MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 93-81620- MICROFILMED 1993 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Ci\ ilizalion Preservation Project" Funded bv the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions nia\ not be made without permission from Columbia Uni\ ersity Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or other reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: CARLYLE, THOMAS TITLE: THE MORAL PHENOMENA OF PLA CE: LONDON DA TE: [1845] Master Negative # «H0 ^mm Mmm^^^mm matmm «mw mmmb mmib «mhk mmw •««» ■■■» mhi* mbbw mm* mb«* COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROiFORMllMiGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record 943 C199 L Restrictions on Use: .iJi.jvT». 1- ■!! I \mwr iTi f Carlyle, Thomas, 1803-1855. The moral phenomena of Germany Painter c 184 5 3 182 p. I5J cm. • • • London, FILM SIZE :____:?_1 TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: J/j^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA QIA) ID IIB DATE FILMED :__^z/2P-l-0 INITIALS__J?_^_K __ HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODDRIDGE. CT BiBLIOGRAFfilC IRREGULARITIES M A I N EN lliY: ^^vHl(:>^ Thovrt ^iS Biblio graphic Iffcgularities iit the Qrigiiiai Docmneiit List vokimes and pages affected; iiic liide name of institution if filming borrowed text. Pagc(s) niissiiig/iiol available: .Voliimes(s) missing/nut available: Yl Illegible and/ or daniaiied ged page(s): \\\\e Pa*^^ -Q .Page(s) or \ olumesCs) niisnumbered: Bound out: of sequence: .Fage(s) or iUustralioiiCs) filmed from copy borrowed from: Bvhile they stoop to humour, the latter. The latter, while they hate, flatter, in order to fleece, the former. The cold ostentation of chanty, and the crafty hoUowness of servility, bind no classes together. Their guineas change hands ; but their hearts beat responsive with few mutual sympa- thies. In the highest, as in the lowest, grades of English society are found equal measures of fickleness and insincerity, profligacy and improvi- dence, selfishness and meanness. And the peer, "who proudly denounces, or sanctimoniously la- ments, the demoralization and sedition of the peo- ple, has often set the example first, outraged by licensed sin the feelings, and roused the honest indignation of men, who know right from wrong, and have not learned to wait for the righteous Judge. It is, however, one omen of good, that " young England " would restore, what " young France" and "young Germany," would combine to abolish. Their heart is in the right place. English nobility, though not exclusive in its 26 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : constitution, and far more influential in its rela- tions than the German, is nevertheless an object of less attachment. Although the German baron, bidding adieu with a sigh to one privilege after another, wrung from him by poverty or public opinion, may, as " laudator temporis acti," com- mend the laws which required his double-eight- linked chain of ancestry, and may yet look askance upon every fresh mis-alliance forced upon his order ; still, in general society, he is most un- assuming and accessible. And while the English peer, who marvels at the improvidence of the labouring classes, scandalously wastes long an- ticipated rents distilled through stewards from tenants estranged, Germany hardly knows the class of farmers : each baron farms his own es- tate. He knows his peasantry, and is known of them ; talked with, walked with, felt and handled as a man, and saluted with a kiss of honour. V Though he may not know the world so well, he •^ is generally fully better educated than the English nobleman. His morals arc also l^etter, and his household are more faithful. In England, alas ! where justice and publicity are so much vaunted, one too often finds "plated with gold" in the rich, what would carry to the hulks the man in whom " through tattered clothes small vices do appear." And if it be so, in spite of every faci- NOBILITY. 2t lity for the expression of opinion, what would it be were those wholesome facilities diminished? There are {ew households to be found where master and servant are so estranged from one another by conflicting interests; where the master so neglecls, and by bad example corrupts, his servant; where the servant is so confederate against his master ; and where systematic kna- very, unthankful waste, debauchery, insolence, and habitual breach of trust, so pervade whole establishments, and openly defy all remedy, as in the west-end of London. These are the things which provoke the anger of God, rend the bands of society, and almost excuse the boiling indigna- tion of the Radical Reformer. Let the mere Conservative, indolent and supercilious, lapped in luxury, heedless of urgent events, beware. God ^s no respecter of persons — He will not favour the Wicked. There are, however, two respects, in which the German nobility are behind the English : the one regards their public duty, the other their pri- vate pursuits. A 7ioblemsLn is not, as Utilitarians, who let government like public works by contract, would have it, an idlemixn — a drone in the hive — because he does not fag at a plough, or pine at a desk. If there be anything worthy of honour in 28 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : the earth, it is the office of a king, wliich may not be pared down to the meanest balance of state or expenditure. And the prime business of the noble is to stand by the king, knowing that " visconsilt ex pers mole ruit sua." Nobility, worthily held, is not only the best stay of society, and the greatest ornament and bulwark of the throne, but the standing testimony that honour descends and de- pends from above, instead of springing up and being maintained from beneath. Where there is no throne — /.vith carrying out his principles to their conclusions. Fettered in his acts by the institutions under which he lives, he takes his revenge by giving full swing to his thoughts; and, having no concep- tion that our dutv to God extends to the control of our thoughts, he is determined to show his liberty in a sphere which he deems unassailable. His faculty of floating on a sea of notions with- out touching the bottom of reality, keeping his powers ever on the wing in ether without touching mother-earth, is absolutely marvellous. The *' Griindlichkeit" with which he handles his subject actually entombs the reader ; his en- quiries begin at least with creation ; and he acts the elephant in lifting the tiniest object. No doubt a new style — the astrapetic — rapidly supplants the old — short sentences, pregnant aphorisms, glittering remarks. But, with some noble exceptions, they who lead the way in its employment are the coryphaei of liberalism, who boast in what man is doing and undoing. These THE LEARNED. 57 <' bold bad men" are no longer reposing in dreams, but are filled with wild and dangerous hopes, with the outlines and designs of laws for that new world which they await (at once the mockery and the negative of God's kingdom to come), the hell- enkindled lustre of which, shooting through the cracks of present constitutions, is that on which they feast their eyes, and from which they borrow their pens of fire. Rationalism, which English- men, in their happy insular ignorance, have ab- horrently regarded as the product of Germany, in Leibnitz, Wolff, Semler and Kant, is much more a lef^acy from orthodox Rome and Greece, aug- mented by an importation from the infidel schools of England and France. The inquisitive and fa- miliar character of the German mind may have fostered it; but its origin lies in the paralysis struck into every institution of God by the un- belief of man. Neither piety nor infidelity com- menced with the Reformation. Aristotle was more worshipped by Papists than Christ. Lights burned before the image of Plato; texts were taken from his works. Bcssarion could speak of those fallen asleep in Christ, as having retired to join the Olympian gods; of the remission of sins, as the appeasing of gods and manes ; of the Holy Spirit, as the breathing of a celestial zephyr. It f2 58 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : was proposed to alter the Vulgate, in accommoda- tion to the times. Clement VII. approved of the classic hymns submitted to him by Zacharias Ferrerus, as preferable to those of the Church. He directed to be used at the altar such cfFu- sions as this parody — " Unus est Divum, sacer imperator Triplicis formoe, facie sub una, Qui polum, terras, tumidosque fluctus Temperat alti." And under Adrian VI. did the inhabitants and the priesthood of Rome resort, in time of pesti- lence, to the heathen sacrifice of an ox in the forum. The doers of sucli things as these were the men who sided with Luther at the first, till they found him to be something better than a hero-destroyer of shams. But we see only the revival of such a spirit in the numberless forms by which the folly of vain man has since striven, through German philosophy, to be wiser than God, and has well-nigh succeeded in emasculating every sacred institution, and shaking to ruin every divine pillar of truth. We see but the same evil under new colours, in the grave proposal made in 1805, to substitute for the sacramental prayer at the altar the words of Goethe's <' Faust," be- ginning and proceeding thus : — THE LEARNED. 59 « Mishor mich nicht, du holdes Angesicht I Nenn'sGluck! Herz ! Liebe ! Gott ! Gef hlist Alles." We see it in a new '< confession of faith," that to do as we would be done by, is the whole sum of the Gospel; in the bold avowal that man '' kann sich des Gedankens nicht erwehren welch ein Hinderniss der Vollendung die so genannten Biblischen Biicher ftir das Christenthum gewesen sind ;" and in those worthy substitutes for Po- pery, Selbst Cultus, Cultus des Genius, and Cultus der Materie, which, according to Daniel, in his '' Theologische Controversen,"— •" haben sich schon so vieler Altare bemachtigt, dass fur keinen Heiligen einer ubrig geblieben ist." But the day of mere negatives is past. The positives of infidelity arise— man, his own guide, now swells into nature's God— and having wiped out the characters of truth, now begins to indite the lie. Kant is wholly out of date : Hegel, the per- fecter of Spinoza, is now the German god. His doctrine is a mighty stride of devilry in advance. It is the first German systemthat promises to work ; for it is a philosophy which tallies with princi- ples in the breasts of all classes. But its work will be one of ruin ; for the principles which it 60 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: I THE LEARNED. 61 evokes are those of Antichrist. Its advocates are of various shades — half, Mhole, and ultra; and there are many who, in spite of its infection, pre- serve or have recovered a measure of faith, al- though a far smaller one than they imagine. But in itself, it is unmixed Atheism, and the nearest approach yet made to the preparation of Chris- tendom for receiving the Man of Sin. Its slime defiles some of the noblest minds in the land ; and it possesses this remarkable character, that while in its esoteric aspect it is unfathomably abstruse, its exoteric is extremely popular, level to the capacities, akin to the thoughts, congenial to the habits, touching the interests, kindling the lusts, of all. It boasts of being based on or con- firmed by the " moderne Bewusstseyn." In spite of the puny rejoicings of shallow pietists that its refutation is accomplished, it gains ground every day. And it is reasonable that it should ; for the delusion has a deeper root, and is of greater cali- bre, than any amount of truth wliich Gospel- christians or Evangelical society-agents can op- pose to it. If the vessel has been broken, it is that every child in the streets may play with its sherds. While utterly expunging from creation, as the mere << populare Vorstellung !" of Jacob Biihme and others, a personal Deity— while rejccling an incarnate Saviour, an indwelling Spirit, an inspired record, an apostolic ministry, a present work of grace, and a coming day of judgement— while ac- cusing Hume and his friends of '* uberschuss des Glaubens !" and Kant and his friends of obstinate belief in existence after death (" dass sie davon nicht lasscn wollen")— its subtilty is such, that there is no point of Christian verity, no office of the adorable Trinity, no text of Holy Writ, for which it has not an appropriate niche in its temple of lies. It contradicts nothing: it con- founds, neutralizes, and eliminates all objects of personal faith. It is the first truly philosophical system, which, denying a life to come, eternizes that which has sold itself to the world, and establishes the '< absolute Diesseits" against the exploded " Jenseits." The thought of man is the fountain— the judgement of man the judge of all things. The consonance of the fact with the thought— that is God ; the exhibition of that con- sonance—that is Christ ; the measure of its attain- ment—that is the Holy Ghost. The king is to be obeyed, not as the object of personal loyalty, but as the exponent of the thoughts of his sub- jects, or rather^of his philosophers. The State is that stamp of thought which shall be eternal, the absolute power on earth, to which the Church is I 62 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: but the temporary minister; for man, as an indi- vidual born and mortal, is as man eternal. Duty and responsibility, without a basis, are therefore without a sanction. The infidelities of Sender and Strauss are the most innocent, because most palpable, form of this system of lies. It seems like a net without entrance or exit. Its meshes are at once too fine for the eye, and too strong for the hand of flesh, such as nothing but the power of the Holy Ghost — the Spirit of the Man Christ Jesus at Gods right hand, can break or disentangle. Faithful and able men have wielded their pens against it ; but though they convict it, they cannot destroy it. It penetrates to the very principles of things, and merges the worlds present and to come. It is truly the Catholic religion of Satan— the design for his human image ; and well deserves the epi- thets of Julius Muller, wiio styles it — " einen neuaufgeputzten, zu einem autolatrischen Genien- Cultus sublimirten Paganismus." Nor are its ten- dencies less truly drawn by Molitor, when he says — "WenncseinedoctringabdiebeidemAnschein von hcichster Sittlichkeit der wahren Moralitiit schnurstracks zuwider ist und den Menschen in sittlicher Hinsicht vollig corrumpirt, so ist es dieses System, welches in der Geschichte der THE LEARNED. 