrament ; even the devils and non- 
 Christians might believe that. And so If any one desires to enjoy 
 the wondrous feast, but is led by this idea alone, he had better stay 
 away. " For if thou give the sacrament to such a man, it is much the 
 same thing as if thou wert to stab a sow in the neck." The true use 
 of the sacrament is that we should understand and accept the same 
 as an expression of the forgiveness of sins. In this use of the sacra- 
 ment the presence of the body and blood of Christ must necessarily be 
 regarded as a means of expressing what God desires to say to the 
 Christian through the sacrament. Hence, Luther calls it a 
 " Wahrzeichen," or " sign," which is connected with the word of 
 Christ, and, like the latter, must be understood in the sense it is 
 intended to express, and not simply accepted. It is self-evident that 
 such a use of the sacrament is quite another thing from a symbolical 
 conception of it, i.e., the use of it as a sort of creed. But at the same 
 time it is clear that the conception of the presence of the body and 
 blood of Christ is not necessary. The one thing of importance is 
 that the individual who partakes in the sacrament should be under- 
 stood as receiving thereby an expression of the forgiveness of his 
 own sins. Such an understanding of the sacrament is necessary ; it 
 is of no use to make up one's mind to hold the doctrine that the 
 reception of the sacrament has such a meaning, " for it must be a 
 faith which God makes within thee." Modern Lutherans appear 
 indeed to think that the conception above described, which even the 
 devil and all nou- Christians may have, is not of much account after 
 
FAITH AND PRAYER SSI 
 
 man who has come to understand the difficulty and 
 seriousness of true faith — that faith by whose breathing, 
 man is born into a new life — will be not simply indifferent 
 but will be even patient towards such ways of thinking ; * 
 they certainly do not belong to faith, but they need not 
 disturb it. They are the gi-ass that withers away, and 
 so we may let them bloom as long as men rejoice in 
 them. They have no part in what is eternal ; they do 
 not claim any certainty, for they stand out of all relation 
 to the exaltation of men to eternal life. 
 
 § 30. The Prayer of Faith. 
 
 And noWjfinally, we can define the relation of Christian 
 
 prayer to Christian faith. If the life of faith is itself 
 
 communion with God, then " a true faith is nothing 
 
 other than simple prayer." t "Therefore, where there 
 
 is a Christian, there is also the Holy Ghost, and He 
 
 does nothing else save pray continually. For even if 
 
 the mouth be not always moving and uttering words, 
 
 yet the heart goes on beating unceasingly with sighs 
 
 like these : Ah ! dear Father, may thy name be hallowed, 
 
 may Thy kingdom come, and Thy will be done ; and 
 
 whenever there come sorer buffetings and trials and 
 
 all. For they can hardly fail to see that the Kenotlc Christology, 
 ■which most of them favour, excludes the conoeption of a presence of 
 the body and blood of Christ in the elements in the Lord's Supper. 
 (<y. H. Sohultz, " Zur Lehre vom heiligen Abendmahl," 1886, p. 86.) 
 
 * Luther himself says of the doctrines and commandments of the 
 Papacy, that he would willingly leave his opponents undisturbed in 
 them, yea, even support them if they would only leave this one thing 
 free and unhindered, namely, the great truth that it is in the know- 
 ledge of Christ that we have eternal life. Erlangen edition, 1., 184f. 
 
 f Krlangen edition, xiv., 52. 
 
332 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 needs, then the sighing and supplication increase, even 
 audibly, so that you cannot find a Christian who does 
 not pray ; just as you cannot find a living man without 
 a pulse that never stands still, but beats and beats on 
 continually of itself, although the man may sleep or do 
 anything else, so being all unconscious of this pulse." * 
 This inner unceasing prayer is faith itself in the form of 
 a continual turning of the heart towards God, that goes 
 on steadily amid all our work.f This faith, which is 
 really a life in God, breaks forth when opportunity 
 ofl^ers into spoken prayer, interrupting work with 
 thanks and supplication.J But special prayer must 
 always spring from a confidence already existing 
 that a message from God has been received and 
 understood. § Without this it is not Christian 
 prayer, and does not come before God at all.|| "The 
 best thing in prayer is faith." IT " He who would pray, 
 must first believe." ** The Christian is certainly to say 
 to himself that he is commanded to pray ;'tt but he who 
 makes prayer simply a way to reach God, " invents a 
 god for himself, and one that does not hear." tJ Hence 
 the Christian must strive above all " to have his heart 
 free unto prayer." §§ And he does this when he takes 
 God's message to heart and lets its power lay hold of 
 him- II II In such' receiving we do commune with God. It 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xlix. 115. 
 t Clf. Ibid. xvi. 165f ; viii. 291 ; x. 308. 
 
 X Cf. Eitschl, " Lehre von der Eechtf." Second edition, iii. 593, 
 § Erlangen edition, xx., I., 248. || Cf. lUd. vii. 131 ; 1. 119. 
 
 t Hid. ,viii. 36. ** IKd. xxlii. 240. 
 
 tt Of. Eitschl, " Lehre von der Eechtf." Second edition, i. 351. 
 XX Erlangen edition, xxiii. 18. §§ Cf, Ibid, xxiii. 222. 
 
 Ill Ibid, 1. 110 : "The foundation stone in prayer is confidence in 
 God." 
 
FAITH AND PRAYER 333 
 
 is then alone that we can talk with God, and this is 
 something far above all difficult tasks or hard work,* 
 for then the heart is kindled and lit up by the kindness 
 of God.t Hence every prayer which is not a meaning- 
 less crying out into space is in its inmost essence an act 
 of praise and thanks to the Almighty God, whose love 
 has found its way to us before we have sought Him. 
 And does not the Lord's prayer begin with thanks and 
 praise on this very ground ? | To be certain that we 
 stand in the light of God's grace because of Christ's 
 attitude towards us, and to bow in faith under this 
 actual proof of God's love,§ this is prayer in spirit and 
 in truth. Hence true prayer is a work of faith, and 
 only a Christian can offer it.|| True worship can take 
 place only where Christ is so perceived that we come 
 through Him into the relation of children towards 
 
 God.lf 
 
 But it is not only true that Christian prayer must be 
 an utterance of faith ; it is also true that faith must 
 give birth to prayer. If faith has been awakened in us, 
 then we are not to keep musing over the slender posses- 
 sions of our own thoughts ; rather will the mastery 
 faith gives over each event in life express itself in 
 prayer, whereby God makes us richer than we were 
 before. As we face and seek to master the particular 
 trouble with which each step in life is burdened, we find 
 
 • Cf. Eriangen edition, xvi. 163. 
 
 t lUi. vil. 130 ; xii. 158. 
 
 j Ihid. vii. 129 j xi. 232, 242 ; xvi. 185. Eitsehl, " Lehre von der 
 Eechtf." Second edition, iii. 599. The so-called orthodoxy about 
 us holds, as a rule, a different opinion. 
 
 § lUd, XV. 219f ; xvi. 231. || Ihii. xlix. 113ff, 316. 
 
 \ lUd. xlix. 130. 
 
334 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that there we always need something more; and the 
 mere fact of what we have ah'eady received never helps 
 us out of the inmost need of the moment. If we do so 
 rely upon it, then the content of our faith becomes a 
 dead possession and mere doctrine. But "it is not 
 enough here that we have the Word and know and 
 understand all that we ought to know, both the doctrine 
 of faith and of comfort and victory in all our need ; 
 another thing is wanting yet, namely, that all this 
 teaching and guidance of our faith and knowledge is 
 put into practice." * From these words of Luther's it 
 is clear that faith itself loses its original character and 
 power as soon as it is regarded as a settled gain, as a 
 foundation on which we can proceed to build in our own 
 strength. Luther knew well that the content of faith 
 is not mere doctrine, and that, therefore, faith itself is 
 not mere knowledge that is to be supplemented by 
 action. For faith is itself life and activity.f It is a 
 relapse into the delusion that a man can have life in 
 himself, if we treat the strength and insight we have 
 already gained from the gospel as a means given 
 whereby we may help ourselves. In opposition to this 
 view, which is already betrayed into distinguishing faith 
 and work, Luther is certainly right in recalling us to the 
 fact that a faith, which is regarded as a restful possession 
 is of no help to us at all. Faith can continue to be a 
 reception from the infinite fulness of God as it was origin- 
 ally, only if in every position in life it turns to prayer, 
 and asks for the removal of its distress from the God of 
 whose life and presence it is conscious. The declaration 
 • Eriangen edition, 1, 105. f ^^i^- xiv. 86, 
 
PRAYER A TURNING TO A PERSONAL GOD 335 
 
 of faith within the soul, which expresses the inward 
 freedom wrung out of conflict, is certainly not a simple 
 logical conclusion from something we knew before. 
 That declaration or judgment always arises afresh as 
 a reception of blessing from God — a reception which 
 is of precisely the same nature as the first rise of faith. 
 The Christian who feels a burden at any moment, bows 
 at every such moment of the life of faith under the 
 good, kind hand of God, and this is prayer and nothing 
 else. Of course it is at the same time a fresh under- 
 standing of the gospel, because in such prayer we turn 
 to the God who is revealed in Christ. But this God is 
 not the mere contents of a doctrine ; not the author of 
 an event long past. To us He is the Living God whom, 
 by the entrance of the historical Christ into our life, we 
 realise to be present in power.* When we receive com- 
 fort from God we are by no means simply drawing the 
 pi'actical inference from some train of thought, but we 
 are turning to a Personal Power, with the confidence 
 that He will strengthen us beyond all our expectation, 
 and will lead us through the present darkness into a 
 marvellous light. "For God will have it that ye 
 recognise not the doctrine alone and what ye already 
 have to be given by Him, but ye are to seek in Him 
 also what ye still need and lack, and thus to experience 
 that nothing stands in your own power, but everything, 
 both beginning and ending, willing and doing, must be 
 sought in Him and given by Him." f 
 
 * Erlangen edition, xlvi. 216 : " In the Lord Christ the Christian 
 finds God at home in his own heart." Cf. xi. 1. 508. 
 t lUi. 1. 1071, 
 