63 Philosophic ganz einziges da steht, wozu kein frii- heres Zeitalter was et hnliches aufzuweisean hat und nur unserer gewaltig bewegten Zeit es allein miiglich war eine solche kiihne gigantische Lehre hervorzubringen." A professed convert from it, hailed, flattered, toasted, as a champion of the faith, has spent one winter in demonstrating the existence of abstract God ; he proposes to spend another in proving that of an actual God ; and no one knows when he may arrive at the philosophy of a God revealed. They who do such deliberate violence to the religious consciousness of baptized men must not be surprised if others take up their unfinished work, and proceed by similar reason- ing to explode the axioms and expunge the prac- tice of national loyalty and domestic morality. Where is the Hercules who shall strangle tliese serpents ? How shall this " Gigantomachie" be beaten back? Germany, with such a volcano in its bosom, stands in two very opposite relations to the coun- tries around it on the one hand, and to America on the other. However oppressive in its character, and extravagant, if not ludicrous, in its conse- quences, the Roman Catholic tyranny over litera- ture and science was, the controversies of Bonn and Paris between the Church and the University '' .* 64 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: THE LEARNED. 65 have abundantly proved, that if unlawful exercise of control over learning is an evil, its absence is one still greater. Lawless thoughts need but con- tact with lawless hands to destroy the world. The German has hitherto dealt with the algebra and logarithms, not with the real quantities, of know- ledge. The American, essentially a doer, has sought for principles to realize. Each has found what he sought. The American, without history or pedigree even in literature, unmellowed and unclothed, a 7iovus homo in the world, has expressly avoided drawing from British sources, lest his doing so should compromise his liberty, and bring him under bonds to ancient institutions. The influx of American students, as well as English Dissenters and Scottish Presbyterians, into Ger- manv, and their translations of German works, testify how congenial they find the soil of philo- sophical license and religious lawlessness. The caricature, compounded of German pedantry and American slang, of words pregnant M'ith classic import bought up by the gross and mis-kecped in the " go-a-head" colloquial style of the new country — the sight of ancient garb and gait, plun- dered from the owner, and misfitted to the wearer, is not a little amusing. But the German has a secret joy in seeing his thoughts realized abroad I to an extent which he dared not even imagine at home. What will come of it remains to be seeu ; but the marriage is one which augurs an evil pro- geny. On the other hand, while the German philosophy is rendered more liberal by being transplanted to America, it is that which fosters the liberalism and infidelity of its continental neighbours. The Dane, the Swede, the French- man, the Italian, the Greek, the Hungarian, and even the Turk, but most of all the Russian, turns to Germany, in the hope of emancipation from the trammels of ancient prejudice. In Russia, the ruler and the ruled, though with different ends, seek, by a rare coincidence, the same things ; the Emperor, seeking to cope with Europe by im- proving his intellectual breed, as a farmer his cattle ; the people, stealthily awakening to a con- sciousness of their wants and of their power. The education, in search of which the literary emissaries of Russia are spread abroad, has no professed connection with religion. Indeed it cannot ; for it is sought at the hands of heretics. In point of fact, it will soon subvert the institu- tions it is intended to sustain. Germany is the great magazine for every free-thinker and liberal of northern Europe. And this is the more remark- able, when we consider that there never was a G 66 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: THE LEARNED. 67 time when she was nationally more at antipodes, with both Russia and France ; hating the dupli- city, tyranny, and ambition of Russian character and policy to such a degree, that nothing but the alliance of the courts prevents a rupture ; and holding everything French at a discount, to an extent which her increased power now renders safe. It is in vain to imagine that the German cen- sorship, justifiable and expedient or not, w^ell or ill administered, has any efficacy in correcting the evils of German literature. Continental go- vernments, professing to keep the peace of this world only, are generally so careless of the higher interests of man, and so sensitive as to political offences, that the censorship which they exercise cannot be duly directed. Political disturbance is the great bugbear of every continental func- tionary. In many countries criminality is at- tached to the use of certain words, even though that use be exactly the opposite of evil ; upon much the same principle as that upon which the Roman Catholic finds a warrant for the worship of the saints in Rev. xxii. 8. And if a man, with his tongue or pen, only steer clear of politics, he is accounted harmless. Religious faith and moral principle, being regarded as mere matters of specu- lation, or as things affecting only the world to come, are exempt from the censor's control. If a book contain one or two political remarks, perhaps useful, it is suppressed ; but the most subtle licentiousness, flagrant immorality, subver- sive scepticism, destructive heresy, and revolting blasphemy, pass by wholesale. The censorship, as the conservator of public religion or morals, truly strains at a gnat and swallows a camel, be- cause the censor himself either is an abettor of the evil, or cannot reach to where it truly lies. Over the teachers in the universities there is no efficient moral control. Session after session, poison is systematically and openly adminis- tered to the youth of the land — to the future shep- herds of its flocks. Formal and normal schools of heresy are so organized, that one can only marvel how any pass through the ordeal of a university, nay of a theological education, with a spark of faith remaining. That university is held incomplete in its furniture, which has not among its professors the representatives of the most opposite opinions ; in which the doctrines of the faith are not alternately maintained and im- pugned as theses in science ; and where the divine truth taught in one room is not daily subverted in the next. But how can it be otherwise, when 68 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : the teachers of the rising generation are not only as teachers, but, what is more important, as men, under scarce any ecclesiastical control ? It must signify little what impediments are thrown in the way of the utterance of their sentiments, if the hearts of the men, the fountain-head of the scsen- timents, are neglected and impure. Even if they do not despise all regular attendance on the or- dinances of religion, as a thing suited to the vul- gar, but beneath a philosopher and unconnected with theology, they wait on no stated ministry ; they are not led on to perfection from the begin- nings of the doctrine of Christ by careful and special pastoral instruction ; tliey do not learn the truth as members of a flock, and in the com- munion of the saints ; they are not trained to make common cause with other Christians in simple acts of worship ; they draw their doctrine from what source they please, not from the candle- stick of the Lord's house ; they acknowledge no spiritual authority ; they have the benefit of no ecclesiastical oversight ; they receive no pastoral counsel, and would, perhaps, spurn it when ten- dered. They stand in that most perilous of all positions — too often the lamented position of a monarch — that of being without a shepherd — of being flattered by all — of having none commis- TIIE LEARNED* 69 sioned to care for their souls. While in Eng- land the rich and the noble are, like the poorest classes, but from different motives, shamefully exempted from any close pastoral dealing with their conscience, the literati of Germany are the favoured, or rather the neglected, class. Hence their whole teaching is poisoned by personal faults and errors, which none reveal to them; and they have no safeguard against being led and leading into every devious path which sin or sin- gularity may dictate. Although all belonging to a Church which tolerates no schism, they are only on that account the more inspissated with heresy. One cannot predicate of authorized teachers what their faith is, or what, notwithstanding first appear- ances, it may turn out on nearer inspection to be. Paul certainly could not have, with propriety, addressed them, like Timothy, as sons in the com- mon faith. Indeed, it is said, ratlier in commen- dation than otherwise, of a theologian, that he has struck out a new " Richtung." His success is measured by the number of youth whom he persuades to follow him in it. And the minis- ters of Christ's Church look on indifferent, if not admiring, while the most influential of her mem- bers mislead those destined to influence in tlieir turn ; and while tenets, uncontrolled by, I'f not G 2 70 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : adverse to, that which has always, by all, and in all places, been believed, are instilled into those who shall occupy the pulpits of the land. Nor is this confined to Protestants alone. The destruc- tive opmio7ies 2^ih which the great custodier of the faith — the Roman Catholic Church, as a tender mother — cunningly permits her children to enter- tain and to promulgate, without sharing their guilt by any ostensible imprimatur, are often as much in harmony with the faith as black is a shade of white. The '' Lehrfreiheit," which is defended as the palladium, is really the poison of German universities. The mental training of youth in Germany is undoubtedly much superior to that which obtains in England. With us there are, perhaps, a greater number of men generally accomplished, and thus fitted for public life. And if there is not now, there certainly recently has been among us, a stricter moral culture. But, looking upon man as a philosophic being — observing, thinking, and reasoning — while he receives in England mere objects of knowledge, he receives in Germany the capacity to think. And while knowledge with the Englishman is traditional and empirical, and receives arithmetical increase, the German en- ters into its philosophy and absorbs it into his THE LEARNED. 71 general circulation. The one, while less ex- posed to the danger of lawless innovation, and not sympathizing with mere speculation, ra- ther obstinately inherits than understands all the bearings of what he holds. The other, compa- ratively destitute of traditional reverence, is yet more likely to maintain to the uttermost what he has once on principle adopted, in so far as intel- lectual conviction can co-operate with moral and religious principle in producing fidelity. Yet the pedantic technicology with which the Germans load the most ordinary subject, and deck pomp- ously the commonest truths, is much against them. There are few Coleridges in England. The four crying evils of German science and educations are — the intrusion of the intellect into sacred things — the separation of theology from religion — the separation of instruction from the Church — and the idolatry of talent and learning. Men have forgotten that the intellect is not the highest part of man's threefold being. His spirit is the highest. By it he holds communion with God ; on it the Holy Ghost operates, in making known to him the things of God ; to it all opera- tions of the intellect, as well as of the body, should be subordinate. And although every part of man both may and should participate in the worship 72 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: and service of God, still it is on the condition that they are duly subordinated to one another. When the intellect addresses itself to sacred things otherwise than under the shelter of the commu- nion of the man's spirit with God, it is no act of faith, but only of presumption. And it is some- what extraordinary, that those who so justly con- demn mere bodily service without intelligence, should be so guilty of exercising intelligence, without the exercise of their spirits in communion with God. With us, a student who is not devout lets theology alone, and leaves it to those whom true piety moves to it, confining himself, if a Churchman, to the estimation of benefices and patronage, and the search for good company. But in Germany, theology and faith are w holly disjoined. The faith is expounded as one of the sciences ; the history of the Church and her doc- trines is detailed as if there w^re neither sin nor riditeousncss in the whole affair; the Bible is studied with no sense of moral obligation, but as a mere exercise in philosophy. IMen, careless to the salvation of others, occupy themselves day and night with the theory of it ; and, though des- titute of personal confidence towards God, un- experienced in the sprinkling of the heart with the blood of Christ, and strangers to prayer, they THE LEARNED. 73 scruple not to tread with daring footsteps, and gaze witli profane eye, on ground forbidden to all but those filled with the spirit of adoption. The Athanasian Creed says, " The right faith is, that we worship,' &c. But so it is, that " Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Although the progress of experience in the Church enlarges the developement of dogma, yet, did her life also grow^, she would, as Molitor justly says, always have the dogma in herself, and be more occupied with showing than with settling her faith. And it is a bad omen indeed that the very age in which spiritual life is lowest, is that in which dogmata are most expounded. It is the unsettling, not the expounding, of the faith. Everything has been discussed, till there is little certain left. The deadening influence of Germai •*tudy on all spiritual life arises, not so much .rom its amount, as from the unlawful mode in which it is conducted. From its callous familiarity arises an indifference between good and evil, and a separation between the personal character and the most vital opinions of men. If the Scotsman quarrel with all from whom he differs, and is moved by that odium theologicumy from which Melancthon on his death-bed rejoiced in having / j 74 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GEIIMANY: escaped, to deny his opponents even the com- mon charities of life, the German will too often re- ceive into his house those who strike the deepest wounds at Christ, and bid " God speed" to every heretic who has science or genius to recommend him. Nathan der Weise is by many deemed the model of true religion and Catholic charity. In- deed, one must allow that the candour of the Ger- mans, at first sight so amiable, is too often found to proceed from the fact, that the questions which are life and death to other men are but entertain- ment to them, having no hold on their consciences, and changed as easily as their conversation. That "Ausgleichung der Gegensatze," so often at- tempted on the basis of some higher unity, is too often a mere amphibious middle term, which is neither truth nor falsehood ; and the so-called de- velopeip^'it of truth, to suit the times, is either a mutilaL.n of it, or a clothing of it in some garb, which like the shirt of Hercules shall slay it, in order at once to escape the censure of those v/ho value truth, and to quiet the consciences of those who will not bear it. It makes no practical differ- ence on a man's conduct how his speculations turn out, whether for or against those truths which lie at the foundation of all true morality. Everywhere we are presented with the enigma of Atheists, I THE LEARNED. 75 Pantheists, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Revolu- tionists, equalling, if not surpassing, the most orthodox in the discharge of their relative duties, and in the interchange of the amenities of life. Things are debated with all the earnestness of realities, which lead no one to any act or any change of conduct. And, on the other hand, you see men, professed champions of religion, bul- warks of orthodoxy, students and expounders of the profoundest mysteries, handlers of questions which are the most comprehensive and ought to be the most practical, as to the government, worship, and instruction of the Church, without any token of real godliness, without acknowledge- ment of submission to, and unsanctioned by, any- spiritual authority. To this familiarity with things holy, stands, as the counterpart, an equal fami- liarity with things unholy. To enlarge the boun- daries, to multiply the provinces, to deepen the investigations of science, is the cynosure of the German's being ; with him, every phenomenon is fair game, and every fact is truth ; and the Holy Spirit, save among pietists, is the spirit of science, rather than the Spirit of God. Itmatters not whether the facts observed be wrousfht of Satan or of God. Man, being lord, has all at his command, and in the sacred cause of science J3 76 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: THE LEARNED. n may safely investigate all things, and use the most equivocal means. And if the scientific hero, armed with his fiincied commission, clothed with his fancied panoply, can conquer a province, or win a fresh laurel, it matters not whence his conquests come, or whether his chaplet be death to himself. But who can handle pitch without being defiled, or fire without being burnt ? As faith in the living God decays, so does faith in God's living enemy : the wise is taken in his own craftiness ; he observes and reasons without fear, therefore he cannot choose the good and refuse the evil. His moral sense is stupified ; and as sentiment without morality ruins the unlearned, so does intellect without faith, and knowledge without worship, the learned. " Wissen ist des Glauben's Stern Andacht alles Wissens Kern." It has been well remarked, that every man's fort is his foible ; and the Germans truly destroy themselves in that wherein they are most useful to the world. To be under law, although so con- trary to man's rebellious will, is so inherently ac- cordant with man's constitution, that they, who cast off the law which they should obey, always come under some other. They who subvert a legitimate government frame one of their own ; i \ they wlio reject a divine priesthood set up a human. They who reject the true Christ will have a false one. The witchery of every false guidance attests the power of the true. The pro- fane are the greatest worshippers of what they like : the lawless tlie greatest slaves of what they follow. And in Germany, where all principles, except those proximately connected with political administration, float unancliored at the mercy of the wind and tide, the coryphaei of the various philosophical and theological systems receive and live by what is almost adoration. xVs blinder de- votion never was paid to dead men's bones than to the thoughts of Luther dead, according to the words of the poet — **' Jahrhunderte verscnken ; Unsterblicher Gedanken Gebilde athmen noch :" — so, if men could but see it, they never were so prostrated before the person or word of a Pope as in the theological or scientific circles of Ger- many before a favourite teacher. Accessible and affable as the German philosopher is, it is always expected that, in some form or other, you burn incense before him. Every man who starts on his literary career, starts an idolater of talent and learning : farther advanced, he car- H 7S MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: THE LEARNED. 79 rics, ill his absorbed manner and ethereal compla- cency, the proof that he numbers himself among those of a superior order: and when the learned meet, if they do not differ, it is on the tacit un- derstanding that each sliall minister gratefully to the self-esteem of his neighbour. Truly it may be said of them — how can yc believe which re- ceive honour one of another? That honour, which is based on talents, is a greater enemy to faith than that which rests on riches or poAver. It re- fuses to perish, either bj/ or /or the truth. The man who prizes it can do positively no work for God. The theorist in religion is more hostile to it than the practitioner in vice. And while the showy men in the Cliristian ministry will be left behind by the practical clergy, the most favourite expounders of theology will be the most inve- terate rivals of divine government, and opponents of heart-searching discipline in the Church. The professors in the universities, having every- thing their own way iri cathedra^ are too sensitive to make a stand for truth in opposition to the clamour of the many, or the frown of the in- fluential. It is doubtful yet how the new inter- rogatory system, lately recommended to the Ger- man universities, will work. There is no doubt, that the lavs of the universities, while exempt from that severity and exclusivencss, at least in the letter which characterize tiic English, are at present inoperative in compelling study or pre- serving morals ; and, although constant hearing is enough for the studious, supply will not create demand in the idle. But it is to be feared that the opening of another course may give occasion to discussion, which the professors may not be able to regulate or put down. INIuch depends on the ])crsoiial character of the professors themselves. And it is pleasing to contemplate many in Ger- many who are models of that paternal kindness, which is calculated at once to encourage the student, and to preserve him from evil. The literary and religious press of Germany is nearly as omnipotent as the political press of Eng- land; but it is not the instrument by which Ger- many is to be regenerated in a manner acceptable to God. If the idols that have a name must be broken down, the nameless must be so also. God will recognize no impersonal saviour. The press is not the proper engine, even were that which issued from it true. We are saved by faith : and if we believe, it is the word of a faithful man we believe ; but the word of an impersonal book ad- dresses the intellect, and is not accepted by any act of faith in the spirit of mi\u. *' Das Wort- 80 MORAL PllExNOMENA OF GERxMANY : crstirbt sclion auf dem Feder," says even Goethe. They whom Jesus, the faithful witness, gives to his Church, are they whose word of faith shall kindle faith ; shall deliver men from barren and uncertain notions ; shall work in them the certain knowledge and active performance of His will ; and shall dispense His truth, not in the indiscri- minate, and profane, and irresponsible manner of the press, but in those words, and in that degree, and with that sense of responsibility, which suit the sacredness of the subject, the measure of spi- ritual capacity in those addressed, and the nature of the object to be gained. One is glad, however, to feel that the views above expressed, on the subject of German science, apply rather to the state out of which it is emerg- ing, than to that in which it promises to abide. Tiie very aggravation of its evils in some quarters is a token for good, as indicating that elements of good and evil, hitherto doimant in unseemly juxtaposition and mixture, will not coalesce, but must separate as they become active, and have begun to gather, each to its own. In science, as in theology and j)olitics, the present efforts of men to effect synchretic unions, and to bind in confederacy persons and things unhomogeneous, are meeting with constant defeat at the hand of 'I THE LEARNED. 81 One who is higher than men. For the mystery of godliness and the mystery of iniquity must both be brought out distinct. Men must side with one or other ; and they must learn how far they differ, before they can truly agree. There is certainly arising, among the learned of Germany, a class of orthodox, able-minded, true-hearted, wholesome, practical men— at once emancipated from the clumsy pedantry of a past age, and preserved from the unprincipled smartness of the present — purged from the heresies, the literary pride, and the lukewarmness of rationalism, yet preserved from the morbid, ill-furnished, un- catholic zeal of pietism — able to influence the times without being infected by their spirit — aware of the true field on which, and, in part at least, of the weapons with which the battle must be fought — destined to restore the broken con- nection between science and religion — and yet to vindicate for the truth its vestal simplicity, and for God's ordinances in Church and State their divine standing and authority. With these men are bound up the true hopes of their country. These form " Young Germany," properly so called. n 'J. THE OHURCIf. *' Dclicta majonim imraeritus lues, Romano, donee terapla refeceris." '* Merses profundo ; pulchrior cvenit."— Horace. The two leading causes of declension in the Church have always been her failure to look for Christ's return, and her intolerance of the Holy Ghost as her Comforter in His absence. The one reconciled her to an earthly home ; the other betrayed her love of earthly things. Frederick the Great has well said — ''Der sich still hiilt, der wird selten verfolgt." Under persecution, the children of God, instead of crying for His kingdom, cried for respite and ease without it. And as soon as they slackened in hastening that kingdom, and began to cleave to and enjoy the earth like others, their persecu- tions ceased, because they no longer disturbed the kingdom of Satan. Whosoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Tiie Church, when glad to be accepted of the world, > THE CHURCH. 