336 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 If faith is not to be a mere play with words concerning 
 God, it must pass into the form of prayer, and if prayer 
 is not to be a play of fancy or an unmeaning travail, 
 then it must be the application of faith to the definite 
 circumstances of the moment. This must not be over- 
 looked when we urge men to prayer. For the Christian 
 regular prayer becomes a sacred rule. But for man, the 
 most important thing is that he learns to pray from his 
 own heart. And this he can learn when he experiences 
 that revelation of God, which can be mediated only by 
 the love of men who stand in God's presence. If, 
 therefore, we desire to help a man to prayer, the most 
 needful thing is that we pray ourselves and win through 
 our prayer that power of love which may make us of 
 service to him. Luther has reminded us that the 
 promises made to prayer are made to those who pray in 
 faith, and not as compensation for a prayer that is 
 simply a work done without faith.* Moreover, Luther 
 by no means recommends prayer as the chief means 
 whereby we are to come to God. He knows that it is 
 contrary to the Gospel for the clergy to teach that men 
 are to enter heaven by fastings, prayings and such-like 
 works.! He thinks that any one might indeed become a 
 praying man by his own endeavour, but he could not so 
 become a Christian man.J Praying is indeed a good 
 work, but although any one were to pray day and night 
 he would not thereby become a Christian. || Life con- 
 sists not in much praying, but in Christ. § It is by 
 
 • Cf. Erlangen edition, 1. 124f. 
 
 t lUi. xii. 377; xiv. 8, 172f. J lUd. xvi. 452. 
 
 II 1U&. xiv. 335. § ihid. XV. 156. 
 
RESIGNATION IN PRAYER 337 
 
 understanding Christ that we enter into communion 
 with God.* 
 
 § 31. Prayer and Willing Resignation, 
 
 Now, if our prayer is based on this experience, it will 
 be regulated from its very outset far better than even 
 the most exact rules could regulate it. Such prayer is 
 the result of the true confidence in God which He 
 Himself has aroused by the tidings He has given us of 
 Himself; and along with this trust, which God has 
 won from us by the manifestation of His love, there 
 comes a thankful joy. Hence the prayer that is thus 
 iftspired is first of all thanksgiving, even when it takes 
 the form of a supplication ; and since the prayer that 
 springs from faith is of such a character, there will 
 result a combination in living unity of two spiritual 
 affections which no human endeavour could unite^ 
 namely, the heart-felt desire to receive special help 
 from God, and the humble (i.e., joyful) submission to 
 God's will. It is fruitless to try to bring about this 
 union by merely saying to a soul that it may indeed 
 ask God for a definite gift, but it must also be always 
 ready to find the gift denied. If we made sUch an 
 attempt we should either make the prayer heartless, 
 or we should pretend a resignation that was utter 
 hypocrisy. On the other ha;nd, in the prayer of faith 
 this union follows of itself ; for faith does not see in 
 God an indefinite power that holds both good and ill 
 fortune in its hand, and which may perhaps be influ- 
 enced by men's stormy asking. Oui' faith sets us rather 
 • df. Erlangen edition, i. 359 ; ix. 232, 263. 
 
 Y 
 
338 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 before a God whose help is certain. This alone will 
 moderate all that might be passionate in the prayer 
 that is life's utterance of its healthy desire for blessing. 
 The natural desire of the troubled creature to influence 
 the will of God to its own advantage vanishes in 
 Christian prayer, because we feel that our supplications 
 are laid before a God who loves us more than father 
 or mother can. These two tendencies, the natural 
 desire and the divine gift of confidence, can be clearly 
 distinguished in the real living supplication of a 
 Christian. His prayer is an inward conflict, which 
 should normally bring the Christian up to a higher 
 plane of the inner life ; the sign of the attainment of 
 this goal is the dying away of the storm of desire into 
 stillness before God. 
 
 § 32. Prayer for Earthly Blessings. 
 
 Faith certainly does not prevent the Christian 
 altogether from asking for earthly blessings. Such a 
 fancied refinement of prayer would empty it of all its 
 meaning. Whatever really so burdens the soul as to 
 threaten its peace is to be brought before God in 
 prayer, with the confidence that the Father's love 
 understands even our anxious clinging to earthly 
 things. " Hast thou a want or trouble which presses 
 thee, then call to Him, and open thy mouth with good 
 cheer, as a child will to its father : a father is pleased 
 with all that his child does, so long as it clings to its 
 father."* It is this attitude towards the Father who 
 comes to us in Christ that first gives us firmness of sotd 
 * Erlangen edition, xlix. 313. 
 
RESIGNATION NOT EFFORT BUT FAITH 
 
 in view of all the things that would hold us captive. 
 If we try of ourselves to get free from these, and so far 
 do not pray about them, we do ourselves a two-fold 
 injury. In the first place we make our prayer dead and 
 insincere ; it is in truth not our own prayer at all, but 
 might be the prayer of a man placed in utterly different 
 conditions; and secondly, we do not really lay our- 
 selves before the God who would be sought of us as 
 our Helper and Saviour ; we rather imagine a God who 
 has a kind of love for the human ideal, but has no 
 sympathy for our needs. But if, on the contrary, we 
 turn to God with what really oppresses us, then the 
 confidence which He calls forth within us takes away the 
 burden from our soul. " A Christian knows that he is 
 not refused what he has prayed for, and he finds, also, 
 in fact, that he is helped in all troubles ; and if he be 
 not delivered from them so speedily, yet he knows that 
 prayer is pleasing to God, and that it is heard, and 
 that God gives him power to bear his troubles and to 
 overcome them : which is just the same thing as taking 
 his trouble away from him, and making it no longer 
 misfortune or distress, seeing it has been overcome." * 
 In this way our prayer becomes a " tranquil prayer ; " f 
 not by our summoning up all our powers of renuncia- 
 tion, but through the impression within us that God's 
 love is turned towards us, and that we can calmly trust 
 this. It would be, however, a shameful misuse of 
 prayer if trifles which have really no significance for 
 our inner life were to be made the topics of our prayers. 
 A prayer offered in such a trafficking fa^ion, as it 
 * Erlangen edition, xlix, 316. f •^"^' ^i- 57. 
 