83 has in so far become the enemy of God. At best she has ante-dated the kingdom of God ; for until that kingdom come her calling is to be hated of all men. When she was recogn'zed by the State, instead of leading all men to seek a home absent and future, she adopted theirs. She learned the ways of tlie heathen, instead of teaching them those of Christ. Having become impure, the children of God instinctively shrank from Him who is a consuming fire. They could not bear naked exposure to the true light — unsheltered contact with the Holy Spirit of Christ ; and they were fain to seek a shadow under which they might comfort themselves, and escape the torments of God's presence, without daring to disown Him. At one time they took refuge in the favour of an emperor; at another, under those Jewish shadows of which they refused to be the living anti-type ; at another, in heathen customs, which they should have abolished ; at another, in multiplied or im- posing ceremonies, which banished while express- ing, the faith ; at another, under a diversity of oc- cupation, by which to purchase that love from which it should have sprung — at all times, under something, religious in its character, but not lead- ing up so high as God. Patronage from the great, popularity with the many, at one? buried the life 84 MORAL PIfEN0\lENA OF GERMANY: and hid the rale of Christ. It has been so ever since. So long as Christianity keeps the peace, and gives adequate pledges that it will civilize the "world, and not bring it to an end — that the dead shall not hear its voice and live — so long is it popu- lar, in any and every form, as a harndess salvo to the conscience, and a useful auxiliary in the govern- ment of mankind. Men praise it, adorn it, endow it, boast of it, serve it with many sacrifices; and all conspire to maintain the bland delusion — that the world is right religious. But let the Spirit of God and Christ manifest Himself — let Him operate to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment — to prepare the Church for the resurrection of them that sleep — for the change of them that wake — for the return of Christ into the world — for the judgment of quick and dead — the consuming of the world by lire — the making of all things new ; — and all as one man rise up against the thing as what cannot be borne. They despise, suspect, traduce, accuse, persecute, and vote it away : the prelate superci- liously frowns — the pietist sanctimoniously sighs — the theologian orthodoxly condemns — the philo- sopher convincingly redargues — the pious world- ling laments its injudic iousne — the impious Svorldllng its fanaticism — the man of the nine- k THE CHURCH. 85 teenth century its exploded folly. By fair means or foul, die it must. And it is well if they who confess it do not share its fate. But truly it were better if they did. For the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, has been long so weak in the Church, that men have not had strength to bear the hot brunt of con- fessing that Christ is the fountain, and the Holy Ghost the essence, of life — that Christ's apostles are the only rulers, and His perfection the only standard, of the Church. Satan, where he could not overcome by terror or slander, has always de- feated by craft, and destroyed by popularity, the cause which he could not put down by persecu- tion. Some royal, noble, rich, wise, creditable man — some approving majority of society, becomes the patron of the struggling cause, and lifts it into favour and failure at once. The witnesses for the truth find acceptance, but Christ is still rejected. His cause is once more lost, and the kingdom of God once more postponed. Men become good Churchmen, good Reformers, good Covenanters, good Tractarians, good Evangelicals, but not good Christians. Each builds his house on the earth, and covets the gifts of God to as- sert his own place and name. Christ's way is not prepared. His presence is that nuisance which I 86 iMORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: THE CHURCH. 87 all agree to abate. And the terrible occupation of tlie Church from the beginning has evcrbeen, to purchase external favour and internal peace, by excommunicating her Head. Yet it shall not be ever so. Every fresh stirring of the Holy Ghost to revive the dry bones, to marshal tlie Iiost, to build and purify the temple, is a fresh labour-pang. The birth of the man-child must come. IMessed are they who hasten it ! Such a labour-pang was the Reformation. The damning sins of the Papacy are her ante- dating of the kingdom to come, and her hypo- crisy. The former she committed in receiving honour, instead of reproach— in enlisting to the service of God a world not purged by fire — in anticipating the future glory, instead of wearing sackcloth— in returning to judaize, instead of pressing forward — in descending to rule the pre« sent, instead of aspiring to rule the future, world. It was as if, according to the words of Myconius, Clirist had, from His ascension onwards, resigned into the hands of men, instead of fulfilling by them, His personal rule of the Church. As the Virgin Mary stood related to Jesus, so stood with the Papist the Church to Christ. Nay, the very title " she " applied to the Church, and the mater- nal authority constantly given her, betrayed the proud anachronism. For her female personality in this age should express only her character as bride ; and in the kingdom to come, her fruitful- ness as a mother shall be seen. Of the latter sin, again, the whole history of the Papacy is the proof — that Proteus character and acting, w^iich demand the immolation of manhood, honesty, and natural affection on the altar of God ; that inflexible principle of ambition and tyranny, com- bined with the constant disavowal of her own actings ; that circumcising in order to slay, and lying to win or retain. She has sanctioned, nay commanded, the death of her children, for resist- ing doctrines which, as mere opiniones pit, she will not adopt. While her boasted infallibility is never hazarded in the person or perilled on the acts of any one of her clergy, she never allows their errors and sins to be charged upon her. And yet in thus permitting, or being unable to prevent, the most various heresies and most flagrant immoralities within her pale—yea, in her dignitaries, she confesses that, if her power to de- termine the truth be almighty, she has no power to enforce the doing of it, and is as fallible in discipline, as she is infallible in doctrine. Her standard of sin is its peril to the Church, not its ofteuce against the Loixl. 88 iMORAL PHENOMENA OF GEUMANY : THE CHURCH. 89 Antichrists there could not be till Jesus had been made both Lord and Christ. But as there were antichrists even in the primitive Church, so, ever since, the spirit of antichrist has wrought. And to those who know tlie justice and mercy of God, and have any conception how fearful an event to Christendom the rise of the last anti- christ shall be, it must be evident that he would never be permitted to practise his delusions and perpetrate his blasphemies in the Church, unless the Church had for centuries, in every possible form, herself permitted their beginnings. Of these beginnings the Papacy is full, though it may not be the theatre of their end. And therefore the Papacy was justly denounced by the Reformers as the antichrist of their day — a system which Ullman well calls ''den die Wirklichkeit ma- gisch verhlillende Schleier." In saying that *' every great error of mankind covers a deep truth, and indicates a deep necessity in the breast of man," iMohler has, even while regarding the Re- formation as such an error, justified its rise. To detail the practical evils under which the Church then groaned were here needless. Every pious Roman Catholic admits them. Fred. Schlcgcl, liimsclf a Roman Catholic, acknowledges the evil to the full in his " Philosophy of History ;" and, while condemning the Reformation, does full justice to the character and motives of the Reformers, and beautifully describes the blessing which would have resulted from a divine re- form wrought in the way of unity. The Council of Pisa professed to meet " ob generalis reforma- tionis ecclesia} dei tarn in capite quam in membris evidentissimam neccssitatem ;" and determined « quod ipsa sancta synodus non dissolvatur nee dissolvi possit, quousque universalis ecclesia in fide et moribus tam in capite quam in membris sit reformata." They went so far as to call on the emperor Maximilian for aid. The Diet of the Empire, held under that Emperor, recovered the long-lost distinction between the Catholic Church and the Papal system, and prepared the way for the practical separation which followed. He that will rule must obey. He that bids men liearken to him and follow him must himself hear and follow Christ— must have his ear open to fresh instruction— and must not dream that he completes the sum. If he act otherwise, he be- comes a hypocrite, a tyrant, or both ; unright- eous if he be a usurper; profane if he pros- titute his true place. Such had the clergy of Christendom become. As the doctrinal and practical errors of the Papacy were its mere ac- 90 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: cldents; and its essence lay in this, that the Church had fallen from heaven to earth — so were the doc- trinal and practical controversies of the Refor- mation its mere accidents ; and its essence lay in the striving of the Spirit to lift the Church from earth to heaven again. With all the professed severity of her discipline, the Roman Catholic Church has signally acted the part of the unjust steward, in changing the bills of his lord's debtors^ For while she has multiplied men's obligations to the Church, she has diminished their obligations to the Lord — has hid from their eyes the inflexible standard of perfect holiness— and has virtually severed herself from Clirist, by making it possible for a man to be zealous for her while indifferent, nay hostile, to Him — at peace with her while at war with Him — blameless, yea sainted, in her books, while condemned in His. Having grieved away the Spirit of Christ, she has become the greatest stronghold of wickedness on earth. For, as there is nothing so holy as the Church while she holds the Head, so there is nothing so unholy when she lets Him go, and nothing so polluting to the whole course of nature when she usurps His place. Had the Reformers been commissioned of God to cleanse and rebuild his temple, and invested with apostolic power to govern the whole i I THE CHURCH. 91 Christian Church— (an element of true Reforma- tion for which few enquire) — the three conditions of Reformation stated by Ullman — the pressure of abuses, the demand for their remedy, and the elements of recovery — were abundantly evident. The unparalleled rapidity with which the Refor- mation spread, so as to carry the testimony of Luther against indulgences in one month through- out all Christendom, is a proof that all Christen- dom waited as tinder for the spark, be it the venal Tetzel or the wilful Henry VHL And what- ever mockeries of reformation Satan may have wrought among the Albigenses before, or the Anabaptists after, the time of Luther — whatever schisms and heresies then found scope to work — > "whatever barrenness of doctrine, profanation of worship, and decay of discipline succeeded — doubt there can be none, that the Reformation was in its essence a work of God, and that its evils are directly chargeable on those who provoked God and man to so strange a work. By it were vin- dicated what the Romish cardinal denied — the exclusive mediatorship and merits of Christ — the necessity of faith in the recipient to every divine blessing — and the true place of holiness as the fruit of faith. By it a mirror was held up to the Papacy, in which she might have seen and 92 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY I loathed herself. Nay, by it preparation was made for an advance towards the kingdom of God» which the Papacy, had it reformed itself as a separate body, could never have made. No man can wash polluted water : the vessel must be emptied, and filled with that which is pure. It is a trite proverb, that truth does not always lie with the many. And it is no less true that it does not always lie with those conmiissioncd to keep and teach it. It sounds much in order, to talk of the duty of the Reformers to wait till the Pope and Council undertook ecclesiastical reform ; and per- haps they lacked patience. But the Pope and Council would not do it — they themselves were the great offenders. And when they who should will not bless the Church in the way of God, He Mill bless in spite of them, and set aside, in doing so, men and institutions which stand in his way. A temporary divulsion from things defiled and abused is sometimes the best way, both to get wholly quit of their pollution, and so to feel the want as to recover the blessing of their pure administration. It cannot be doubted that the Papist, who asserts the government of Christ's Church by priests, holds essentially a principle which the kingdom to come shall establish and realize ; and that the Protestant, who asserts the THE CHURCH. 93 ecclesiastical rule by kings or congregations, holds essentially a principle which the kingdom to come shall overthrow and condemn. Yet the Protes- tant who does recover what he has lost, is more fit to proceed unto perfection than the Papist who perverts the true doctrine to justify evil. While God chose Judah and not Ephraim, He yet pre- ferred Ephraim to Manasseh. Although He can- not work among the lawless, however prosperous their religion may seem, still His ways are more accepted among those who have forgotten them, than among those by whom they have been per- verted. And it is well worthy of remark, tiiat the hope and preparation for the "government of the Church Universal in the right way," as our Liturgy expresses it, by the grace of God in re- storing the apostolic oflftce, have been chiefly revived and seen among Protestants. In this sense, and not as regarding the ecclesiastical in- stitutions of Protestant Europe as the right ones, one can agree with Ullman, when he says of the Reformation, that it was " ein durch unvermeid- liches Zerstoren hindurchgehendes Bauen." But though the Reformation was a real good, one cannot regard it as being the good which God intended. Molitor has well said of it, "Die Reformation blicb ein Stiickwerk, indem man es 94 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : wederzum reinenZustand derErstcn nochziirVer- geisterung der gegenwiirtig bestehenden Kirchc brachte." And Ostcr speaks the same feeling in saying, <• Kirche, nach dem Sinne des Neuen Testaments, war die Liitherische Kirche nie ganz." The very fact that all Reformed Churches bear the names of Luther and Calvin, Sweden and England, Methodist and Independent — the names of men, places, and systems, instead of the name of Christ— the fact that the hope of Christ's return was not the pole-star, and the fulness of the Holy Ghost in all His gifts the strength, of the Re- formers—is conclusive against the claim of the Reformation to be esteemed a catholic and con- summating work. None but those stereotypes of truth, bigotted Anglicans, and the Alt-Luth'eraner, think so. The Reformation was indeed no in- vention of a new faith, as the Romanists falsely say. On the contrary, it vindicated and adopted the ancient faith contained in the three Creeds of the Church. But although it saved itself in doing so, it did not accomplish that which the time de- manded—namely, to deliver the then jjresetit faith and government of the Church from their abuses ; and, presenting them entire to the faithful, to carry on the Church to perfection. There is hardly one Romim Catholic error which is not THE CHURCH. 95 the perversion of a deep and precious truth, look- ing, and, what is worse, working, like a lie. Much of such perverted truth the Reformers did not redeem, but reject. And instead of going on to perfection, they have ever since boasted in that on which they have retreated. Had they done otherwise, they would have built, on the founda- tion of the primitive faith, a living superstructure more worthy of it and suited to the time than the dead Augsburg Confession. Yet the true reason of their failure is not so much any sin in them, as that, although raised up as witnesses against evil, they had no commission to build and set in order the Church, and could not therefore attain to a higher work, connected as it must be with the divine revival of the apostolic office, by which the acts of the Church, during the ab- sence of apostles, shall be revised, and Christ shall separate between the precious and the vile. As it is, the pious Roman Catholic, whose mingled feelings of grief and abhorrence at the wicked administration of the things he counts divine in his own Church, and at the profanation of all he liolds sacred by Protestant heretics, are too little entered into, and whose spirit cleaves to the truth, however defaced — such a man cannot possibly fmd, either in the barren propositions or in the 96 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: meagre institutions of the Protestant Churches, any trace of many things which his conscience requires, which holy Scripture sanctions, and the constant custom of the Church recommends. Like all who bid adieu to accustomed routes, the Protestants lost themselves in the mists of uncer- tainty ; and, deprived of proper compass, thought it safest wholly to reject that which they felt to be adulterated, and wherein they could not wisely discern. Their just abhorrence of the thinjrs from which they had escaped laid them open to the opposite dangers. And had it not been that God caused a holy fear to come over the bold heart of Luther, whereby, at the expense of many inconsistencies, he stopped short of those evil consequences, to which consistency in error would have led him and did lead many, there is no say- ing into what extravagances Protestantism might have run. This were not the place to consider in detail either the corruptions of the Greek and Uomaii Catholic, or the defects of the Protestant system. But it may be well to allude to one or two of the things in which the Protestant Churches, and especially the (icrman, have chiefly suffered loss. In tiic first place, as it was the prostration of man's faculties and will that constituted the i { THE CHURCH. 97 L I I f I evil, so it was by the right exercise of man's rea- son and will that the deliverance was to be ob- tained. But the liberty to be truly vindicated was the liberty to follow God, not to guide our- selves — to address the reason to understand, not to lift it above the truth — to use the conscience in responding to the law of God, not to worship and obey it instead of God — to profit intelligently by the traditions and judgement of the Holy Ghost in the Church, not to trust each his own heart in contempt of them : in short, to accept in the freedom of a Son the guidance of Christ, exercised, as it always should be, through the or- I dinances, and with the assent, of His Church. But when those ordinances themselves were cor- rupt, and true communion was dissolved, the rea- son of man, spoiled by its own success, found too good a plea for refusing control. The right of private judgement became the watchword of a party. That judgement itself took the throne. Conscience, in each so long violated, now became that, before the dictates and for the inteo-ritv of which each individual sacrificed, without scruple or misgiving, the conscience of the Church and the unity of the body. Man was encouraged by the very goodness of his cause in that natural pride which summons all things to its bar, and works 98 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : THE CHURCH. 99 alike in the scowling discontent of the Radical and the intolerant sanctity of the Schismatic. With the destruction of superstition kept pace that building of lawlessness, of which the press seems a necessary condition, but to which the military habits of discipline in Germany influenc- ing its religion have formed a wholesome check. And in this aspect it is not too much to say, that the Reformation, if it was the grave of one anti- christ, was also the cradle of another. They wlio are guided ma^j be led astray ; but they who guide themselves must err. In the next place, the subjection of the Church to the State almost unavoidably flowed out of the protection afl'orded by the latter. For al- though Luther, in turning for aid to the German princes, boldly told them, " Das predigt Amt ist Kein Hofdiener oder Bauer Knecht. Es ist Gottes Diener. Und sein Befehl gehet liber Herrn und Knechte"— yet the Church had not that mea- sure of faith which could lift her above worldly relations. Apostles were, and always should be, the proper governors of the Catholic Church. Till they are restored, she must, unless a mere democracy, be governed by episcopal councils, popes, or civil rulers. When apostles— the true witnesses for Christ's ascension and return, the fosterers of His Spirit, the bearers of His ex- ample, the preservers of one faith and practice — died away, the angels or bishops of the Churches did their best to ascertain in council the apostolic tradition. But seeking to legislate, when they should have been mere councillors to Christ's legislators, they only quarrelled ; and jealous of the Emperor's interference, they were glad to retain an ecclesiastical arbiter in the Pope. In this light his usurpation was a real benefit. His exorbitant patriarchate became a refuge for ec- clesiastical consciousness. But when he and his priesthood became the just objects of offence, the Church had no alternative in her division but to submit to the civil power in each land, and to content herself with a national, having lost her Catholic, existence. The deeper interest the civil ruler took in her prosperity, the more was he tempted to exercise that care which her digni- taries had renounced. Legal fictions helped him, without intending evil, to lay his earthly hand on the heavenly tabernacle. And whether on the theory of episcopacy lapsed to him, or on that stranger one of the magistrate as a third estate in the Church between priest and people, or on the ground of his supremacy over every institution formed iu his kingdom, the Protcstuut ruler be- 100 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: came the head of the Church in liis dominions as really, and with even less right, than the Pope ; the guide of all Jier affairs, the appointor of all her clergy. However individuals might continue to draw from Christ as the fountain of life through His nn'nistries, yet the Church, as a body, knew no other fountain than the grace of the civil ruler, from whom, however devout, only an earthly life could come to her. Ever since, she has, throughout Germany, quietly taken her place with education and medicine, as one of three institutions, for the good of spirit, soul, and body, among thedepartmentsof civil government. Royal escutcheons and full-length portraits of heroes and statesmen arrest the eye where more sacred em- blems and images would once have found a place. And pulpit performances on holidays new in the calendar take rank with theatrical entertainments and military reviews, as parts of royal or civic pageantry. The Church of each nation can look no higher than the head, and Iiave no unity wider than the limits, of the nation. And where the king employs ecclesiastics instead of laymen to carry out ///s ecclesiastical rule, the evil, instead of being lessened, is only aggravated, by their misemployment. If the Church is ever to be revived, it is by the Holy Ghost, whom no king THE CHURCH. 101 can dispense^ and who will cause her to dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the institutions or divided by the national frontiers of the world that is. It is a comfort to think that this feeling now works deep in the breasts of German clergy, whose loyalty to the powers that be in all things civil is unquestioned. Yet the question may well be asked, whether the faith now professed and the faithfulness now apparent, would survive the with- drawal of stipend and countenance by the State. Thirdly, Ullman has well stated the difference between the Papal and Protestant definitions of the Church under the two following propositions : —the Papal, " Where the Church is, there are Christ and the grace of God ;" — the Protestant, " Where Christ and the grace of God are, there is the Church. Between these there is no real contradiction. They are the two sides of one truth. For as certainly as the ordinances of the Church are the appointed channels for the grace of God and the presence of Christ, so are the presence of Christ and the grace of God that without which the ordinances of the Church are M'orsc than useless. And if it be asked how it comes that two correlatives so essentially united have been divided, it may be asked in reply, how the body of Christ, the Christian Church, essen- l02 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY tially one, has been rent by schism into many- parts, which, thougli capable of forming one, now stand mutually opposed? As the members of one body, if divided, are enemies, so the jmrts of one truth, taken singly, contradict each other. That for which the Protestant contends regards the jewel itself—the other only the setting. But because that setting — not indeed in its blemishes and distortion, but in its essence and oriirin — is as divine as the jewel, they who will have the jewel out of the setting cannot keep it. This is abundantly verified by the fact. For how supe- rior soever the Protestant may be to the Papist in intellectual psychology, his spirit, mystically pur- suing after a communion with God independent of His appointments, has well nigh lo^t all appre- hension of Him in the ordinances of the Church, and is hardly conscious to any privileges superior to those of a devout heathen. Baptismal regene- ration, that transplanting from the old Adam into the new, on the additional basis of which the Church shall be judged, as they and all men shall be on the basis of the Gospel — the Eueharistic oblation of, and nourishment with, the body and blood of Christ—sucli things as these have ])e- come devoutly abhorred by the spiritual. The mightiest realitictf of God fluctuate between ex- THE CHURCH. 103 istence and non-existence with the personal cha- racters of men, and with the varying condition of each. The Protestant Church, like a conge- ries of independent atoms, has not the capacity of a whole and entire vessel, to be filled with the manifold treasures of God. And each fragment holds less than its proportion of the whole. Bap- tized Protestants have fallen, in spite of their ever learning, to a lower condition than that of the ancient catechumen. Boasting of simplicity, they perish through poverty. And they well deserve the epithet of him who said, " Ccetus quaerentium non habentium veritatem schola est non eeclcsia." Fourthly, the German Protestants have almost entirely lost the faith of Christian priesthood. This was a natural result of their just indignation at the arrogance and crimes of the Romish hierar- chy ; and was, in part, justified by the recovery of the long-forgotten truth, that every Christian is, in one sense, a royal priest. But as Melanc- thon and his party would have retained even the Pope, and most of the reformers the bishops, if they would have really reformed the Church, so Luther would not have rejected the distinction between priest and layman, if the former had not virtually banished the latter, as profane, from full 104 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERxMANYC participation in the Christian mysteries. But the result has been, that now, under the cover of one theory or another, whether ^that of mere convenient and orderly arrangement, or that of spontaneous and self-adjusting spiritual devc- lopement, or that of mere civil appointment— the German Protestants hardly anywhere recog- nize an order of men who, besides their common position as Christians, have their peculiar office as Christian priests — the reality, without which the Jewish shadow would have no substance — men called, separated, and sent of Christ, to carry out on earth His single Melchizedec high priest- hood in heaven, and, through diverse ministries, to govern and bless His Church, and conduct its wor- ship—men who, though sustained by the commu- nion of saints, are functions of the Lord, not of the Church, and are endowed by Him witli the gift of the; Holy Ghost through tlie laying on of hands, to fulfil a ministry which no volunteer — no creature of civil appointment—no puppet of popular election, can. Whether, as in Sweden, the episcopacy still remains as the reward of unsanctified talent and the door to servility; or whether, as in Germany, its place is supplied by the office of superintendent under a government board ; or whether, as among the Calvinists, it THE CHURCH. 