840 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 were, would either be empty talk, or would keep us 
 entangled by matters which ought to trouble no serious 
 man : such conduct destroys prayer, because amid such 
 gazing upon what has no reality we forget the soul's actual 
 need. 
 
 Prayer may be perverted in another direction, if in 
 it there be no turning to God at all, but only a deter- 
 mined concentration on the eager desire to obtain some 
 particular thing. We sink into such earthliness when 
 we view the power of God simply as a means whereby 
 some difficulty may be removed, and which may be set 
 in motion by the energy of prayer. In so doing we do 
 not trust the God who is revealed in Christ ; we trust 
 our own power of prayer ; we do not then pray in 
 Christ's name, but in our o>vn. " Those, however^ who 
 pray in their own name, such as those who presume that 
 God must hear them or look upon them, since they pray 
 so many, so great, so devout, so holy prayers — these 
 deserve and obtain only wrath and disfavour."* The 
 man who only thinks of an " uti Deo,"" that is, of how 
 
 * Eriangen edition, xii. 160. It is easy to understand how a fias- 
 sionate man like Luther might sometimes fall into this kind of 
 prayer himself ; hut such prayers as, e.ff., those for the deliverance of 
 Melanchthon and Mykonius, surely fall under the condemnation of 
 the words quoted above. It is therefore ingratitude towards the 
 great champion to allow such sins, into which his very fight for the 
 cause of God led hiin, to continue to have a ruling influence in 
 the church, by praising them as being among the best prayers in the 
 history of the church, as Luthardt does in his otherwise excelli-nt 
 book, (y. Luthardt, " Vortrage uber die Moral des Christentums " 
 (Lectures on the Morality of Christianity). Second edition, 1873, p. 
 224. The creature certainly does not become heroic when it ventures 
 to say, like God Himself, " my will be done." 
 
PRAYER SEEKS GOD NOT THINGS 341 
 
 to use God, and not of a "/»T«i Deo,"" that is, of how to 
 enjoy God, knows nothing of the joy which Christ pro- 
 mises to him who prays.* We pray aright only when 
 we have joy in God himself; and such joy in God, 
 kindled in us by His revelation, is love to God ; and 
 " true love to God is having the heart disposed and the 
 mouth opened to say : ' Lord God, I am Thy creature, 
 do with me as Thou wilt, it is all the same to me ; I am 
 Thine indeed, that I know ; and if it were Thy will 
 tjiat I should die this hour, or suffer any great mis- 
 fortune, I would suffer it with a w^ing lieart ; I will 
 never count my life, my honour and my good, and 
 whatever I may have, as higher and gpeater thsin Thy 
 Ayill,' " t Of course, this is the ideal of prayer ; and yet 
 in tjie struggle of a prayer that really comes before 
 God, joy in God necessarily pushes into the place that 
 was at first filled with passionate desire, and so such 
 desire is moderated. The natural desire that is born of 
 the passion of the creature, and the joy in God and His 
 will which He Himself awakens, must be blended to- 
 gether in a Christian prayer. But no advice, however 
 careful, can direct us how to balance the two exactly in 
 any individual insti^nce. God alone solves the problem, 
 by so touching us in His revelation to us that there 
 comes upon us like a sunrise a wondroius pleasure and 
 joy in life, out of which there is able to spring willing 
 renunciatiori and patience under what we have to 
 be^r. 
 
 * Eriangeu edition, 1. 125, 
 
 t '*»^- "V, 172f ; cf. xiv, 8; xvi. 428, 
 
342 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 § 33. The New Birth. 
 
 Such is the picture of communion with God which 
 Luther gives us as the testimony of his inner life, when- 
 ever his language is not fettered by any definite 
 polemical task. Even those who have been led to 
 accept some other form of piety will hardly deny that 
 whoever stands towards God as Luther stood, realises 
 Jesus Christ as the Mediator and Heconciler, and yet 
 communes at the same time with God Himself. 
 