105 has altogether disappeared — priesthood has been rejected by all parties alike. Yet it might puzzle them not a little to unite in defining what they unanimously disown. And the Ultra-Calvinists, who, while retaining a faith in divine agency, de- tach it from every ordinance, as if Christ were not come in flesh, are consistent as compared with the Lutherans, who, while justly binding up divine agency with sacramental acts, and maintaining that none without "due call" may perform these, do not require that due call to be divine, and exhibit the anomaly of a divinely-appointed act without a divinely-appointed agent. The Church of England alone, of all Protestant Churches, has been honoured to retain the doctrine and name of priesthood. And for this cause she is regarded by continental Romanists as the only link by which Romanists and Protestants can ever be re- united. This honour she mainly owes to the fact, that hers was no proper ecclesiastical, but rather a civil, reform. Yet, did not the practical inde- pendence of the bishops neutralize her theoretical subjection, she would not preserve priesthood long. Indeed, it is impossible for priesthood in its essence to survive where civil government practically controls it. The question of apostolic succession is distinct from that of pricfrlhooil or K 2 106 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : episcopacy. Although men may well question whether episcopal succession be properly apos- tolic — and whether episcopal, even if by a fiction held apostolic, be the sole form of succession, yet those who have real faith in the ascen- sion of Christ, and in the gifts which He gave to prepare His Church for His return, cannot doubt that succession of some kind is essen- tially bound up with priesthood ; in other words, that the continuance of the holy ministry through- out the successive generations of the Christian Church is as truly an act of Christ as its gift at tlic first — else it would cease to be His ministry. Yet on the manner and measure of that succession there may be much diversity of opinion among those who concur in recognizing priesthood. The question, indeed, whether this or that be a true Christian priesthood, does not affect the great doc- trine of priesthood itself. But truly as that is pro- perly an episcopal churcli which has bishops, that is apostolic which has apostles. And in spite of the pretensions of episcopal ordination to apostolic succession — that is, the true succession or continuance of Christ's priestly office in the earth by continued ordination through Ucivr/ apostles— yet, witiiout this hitter, the successive appointment of tlie Christian priesthood must, in THE CHURCH. 107 however disguised a way, arise from beneath, and the greater be blessed by the less, instead of the less by the greater. When we look at the secta- rian preacher appointed by election — or the Pope of Rome elected by his inferiors, and ordained by none — or the English bishop ordained by his equal — or the Scottish presbyter ordained by a corporate body — there is no blessing of the Holy Ghost properly descending : none at the present moment seen to flow either from Christ in person or from any directly and personally entrusted by Him with the ministry of the Holy Ghost to all the Church. Fifthly, with the doctrine of priesthood the spirit of worship unavoidably decayed. It is not indeed to be wondered at, that the errors and exaggerations of the Romish mass, themselves dating so low as the eleventh or twelfth century, (in which the Eucharist has been so perverted, and in which that heavenly mystery of the real presence, which faith alone can compass or ex- press, has been profanely expounded through the misunderstood technicology of heathen Aristo- tle, in a manner level to the natural man), should have driven the Reformers into an opposite ex- treme. But it is not a little instructive to see the same attempt, to make the spiritual intelligible to the natural and fix the faitU in a frost of 106 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GEBMANY : episcopacy. Although men may well question whether episcopal succession be properly apos- tolic — and whether episcopal, even if by a fiction held apostolic, be the sole form of succession, yet those who have real faith in the ascen- sion of Christ, and in the gifts which He gave to prepare His Church for His return, cannot doubt that succession of some kind is essen- tially bound up with priesthood ; in other words, that the continuance of the holy ministry through- out the successive generations of the Christian Church is as truly an act of Christ as its gift at the first— else it would cease to be His ministry. Yet on the manner and measure of that succession there may be much diversity of opinion among those who concur in recognizing priesthood. The question, indeed, whether this or that be a true Christian priesthood, does not affect the great doc- trine of priesthood itself. But truly as that is pro- perly an episcopal church which has bisiiops, that is apostolic which has apostles. And in Fpite of the pretensions of episcopal ordination to apostolic succession — tliat is, the true succession or continuance of Christ's priestly office in the earth by continued ordination through living apostles — yet, without tliis latter, the successive appointment of the Christian priesthood must, in THE CHURCH. 107 however disguised a way, arise from beneath, and the greater be blessed by the less, instead of the less by the greater. When we look at the secta- rian preacher appointed by election — or the Pope of Rome elected by his inferiors, and ordained by none — or the English bishop ordained by his equal — or the Scottish presbyter ordained by a corporate body — there is no blessing of the Holy Ghost properly descending : none at the present moment seen to flow either from Christ in person or from any directly and personally entrusted by Him with the ministry of the Holy Ghost to all the Church. Fifthly, with the doctrine of priesthood the spirit of worship unavoidably decayed. It is not indeed to be wondered at, that the errors and exaggerations of the Romish mass, themselves dating so low as the eleventh or twelfth century, (in which the Eucharist has been so perverted, and in which that heavenly mystery of the real presence, which faith alone can compass or ex- press, has been profanely expounded through the misunderstood technicology of heathen Aristo- tle, in a manner level to the natural man), should have driven the Reformers into an opposite ex- treme. But it is not a little instructive to see the same attempt, to make the spiritual intelligible to the natural and fix the faith in a frost of 108 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: logic, repeated among them : by the Lutheran, in the theory of corporeal ubiquity : by the Calvinist, in that of scenic transaction; by the Anglican, in that of faith-created reality: and, in all alike, to the overlooking of that almighty co-operation of tiie Holy Ghost with the word and act of Christ's minister, in operating that which, when wrought, abides a mystery still. And it can- not be denied, that even where Protestants most honour the holy Eucharist and encompass it with "worship, it is too little viewed as being itself the centre and crown of all, as that continual comme- morative sacrifice, the communion of which the saints who offer it are admitted to enjoy. Thus robbed of its keystone, tlie fabric of holy worship became more or less ruinous and confused. The word of God, that term of most fluctuating im- port, meaning — now the incarnate Son — now the canon of Scripture — now the ordinance of preach- ing — rang in the ears of Christendom, so long iniquitously debarred from the privileges of the saints. Men ran riot in their newly-accpaired liberty to search the Scriptures and proclaim their treasures; they worshipped tlicir weapon; they burnt incense to tlieir drag. Those Scrip- tures, by which Christ's ministers should judge, were themselves erected into a judge impersonaK THE CHURCH. 109 to judge as their quoter pleased ; and that word of the Gospel which declared Christ as the foun- dation virtually took His place. The statute-book supplanted the judge ; the Church was rested on a word, not on a person. And instead of learning to offer intelligent, in the room of ignorant, worship, the German Protestant, even where liturgic forms remain, and in spite of the richest hymnology in Europe, has too much neglected worship itself. The pulpit, not the altar, has become the focus of the Church ; the sermon the reason for the ser- vice. Exercises alike excellent, but incongru- ous, have been molten together. Worship without preaching is barely connived at — nay, has on more than one occasion been denounced as Popery, even when the object of the separation was merely the comfort of the hearers at an inclemly to do in the spiritual region a work similar to that of the Ilegelite philosophy in the intellectual. How far liomceo- pathy may be connected with it, we need not here enquire. Comparing it medically with allo- pathy, one can only wonder how certainly men will both die and recover under the most op- posite treatments. But op.e lias an instip.ctive scruple at the attainnuMit of ends by means professedly natural, yet apparently quite inade- quate, lest something else should lurk under them. The father of the science plainly hints, 132 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : tlioiu'-li lie will not assert, its connexion v. itli mcs- morism ; and many who practise it combine the two. But of mosiiierlsm itself there can be far less doubt. Its best advocates allow it to be a weapon most dangerous, if not wisely handled; and the intelligent Christian can hardly doubt that the weapon itself is wholly unlawful. Brltiun is the great manufacturing land. It works up the rav/ niaterial furnished by the rest of the world. lis inhabitants, with all their in- diviiluid connnon sense, are proverbial for being gulled wholesale. And v.hilo mesmerism has, in German}'— the place of its birth or infancy — been confined for a long period to men of science or to mystics, it has within a year or two acquired among us a vast practical ascendancy. The ex- hibitions of London practitioners, and tlie mes- merizing tei'-parties of Glasgow v.eavers, may well iiil us with alarm. Fancy and fraud may indeed have their share in the matter. With or without bodily disease, some may have su;:cepti- biliti'.^s and pr.dis])o>itions peculiar in kind or degree. But to pcr-ist in complacently sin'uggiiig the shoulder at the credulity of men, as if all were a trick, is like fidJling while Home is burning. An;I lo seek afttr such exhibitions from curiosity is most dangerous trifilug, Tlic tonguo of him THE CHURCH. 133 wdio makes sport of them will bo the snare of his soul : and he is foolhardy indeed who, even for the sake of truth, does evil that good may come, and takes part unbidden in things which none but one assured by tlio commission and armed with tlie panoply of Christ should dare to approach. Man, made in God's image, is dif.tinguished by a will founded on reason, and has a proper per- sonality, which, embracing in it his body, shuts it up, and cuts it off from the universe of which it forms a part. A man should not be at the mercy of impulses : he should not move passively in the diagonal of menial or bodily forces ; but, hav- ing a will obedient to God, and a spirit in com- munion with Ilim, he should have dominion over all his members, keeping his whole being in dwc allegiance, and ready for Go I's serviee. T.he re- demption and sanctification of man neither im- pair his will nor abolish his personality, but bring out his true dignity. Nay, when tlie Holy Ghost supernaturolly uses any member of Christ in the exercise of scriptural gifts. He does so, not as a resistless pov/cr, but as a gracious trust, to be used in obedience to Christ— as it is written, " the spi- rits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." A Man guides the Church— a Man shall judge the world : and, if we are to reign witli Ilim, wc 134 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: must, as men, rule ourselves now. That is a false elevation of man wliich affects liis personal acting and responsibility. And he who, through present yielding of spirit or former compromise, tacit or explicit, becomes the mere echo of ano- ther's will and counterpart of another's acting, has opened the citadel of manhood. He makes himself a mere thoroughfare for influences of any kind, seen or unseen, human orsatanic, from any quarter, and wearing every plausible guise of scienccj phi- lanthropy, amusement, or religion. As regards one benefit proposed by the advocates of mesmer- ism — namely, its use in religious discipline — we may draw a lesson of wisdom from the answer of the Pope to the enquiry — whether the disclosures of penitents might bo obtained through animal mag- netism ? — viz., 'f tliat the application of principles, and means purely physical, to things and effects which are supernatural, for thepur])ose of explain- ing them j)liysical!y, is an unlawful and heretical deception." This proceeds upon tlie hypothesis of magnetizcrs themselves, and that universally cur- rent in Germany, that magnetic phenomena are but a developement (favoured by circumstances) of powers no more than human, and are thus the legitimate objects of psychology. With what justice they are so esteemed time will show. It is THE CHURCH. 135 no ordinanceof God that any two men should be to each other as imgnot and steel. " Tliis opera- tion of one human being upon another," says Stilling, " would occasion dreadi'ul confusion in the present state of existence The continual increase of knowledge in every department;, joined with an increasing ftilling away from Christ and His holy religion, will continually occasion the present barriers to be burst, and the Holy of Holies to be plundered." But He well reminds us, that since Jesus Christ has sat down at His Father's right hand, Satan has no longer power over man. The state of the departed is a subject on which, if the Roman Catholics, and even the Greeks, say too much, Protestants have known too little. The schisms wliich have rent the communion of the Church militant on earth do not exceed that which has severed the living from the departed. The Church is one in all ages, as well as in all places. But men have almost excommunicated the departed, by regarding their condition as one impassible, superior to that of the living, inde- pendent of our prayers, and dissevered from our hope. Although they are not perfect while their being is divided and laid low by the curse, and although we cannot see God's kingdom until they first be raised with undivided and unhumbled iSi) MORAL PHENOMENA QF GERMANY: boing, yet Protestants Iiavc released themselves from tliG obligation, recognized by tlic Church from the beginning, to pray for their peace, and to impc- trate their resurrection. This neglect is no mar- vel : for to pray for the resurrection of the dead, ^vithout any faith that it will h?, granted to our prayers, ii a hypocrisy wlilch the fViitlifnl will not commit : and to pray for it, in real faith that wc shall obtain v/liat wo ask, is too great a draft on the almost expiring faith of the Church in the living God, avIio quickcneth the dead. Indeed, if the living have so ceased to look for the Son of God from heaven, that they do not expect to be changed ; they should as little expect and ask the resurrection of the dead. And the Church of England, in praying for the Church militant on earth alone, and mutilating the text which she quotes as her warrant, has only expressed her conviction that the welfare of the saints who sleep, and their deliverance from the last enemy, arc no business of hers, but depend on a power, and await a decree, with which prayer has nothing to do. Of this, Iiowever, we may be certain, that as no ecclesiastical revival is Catholic which does not point to the return of the Lord; so no Ca- tholicity is genuine whicli dors not embrace the departed with the living saints. Whether the THE CHURCH* 137 doctrines and practices now so prevalent in the south of Germany be thus Scriptural and Ca- tholic is a different question. Did we forget that man is at bottom the same, in all circum- stances, it would surprise us not a little to find in Germany, unrecognized by the Church, a Protes- tant purgatory surpassing the Romish, more in- tellectual indeed, but as artificially elaborate. Ac- cording to this system, the spirits of the imper- fect do, after death, cleave to the things which were their hindrances on earth ; and yet, freed from the veil of corporeal existence, do, in a sensi- ble form, contritely implore the prayers and seek the counsel of the living, until, being gradually relieved of their burdens, and clarified, they be- come invisible in happier firmamental spheres. One thing is striking about it, that the spirits of great but ungodly men are represented as small and undeveloped, and exhibit an appear- ance very different from the estimate of the world. This were not the place to weigh the amount of truth or error involved in these things. But it is good to remember, that no separate spirit has the powers of an entire man ; and one may well suspend one's judgment in the matter, till it be known, whether the phenomena in question are the spirits of the departed at all, and not mere 138 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY J illusions of Satan. Not a few fathers of the Church, down to Luther himself, have warned us of such transformations, and bidden us not be- lieve any devil who came professing to be the soul of this or that dead person. The territory- is a dark one, and they who have entered it have done so without safeguard, or compass, or Catho- lic end. Their personal piety and uprightness, of which in most cases there can be no question, cannot preserve them. One cannot help dreading, lest those thus curiously daring be lost in a mist of error, and follow an {(jnis fatuus for the light of Christ: and the late fearful disclosures in Paris and elsewhere, concerning the professed success of mesmerism, in revealing the condition of the departed, and establishing intercourse with them, tend not a little to confirm such a fear. Its medical use will be the door of much evil. In the preceding remarks on the Church in Germany, our attention has been chiefly directed to the Protestant part of it, as that which pre- dominates, in spite of the circumstance that in some places the court, and in others the numerical majority, are Roman Catholics. But it may be well to conclude this chapter with a word or two THE CHURCH. 139 on the position of the Roman Catholic Church in that country. Considering the high mental culti- vation of the Germans, and their aversion to sub- jection, fixed obligation, and stern self-denial, in religion, one cannot explain the amount of influ- ence yet retained over them by the Papacy, except by seeing that the good of it meets desires in man which national training cannot obliterate, and that its evils comfort the flesh in all its forms. While, on the one hand, the Papal system, in spite of the conflicts which its aggressions have occasioned, stands, independent of its false aggressive prin- ciples, a practical monument to the possibility of embracing the subjects of many temporal govern- ments under one spiritual rule, extrinsic to all ; yet, on the other the civil precautions, which at- tend the application of the Romish discipline in each German State greatly abridge its practical influence. And while Rome has, for her own sake, been guilty of many compromises at variance with her principles, and wholly distinct from that ten- derness which should accompany pure zeal for the Lord, she has, at the same time, taken care, in Germany, as on all her frontiers, to plant men distinguished for education, wisdom, and moral propriety ; and thus neither to off'end the taste nor to compel the conscience by things M'hich, al- 140 MOIIAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY. though no articles of her faith, she unrelentingly imposes on the simple inhabitants of her interior. The day is gone by when she stood as a bulwark against revolution and infidel science. A true Proteus, she has changed her tactics. She now plays her last and desperate game, in wedding superstition to lawlessness ; and although the stand which has been lately made for the proper control of the Church over the doctrines pro- mulgated at the Universities is as praise\vorthy as unpopular, yet they who now hear the Ilegclite lectures, and read the O'Connell addresses of Ro- mish literati, would liardly believe that they ema- nated from the children of that Church which condemned Galileo, and denounced all rebellion acrainst the Lord's anointed. But, besides the politic relaxations of discipline on tlie part of the liomish Church towards those without, her own clergy plainly indicate a tendency to reject, as un- scriptural or intolerable, many of her observances. They chiefly insist on the use of the vernacular tongue; the abolition of celibacy; communion in both kinds; the reform of the confessional; and the abridgement of tiie Papal authority. Al- though some are actuated by an infidel impatience, others are truly seeking the well-being of the Church : and although Mohler, whose fair pic- ; THE CHURCH. 141 tures of his mother make one wish that they were true, and that he did not know their falseness, quieted matters for a time by his moral influence and apologetic adroitness, yet the principles at work will not long leave these objects unattained. Who knows but such a trifle as Rouge's protest against the worship of the coat at Treves may rouse Christendom against impolitic demands, and blow up the rotten fabric ? One false move may end the game. There are ready traitors and indignant patriots enough at Home. But God preserve us from our friends ; if they are the wor- shippers of " Jehovah, Jove, or Lord," and can club men of every faith and none together, in gifts and addresses to all destroyers of shams. The next sham will be Christ. Nowhere do Papists and Protestants, in spite of occasional heats and broad doctrinal dif- ferences, more nearly approximate in spirit than in Germany. In accordance with the general remark, that the nearer men agree the more bitterly they differ, England, which, b} its re- tention of priesthood, stands as the middle term between the two, has assumed tlie most deci- dedly hostile attitude to the Papacy. The statu- tory defence of the realm against foreign prelacy, and the whole genius of her symbols, till No. 93 n2 142 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY*. threw new, though not true, light upon them, evince this. And the circumstance that the En- glish Reformation was wrought by civil authority may well Iiave prevented the good things which it did retain from being retained so much on the ground of conviction as those retained by Luther were. The two parties move here in orbits wliolly diverse. On the other hand, in Germany, being tlirown more togetlier, they seem determined to be better friends. In many, of course, this arises from infidel indifFerence— in others, from obtuse discrimination ; but in not a few from a real ability to estimate, and willingntss to allow, the good that is in each. They can look on eacli other without horror. They have a more Catholic range of apprehension than characterizes many in the English and Scottish Churches, who seldom deign to look at others, save to draw comparisons flattering to themselves. Instead of always con- templating their differences, or expecting to effect union by one party swallowing up" the other, they begin rather to enquire where they agree-which is certainly the right preparation, yet not the substitute, for union by the hand of the Lord through divine institutions embracing both. While there are many Romish clergy ^vhose preaching of justification by faith is clearer, and THR CHURCH. 143 their reverence for the inspiration of Scripture greater, than that of their Protestant rivals, many Protestant clergy, although without courage or permission to act out their thoughts, have an in- creasing desire to learn aright from Rome. And if the eyes and hearts of western Christians were at the same time more turned to the Greek Church — which embraces a third or fourth part of Christen- dom, and exhibits, though in the midst of much deadnessand superstition, yet in a form untainted by later errors of Rome, a great body of primitive truth lost by Protestants, one might expect a great work of preparation for that unity which has been so long unknown as to be deemed an im- possible, if not unscriptural, dream. Still, mere unity without hope, would leave the Church where she was. She must learn to seek her future, not to establish her present, place — else she will pervert the blessings of God. Apostles, who should fortify and decorate the Church in the earth, instead of teaching her to wait for the Son of God from heaven, would be her greatest curse. And all hope of the Lord's return, in those mIio despise rule, rend the body, quench the Spirit, or resist holiness, is an utter delusion. CONCLUSION. " Quod adest, memento Componere oequus. " Horace. •' On such a full soa are we now afloat ; And wc must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. " Shakespeare. As the Church is the mainspring of society, the destinies of tlie latter are bound up with the con- dition of the former. Ciod tells us, bj'' Malachi, tliat He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the children to their fathers, lest He come and smite the earth with a curse ; — and there never was a time when all classes seemed more apprehensive of evil, and busied to avert it, than the present. All are dissatisfied with the existing state of things ; they cannot repose in it ; and, pressed to exchange it for another which shall present a firmer footing, they are at a loss whether to advance or to retreat. fSomo^ indeed^ CONCLUSION. 