 When the Christian has become conscious that his 
 faith is sincere communion with God, he will sum up all 
 that has happened to him through God's revelation in 
 one definite judgment regarding himself. He knows 
 that he has been transplanted into a new existence 
 which he regards as a miracle wrought by God. Empty 
 and weak as his life has been hitherto, he observes now 
 and for the first time the point where he has learned to 
 understand the love of the Father in what is real round 
 about him. The New Testament gives the fitting 
 expression for this ; it says the believer is a new crea- 
 tion of God ; he has been bom again. And everywhere, 
 even outside the Christian Church, all really pious men 
 know that the full certainty of God, or the conscious- 
 ness of communion with Him, is not a product of human 
 strivings, but that it is a work of the Almighty that 
 lets men see something utterly new. We see men who 
 are not Christians feeling this majesty of God's revela- 
 tion, and we can know ourselves at one with them in 
 that feeling. But the Christian knows more; the 
 
FAITH AS A NEW BIRTH 343 
 
 thought must arise in his mind that he himself has 
 been born again. God reveals Himself to us, and by 
 that act makes of the creature a new being. With the 
 rise of faith in the Christian's heart a new life begins 
 which brings with it a thorough change of purpose 
 and in place of former impotence a life in the strength 
 of God. 
 
 Hence Luther very often pointed out how the new 
 birth is the new purpose and courage given by the faith 
 which is based on the fact of the appearance of Jesus.* 
 He finds an interpretation of the new birth in the words 
 of John, that our faith is the victory that has overcome 
 the world.t To be bom again is the same thing as to 
 come through Christ to the Father ; { faith involves 
 the new birth,§ or the divine birth is nothing else than 
 faith itself. || Accordingly he sees the means whereby 
 the new birth is brought about in the Word, namely 
 in that message of God which awakens faith.lT And 
 baptism is regarded as "an accompanying sign," or 
 another expression, of what God tells us through the 
 Word.** 
 
 Nevertheless we may not say that the Christian can 
 point to anything in his newinner life as the phenomenon 
 in the realm of his experience which attests his new 
 birth. It would be a monstrous thought for a Christian 
 
 * Of. Erlangen edition, v. 246 ; vii. 178 ; viii. 224 ; xv. 341ff, 362 ; 
 xviii. 206 ; xxiii. 247. 
 
 + Of. THd. viii. 226. % lUd. U. 334f ; xxii. 17. 
 
 § Cf. lUd. viii. 284 ; x. 143. 
 
 II Of. lUd. X. 216 ; XX. II. 43 ; xlvi. 270. f Qf. Ibid. viii. 284, 291. 
 ** Cf. Ihid. xii. 439 ; xlvi. 296 ; xi. 72 ; xx. I. 27: xx. II. 47; xxi. 
 269 ; xxiv. 65 ; xlvii. 207. 
 
344 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 that he should hold himself born again on the ground ' 
 of what he can now do and of what he is conscious of 
 being. His opinion that he lives as a new man by the 
 strength of God is based, not on the experience that he 
 himself accomplishes anything that is divine, but on 
 the fact that God is his refuge. Nor was it by any 
 means Luther's view that he had had an actual experi- 
 ence of the new birth and so knew himself to be bom 
 again because of what he actually was, or that he could 
 fully explain how the new birth comes about. It is 
 true that he sees the traces of the new birth in the 
 power of his faith ; but nevertheless the new life that 
 he observes in himself would be to him no basis for the 
 certainty that he had been born again. On the contrary, 
 his faith gained that power to overcome the world of 
 which he was conscious, not from aught within him, 
 but through his inferring from facts which he dis- 
 tinguishes from himself and his own life, the conclusion 
 that the almighty impulses of God's love were working 
 in him. Hence he says concerning the new birth : 
 " This birth is neither seen nor gi-asped ; we only believe 
 in it." * The Christian by no means sees in what he at 
 present experiences a full expression of what he has 
 become through the grace of God. He knows rather 
 that his deepest life is still hidden even from himself.f 
 " Wherefore it is also called a life hidden from the 
 world and from Christians themselves, so far as out- 
 
 * Eilangen edition, zlvi. 276. 
 
 + Cf. "Krit. Geaamtansgabe " (Critical Complete Edition), I. 486: 
 Abscondit enim Deus omnem vitam sanctorum ita profunde, ut Ipsi 
 earn scire non possunt" (For God hides all the life of the saints so 
 deeply that they themselves cannot know it). 
 
NO INTERNAL GROUND OF ASSURANCE 345 
 
 Afrard beholding and feeling can go ; but yet it is a life 
 that is certainly there and well protected." * Thus the 
 life that springs from God, or the life of the man that 
 has been born again, is not a thing that we can behold 
 and study in any of the present experiences of our faith ; 
 we gain for qurselves the certainty that that very experir 
 ence is at bottom a divine life, by a judgment of faith. 
 
 Indeed this could not possibly be otherwise. If the 
 Christian could look upon his new birth from God as 
 the spuitual riches now in his possession, then he might 
 be called a fruit fallep from the tree of life, but not a 
 branch of Christ the Vine. He would then have to seek 
 within himself the ground of his own salvation. But a 
 Christian cannot give ear to any such fancy. " If thou 
 wilt behold, then I will give thee even the life of St. 
 Peter, St. Paul, or St. John ; and yet with all that thou 
 sjialt come to nothing. Wik thou be holy in God's 
 sight .'' Then set not store on thy having life, else thou 
 art lost ; for all must come from pure gift, mercy and 
 grace, and not from a life or work in thee. If it be in 
 thee, then forsooth has it happened for thy sake." " As 
 long as thou reinainest in thyself, thou art not devout. 
 This means that our life is hidden up high, and far 
 abov^ our feelipgs, heart, eyes and sense." t At every 
 moment Christ alone is the ground of our cpnfideixce. 
 " If I am not free from care and fear, yet He is free 
 frqm all care, and without fear ; let me then soar away 
 frpm myself into Him, and boast that I am devout in 
 Christ and through Christ." J We gain assurance that 
 
 • Erlangen edition, viii. 210 ; ef, xi. 251. •)■ Hid. xvii. 353, 
 
 I Ibid. XV. 416f, 
 
346 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 we are bom again only by a judgment springing from 
 faith which is based on Christ. When a man puts 
 clearly before himself what Christ means for him, 
 namely, the God who turns towards him and fifls him 
 with a new mind for life, then at the same moment he 
 makes it plain to himself that he has become a new 
 creature, full of strength that flows from the one great 
 fact that God has revealed Himself to us in the flesh, 
 Luther rightly finds this meaning in Colossians iii. S. 
 In that passage Paul wished to comfort those Christians 
 that " felt little life and joy" in themselves, " as they 
 gladly would have felt; they felt rather death and 
 terror." He desires to show them " where they are to 
 seek their life and grasp it with certainty." He means 
 to say " An eternal glory which cannot pass away has 
 actually been given to you. But you do not have this 
 life in yourselves and through your own feeling, but in 
 Christ and through faith. And thus Christ is called 
 your life, which is not yet revealed in you but which is 
 certain in Him, and so assured to you that no one can 
 take it from you ; and thus through faith in His life 
 you must be preserved and shall have the victory." * 
 
 It is dangerous to give oneself over to the idea that 
 the new birth can be experienced as a process in time. 
 Those who cherish this conception think they are very 
 strong Christians, while in reality they are lacking in 
 that certainty of the new birth which is given us in 
 Christ. Just as clearly is a theology perverted which 
 
 • Erlangen edition, viil. 221 ; of. xv. 157 : " It is not something 
 disclosed in us, but in the Word alone, that through Him and in 
 Him we must receive and hold life, " 
 
THE MYSTERY OF REGENERATION 347 
 
 makes regeneration a process that can be traced by 
 human enquii-y. Those circumstantial investigations 
 as to the way in which a man of God comes into being 
 which Frank published must be fruitless, and they 
 betray a striking want of clearness concerning the tasks 
 that are possible to science ; yet this is not their worst 
 fault. Their most injurious feature is rather the fact 
 that by such an undertaking the true character of the 
 idea of regeneration is conce&led : for it is a thought 
 arising from faith, and applies to something that lies 
 beyond all experience. Frank works out the old 
 scholastic problem. How can a man be renewed by God 
 " without injury to his human freedom ? " and he reaches 
 only the same result which has already been seen in the 
 schoolmen. He treats the freedom of man and the 
 renewing grace of God as opposites which must be 
 ground down till they seem to fit one another. But in 
 reality neither the idea of freedom nor that of regenera- 
 tion permits of such treatment. For a man to have his 
 conscience in agreement with the law of God is for that 
 man to be conscious of his freedom, and this thought 
 allows of no limitation. And this is not a description 
 of something that we can experience as real, but it is a 
 statement of the fact that the divine secret of our 
 nature lies beyond all experience now possible to us. 
 Just as little can we take away any element from the 
 idea of a new creation by God so as to make it fit into 
 the idea of human freedom. So far as we undei-take to 
 do so we are on the way to semi-pelagianism. Men are 
 very ready to assert the miracle of faith, and at the 
 same time to set aside what they cannot understand in 
 
348 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 it. Surely we ought by this time to have had enough 
 of this old and ingenious practice. Its supporters are 
 very willing to acknowledge all possible miracles, regard- 
 ing which faith can never become certain, and which 
 have not the least significance for the inner attitude of 
 the man towards God, as, for example, that of the 
 magical working of the sacraments : but on the main 
 pointj where the only question is of man's submission to 
 the God who reveals Himself to him, they try to avoid 
 the very facts which their faith knows to be such. The 
 man who has come to God through Chiist finds arising 
 in himself the thought that through the new environ- 
 ment into which he has been transplanted he has 
 become a new creature. This remains to him a miracle 
 which lies beyond all experience, inasmuch as he never 
 exhausts its meaning in any moment of conscious ex- 
 perience ; but, further, the fact which faith describes in 
 the thought of regeneration is not something that can 
 be dissected as we analyse the separate parts of a 
 process. This thought means rather that faith, though 
 it advances through victories and through defeats, 
 receives everything at once if it only holds fast to Christ. 
 But now, on the other hand, it is possible for us, with 
 Luther, to see the new life of the regenerate man in the 
 workings of his faith, if we will only remember that 
 other fact which Luther emphasised quite as strongly, 
 namely, that the new birth from God is not something 
 to be seen or grasped, but only to be believed in. For 
 the workings of faith have the power of a really new life 
 only when they are supported by the conviction thj^t 
 the invincible power of God works in them, and of this 
 
BAPTISM 349 
 
 we gain ever fresh certainty from the attitude God 
 takes towards us in Christ. Faith receives from its 
 understanding of Christ both the power and the impulse 
 so to regard itself ; and the thought thus brought about 
 marks the faith which manifests itself as a new life. 
 The theology at present common among Protestants 
 regards faith, however^ in such a way that we must 
 expect to hear the objection that such regeneration as 
 we have described is a mere thought, a man's dream or 
 poem, but not a real thing. To this objection we could 
 answer in brief that it is always a sign of unbelief to 
 desire some other proof of reality for the content of 
 ideas that God creates in us through Christ than this 
 their real foundation. But let us compare that con- 
 ception of regeneration which is certainly considered 
 within the prevailing orthodoxy, as having the church's 
 ssinetion, with that conception of New Birth which we 
 have derived from Luther. 
 
 § 34. Baptum and the New Birth. 
 
 Undoubtedly it is counted orthodox to-day to believe 
 that something remarkable takes place in a man when 
 he is baptised, and that thereby in some way, as the 
 Formula Concordiae expresses it, a freed will is made out 
 of one that was in bondage. This process is supposed 
 to be the new birth. Naturally it is impossible to know 
 anything of this from our own experience, and only in 
 the rarest cases do men claim such knowledge. Hence 
 it is assumed that the process has taken placef^ on the 
 ground of some texts of Scripture in which it is supposed 
 
350 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 to be asserted that baptism has some such power. Now 
 what does the Christian gain by such a supposition as 
 that which men call faith in the regenerative power of 
 baptism ? Without doubt those who share this kind of 
 faith are able to conceive of this questionable event with 
 very sensuous distinctness ; they regard it, as Luthardt 
 would say, as something " objectively real." But it is 
 of no service for the inner life ; for even if we are firmly 
 convinced that this change took place in us some years 
 ago, yet the recollection of that will not at all diminish 
 our present need, our present feeling of the slavery of 
 our will, our discontent and despair where we should 
 enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God, A 
 Christian who stands in such need as this will necessarily 
 hear with indifference the assertion that he received a 
 new life in baptism ; in his anxiety for comfort he will 
 say to the preachers of that doctrine ; It may be so, for 
 aught I know, but that does not help me. Of course it 
 may be replied by way of proof that the doctrine is not 
 without practical fruits, that what took place in that 
 sacrament was a work of God which cannot be destroyed 
 through our sin ; it is there, and will help us if we will 
 use it. Here an appeal is made to us to trust in the 
 faithfulness of God, who will keep the promises He 
 makes to man through Christ, and so will declare to us 
 the sincerity of His love. Certainly this is the right 
 course to pursue, to comfort ourselves and other Chris- 
 tians ; but at the same time it is plain that this is a 
 retreat from the doctrine of the regenerative power of 
 baptism which was borrowed from the schoolmen, and it 
 is an evident turning towards what faith really thinks 
 
GOD'S LOVE EXPRESSED IN BAPTISM 351 
 
 concerning the new birth. For we come to trust the 
 faithfulness of God because of the tidings He has given 
 us which have for us this meaning, namely Christ alone in 
 His word, i.e., in His appearance in history. And there- 
 fore all we have to do is to look to Him when we desire 
 to awaken our trust in God's faithfulness. If then we 
 point to baptism, as to the work of God that is guaran- 
 teed by His faithfulness, are we not dispensing with 
 Christ as the basis of our confidence ? This question 
 certainly arises if we say that a miraculous change of the 
 inner life results from baptism. In such a case men's 
 thoughts cling to an event concerning which nothing 
 more can be said than that it is miraculously effected 
 and that it brings about a miraculous result. It would 
 be foolish to attempt to denjr that under the influence 
 of these conceptions an emotion may arise which seems 
 to afford a momentary relief amid trouble ; but this is 
 not the comfort of Christ. Christ Himself is supplanted 
 by this conception of a miraculous event, and moreover 
 much of the meaning of the event may be the mere 
 product of men's own imagination. Christ becomes a 
 mere presupposition for the process in which men think 
 the help has been given them ; and no one is bound to 
 think much about this presupposition, fof of course it 
 has already done its own part in providing a redeeming 
 fact for them. 
 
 It is self-evident that a Protestant Christian may not 
 remain in an attitude towards this sacrament which is 
 actually a turning away from the Redeemer Himself. 
 So the only just view of baptism is that it is an expres- 
 sion of the love of God which is turned towards us in 
 
S52 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 Christ. If we take this view, which of course is only 
 possible when we have a Christian faith in Providence, 
 then Christ, and the God revealed to us in Him, are recMy 
 hrcught to us through baptism. We take our comfort 
 from Christ Himself if we understand baptism as a 
 special promise fi-om the God who through Him touches 
 our inner life. And when we take this position towards 
 Christ and towards the act of baptism which receives us 
 into His brotherhood, then the doctrine that supposes 
 baptism to effect a process of regeneration becomes a 
 stoiy that we can well afford to lay on one side. As 
 Christ emancipates us, bringing us into a right confi- 
 dence in God, He becomes so great and mighty in our 
 sight that we can say, in some form or other, that to 
 stand under His protection amounts to being a new 
 creature born of the power of God. The marvellous 
 power of the thought which Christ thus brings about 
 within us is known to every believing Christian ; we ex- 
 perience it in the hours when our faith has been weak, 
 when we keep our grip on the fact that God's love has 
 made much more of us than we can understand, since W6 
 can only estimate in a very slight degree the power that 
 Christ has given us to resist the powers of evil. It is 
 not necessary to explain here how such a faith teaches 
 us to understand that the baptism administered to us 
 by the Christian brotherhood is a gift of God. For 
 such an explanation we may simply refer men to Luther's 
 Greater Catechism. But it is clear that this significance 
 that his own baptism assumes for the Christian forces 
 him to judge more lenienlly about any supposed magical 
 efiFect of the sacraments. There may lie in that belief 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL MYSTERY S53 
 
 an expression of the fact that the gift of God is more 
 than our comprehension can ever fathom. The only 
 error is, then, that a conception capable of being grasped 
 in its real sense only by a highly developed religious 
 mind is treated as a foundation for faith, and that then 
 an illumination of the mystery concealed there is at- 
 tempted by means of a theological theory. And the 
 error is not a small one. It helps on the profanation 
 of the sacrament in its inmost meaning. For it makes 
 it possible for an utterly profane man to believe in the 
 sacrament as he might believe in any other magic. But, 
 on the other hand, the mystery of the sacrament is pre- 
 served if it is maintained that the proper reception of 
 the sacrament is that which takes place in the conscious- 
 ness that " it is as if God were letting me hear a new 
 voice or a new sign from heaven and thus promising me 
 grace " ("Apology of the Augsburg Confession " vii). 
 This most simple religious interpretation is an impene- 
 trable wall round about the mystery. For that experi- 
 ence is impossible to the ungodly. 
 
 § 35. Science and the Thoughts of Faith. 
 
 The thoughts of faith concerning the source and 
 support of its own life cannot be made fruitful by 
 seeking to get at what they mean by any merely sen- 
 suous experience, and to make it comprehensible by 
 reason in a theological theory. Men certainly fall into 
 this error if they get these thoughts by learning them 
 by rote from the apostles or from sacred Scripture, On 
 the other hand, they become fruitful in us when they 
 
354 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 arise in us just as they did in the apostles. If faith is 
 awakened in us through the actual power of the real 
 historical revelation, then in that impulse our thoughts 
 will be lifted far above the realm of experience that is 
 possible to us. What we thus hold to be possible by 
 the power of faith cannot be made even comprehensible 
 to the man who does not stand in the same faith. It 
 is not possible so to combine it with the results of 
 general philosophy as to build it up into a philosophical 
 scheme of that sort, or to establish it on a metaphysical 
 basis. Hence follows what the ruling theology of our 
 time calls "dualism," and which it abhors greatly, 
 because thereby its own beautiful alliance with science 
 is called in question, an alliance from which only a 
 worldly, grasping church could gain anything. Never- 
 theless, it is just as clear to the believer as it is to those 
 who are acquainted with science, that science has no 
 part 01 lot in the content of these thoughts. For these 
 things there is no theory of perception. In these 
 thoughts the believer breaks down every bridge between 
 his own conviction, and all that science can acknow- 
 ledge to be real, simply because these thoughts have 
 grown out of the faith awakened by God's historical 
 revelation. 
 
 But the thoughts of faith are not thereby rendered 
 unfounded or worthless. Then* worth lies herein, that 
 the soul that conceives them is set free from the world 
 and rises to God, reaches away beyond its present life 
 and is at home in another world. We certainly could 
 not find this in our thoughts concerning God's nature 
 and in all our other thoughts arising from faith, if these 
 
FAITH INDEPENDENT OF SCIENCE 355 
 
 could all be shown to belong to our ordinary know- 
 ledge of the world, or if they all simply expressed what 
 we now experience. The thoughts springing from faith 
 have their firm assurance in the faith itself from which 
 they by a necessity arise, and therefore ultimately in 
 the revelation which gives faith its existence and its 
 certainty. For this faith itself we are ready to answer 
 - to science. It has its root in the fact that Jesus brings 
 us by His appearance to confidence in the reality of a 
 God who wills what is good, and who forgives us our 
 sins. Thus two different powers combine to bring 
 about the certainty of faith, one, the impression made 
 upon us by a historical personage and fact which comes 
 to us in timie ; and the other, the moral law whose 
 eternal truth we learn to know at once when we are 
 aware of that law. Religious faith in general arises 
 when a man runs against an undeniable fact which 
 compels him by force of what lies in it to recognise 
 that in it God is touching his life. We begin 
 to be Christians when we find the footprints of God 
 in our life in the fact that the Person of Jesus has 
 come our way. When once we have come to see 
 that religious faith is not a thing concerned with the 
 establishment of eternal truths, but rather with the 
 actual elevation of men out of the life according to the 
 flesh into eternal life, then we no longer think of gain- 
 ing certainty of faith in any other way. 
 
356 COMMUNION WITH GOD 
 
 § 36. Owr Attitude ammig the Theological Parties of 
 the Present Day. 
 
 We regard the theological divisions of the present 
 day calmly and gladly because with our theology, 
 founded as we have described, we stand firmly on the 
 law and the Gospel ; and because in this way we are 
 equally free from dishonouring faith by a false sub- 
 jection to science or by the conception that science 
 must be shut up within its own limits lest any harm 
 may happen to poor faith. Some day this emanci- 
 pating knowledge will dawn on others also ; meanwhile 
 we rejoice in the thought of the joy which awaits them 
 ■when God shall give them the strength to throw aside 
 the monkish cowl of the scholastic theology. 
 
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