145 would combine the past and the future, according to the words of A. \V. Schlegel : — " Das lichte Neue kommt nur aus dem Alten. Vergangenheit muss unsere Zukunft griinden. Mich soil das dumpfcGegenwart niclit halten." But the great majority are resolved into two classes — those who retreat upon things past, and those who rush on to things future. Of these, the former has hitherto been rarer then the latter, because it is, properly, the child of fear. But now that things present minister to the fears of the godly, it becomes daily more numerous ; and, although first found among the cautious actors of England, will soon swell its numbers among the more fearless speculators of Germany. This retreat upon antiquity is seen alike in every sphere of life, ecclesiastical and civil, pub- lic and private, literary and operative. Every one who can, hunts up his pedigree. Mediteval tour- naments revive. Obsolete institutions and rusty orders, ancient architecture, ornament, and furni- ture, are restored. The antique in the fine arts is the rage. Old books are reprinted, standard works are dressed up in a thousand forms, a thousand changes are rung upon one subject, martyrs ob- tain monuments, heroes and statesmen statues, in an age incapable of such things itself. Religious 14G MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: antiquaries draw out from oblivion treasures, litur- gical, symbolical, doctrinal, and ministerial, on wliich to lavish those affections which the living stones and the human kind should have engrossed. And the timid, retreating, as in the days of Noah, before the rising waters, retire from post to post, from the field of Dissent to the outpost of Pres- bytery; from that to the fortress of Episcopacy ; and thence to the fancied citadel of Papacy, in the hope to hold out there. All men try to clothe themselves with what they can of this world ; they live not to act, but to commemorate; they busy themselves in converse with non-existent things ; they seek *' fuller grace and higher privileges," not in following on to know the Lord, whose goodness is prepared as the morning—not in lay- ing hold on eternal life, as the promise set before us— not in hearing what the Spirit saith, alike nigh to them as to tlieir fathers — but in going back as far as they can into things hallowed by distance. They worship the works of faith, in- stead of doing them ; they boast of the noble works wliich God did in their fatljers' days, and in the old time before them, not in the hope of wit- nessing the like, but as a substitute for them ; and while many would spend their whole energies and life in keeping or gaining ground for the thing THE CHURCH. 147 called the Church,there are few who will do the like to hasten the coming and kingdom of Christ. In one word, the business of such men is not to live, but to mimic life— to galvanize the dead. And whence is this ? The age is effete ; it has lost all elastic vigour and creative power ; it can origi- nate nothing good ; and, instead of progressing in the path entered upon by its predecessors, it re- gards them as having attained perfection. These things betray men's conviction that the world is soon to pass away, and their covetous desire to die with all it has around them. They betray a conviction that a great day of mustering is at hand, and the desire in man to bring up the best he can show in that day, instead of being ready to present himself. Above all, they betray the fear which impending darkness generates ; and the de- sire of man to retrace the steps which have brought him into deep waters, to return into his mother's womb that he may find regeneration thence, and, by transplanting himself many centuries back, to put them between him and danger. The fact is that the promise of Christ— "Lo ! I am with you' alvvay, even to the end of the world"— which is the constant strength of the spiritual man, is that from which the flesh of man continually seeks, by some plausible subterfuge, to escape. Anythin 'S 14S MOKAL niJCNOMEMA OF GKRMANV: but ministration from a present God. To boast of God's presence with our fathers — to admire the way in whicli He led them — to call ourselves Al)ra- ham's children — to display our spiritual ancestry and privileges — nay, to follow the footsteps of those who have followed God : all this consists with religious modesty, and demands no faith. But to follow God does. Those can delight to dwell where God has been who could not bear to dwell where He is ; those can hear God's truth who could not bear to hear God; those can be zealous for the Church, even as a divine institu- tion and as the theatre of God's acting, w ho are not zealous for Christ, without whom the Church has neither worth nor authority. Nay, those who move in a region higher than that of worldly par- tizanship may yet be puffed up for the Church, as "our excellent Church," against the Lord, and all whom the Lord may send to reprove or restore her. Among those who justly maintain the value of that divine commission which lies in apostolic succession, too many might reject the full mea- sure and direct form of the same, were God to exhibit it again in apostles themselves, the occu- pation of whose place by bishops has been rather a fact resulting from necessity, tlian an act based upon right ; succession, but not delegation. CONCLUSloy. 149 The morbid exaggeration of symbolism and a;iii(|nity prevalent among us originate in forget- fulricss of two things— that the Christian Church is the substance of all shadows— and that the Christian dispensation is progressing to an end. We are the heavenly reality. We cannot be both type and fulfihnent — shadow and sub- stance—at once. And that which we do in God's house cannot be a mere shadow of what we are. Everything was created to speak of God, and sliould speak of Him in His Church. It is right to honour God with all we can command. 15ut tlic nature of that which we have is merely accidental, and not essential. The svmbols of the Jewish tabernacle were appointed of God. The mere will of man can give to symbols selected by himself no value in the Christian Church. h\ the kingdom to come, all nature, purified by fire, and apt for its proper use, shall lie ready to the hand of the Church, then inheriting it, and in- structed to use it. Till then it is but partly apt, and we but partly instructed ; and though we possess all things, we have nothing. Yet the body of man is a part of the being who worships. Form>, whether in liturgy, bodily action, clothing, furniture, or architecture, are not mere helps, but proper constituents of devotion ; and the prac- 150 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: tices of the Church in worship and discipline not only possess a traditional value, but, like tiic words of the prophets, may sliow things to come. The history of the Ciiurch may present repeated ful- filments, each fuller than its predecessor. Her labour-throes may recur with increasing strength. But the great consecutive acts of God happen but once. The natural man, whatever the Chris- tian apostasy may do, shall never again attain the perfection in painting, sculpture, oratory, phi- losophy,and heroism, which immediately pi'eceded that time when the Son of God, appearing in flesh, blew upon its glory and beauty. There is no flood, but one: no call of a patriarch, no elec- tion of a nation, no dispensation of the law, no incarnation of the Son, no descent of the Holy Ghost, no body of Christ, no dispensation of grace, but one. And, in like manner, there is but one Creed, one Canon, one Greek and Koman schism, one Protestant separation, one Infidel apostasy, one Antichrist. As there is a classical era in all things — an era which stamps the philosophy, the taste, the science, of both past and future — so there is a classical era in divine trutli and rites> independent of the characters ol the men who live in it. Though the ew] of the Gentile dis- pensation and its beginning form parts of a unity, CONCLUSION. 151 the former shall be no repetition of the latter. The same instrumentality shall work. The fa- thers of the Church — apostles — shall be seen co- existent with, not supplanted by, bishops, their sons, l^nt the former works can be no more re- called than the former times — we can uncreate notliing. To square all things in England once more by Magna Charta would be, not conservation, but revolution. The power which brought us out of our mother's womb will not carry us into it ngain, or bring us forth again if we return to it. The mighty power which raised Jesus from the dead is present with us now. And the matter in hand now is, not the mere restoration of muti- lated ordinances to efliciencv, but the rescue of those ordinances from their mutilated state ! Yet we must not place any ecclesiastical machinery or progress between us and the return of Christ. On the other hand, those disposed to seek es- cape in advance, instead of retreat, seek a deve- lopement of Christianity suited to the times. As the re are both a true and a false adherence to the past, so are there both a true and a false developement. A false developement is at pre- sent more poj)ular, and must be more dangerous, th: n retreat. And, therefore, to prevent the chil- dren of God who seek a true developement from being either seduced after the fidse, or mistaken for i 152 MORAL PIIEKOMENA OF GERMANY: its advocates, it is most important to discriminate between the two. In the first place, the Church, having begun in the Spirit, cannot be perfected in the flesh. The Holy Ghost must be the agent — as much in a late as in an early age — in a civi- lized as in a rude one — in the midst of Christen- dom as amonfr the heathen. Secondly, the in- sLrumenlality must continue the same — it must be the operation of pcrsans. Whatever adven- titious aids may be employed, the words of faitli- ful men must do the work, for Christ is a man. Thirdly, tlie form of that instrumentality — the functions exercised by tliese faithful men — must continue the same. The ecclesiastical ordinances, originally given from heaven to the Church, can- not be mutilated, confounded, or supplanted ; for Christ, from whom the blessing comes, conveys it as He willeth, and not in the arbitrary ways of men. Lastly, the rule of action must remain the same. The holy Scriptures must be interpreted and applied, with the help of the vrhole Church, by men commissioned of Clirist to embrace and guide the whole, and to apply to existing circum- stances the unchangeable doctrine of Christ by the same grace which has wrought for a different end at each different period. Such are the con- ditions and the germ of true developement. lUit truth anticipated; truth perverted ; parasite lies CONCLUSION. 153 exhausting its lifc^; the growth of the mystery of iniquity, parallel to that of godliness ; the attempt to perfect the Church by learning, talent, wealth, patronage, or popularity, instead of the gifts of the Holy Ghost— by books, instead of men— by ecclesiastical functionaries of various kinds and orders, instead of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers ; the substitution of novel- ties for the common faith, of other canons for the inspired Scriptures, nay, of other Christs for the Christ of God; in fine, the attempt to give this world the religion it desires, instead of pr('[)ariijg iho way of the world to come — all are not true developement, but false. If every science, nay, every handicraft, has its traditions, which none violates without loss, how much more tlie mystery of the faith ? While each fresh sys- tem of i)hilosophy lias destroyed its predecessor, all phases of Ciiristianity have a common j^round. V\'hnt subverts the former tvvX\i is no develope- ment of trutli. But traditions of God did not close when the fathers died. They flow stifl. All Christendom f<'els that the truth, in its accustomed forms, has lost its hold upon the chil- dren, and its povvcr against the enemies, of God ; and that the condition of the world imperatively demands some living and catholic principle of rc- o 2 < 154 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: form. The wliole bent of man is after unity, false or true. His whole efforts, like inventions for portable meats, are after something which sliall condense, as into a nutshell, all that can be known or done. A living author has well said — " Die jetzige Theologie ist dem Zcitalter nicht gcwachsen. Sie fordert mit alien ihren Heil- vcrsuchen nur die schlimme Krankhcit, und fiilirt rascher dem Tode zu." And he sees in " kirch- liche und staatliche, academische und literarisclie Herkommliclikeit," weapons wholly unequal to cope with the Antichrist long harboured, and now about to be revealed, in Christendom. This fact 'lA ascribed, by various parties, to various causes. The enlightened Christian and Churchman ascribes it truly to the unfaithfulness of Christians in the use of the precious gifts committed to them ; to their unequal ways, perverting the equal ways of God; to their unfaithfulness, causing God to seem unfaithful ; to their unbelief, emptying every divine institution of blessing ; and to their per- sistance in evil courses, counteracting the answer to th€;ir own sincerest prayers. But the infidel sees in it the proof that Christianity is a mere mythus or pious hoax, which has had its day, like those of Egypt, Judea, India, Greece, and Rome; and he accordingly sets himself to enquire, what CONCLUSION. 155 new religious invention the governments of this world can call in to their aid, in order to fortify themselves by the superstition of their subjects. The Rationalist, while professedly acknowledging Christianity as the knowledge and service of the true God, really changes its essence, in seeking to remodel it. With one doctrine for the Alpha, he would have another for the Omega of the faith. He would substitute for the operation of the Holy Ghost, the wit, the learning, the power, the w^ealth of man ; and for the ordinances of Christ, the confederacies or institutions of man. He would draw from other sources than Ploly Writ, or use it as a mongrel document, in which, as the con- tainer of God's Word, but not God's own Word, lie may discriminate and choose for himself. And, destitute of faith in the guidance of the Holy Gliost, he would cast off the whole tradition and autliority of the Church — not, as the pietist, for a morbid conscience sake — but for the purpose of starting unfettered and unprejudiced with doctrinal systems and practical measures agreeable, at least tolerable, to the spirit of the age. " Homines per sacra immutari fas est, non sacra per ho- mines." *• Die in ihren wesentlichen Bestimmungen unwahre Form, den wahren Inhalt nicht in sich schliessen kann. Wenn die der Religion wesent- liche Form fiillt, auch der ihr eigentliche Inhalt 150 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: CONCLUSION. 157 nicht mehr stehen bkibt." It i.-^, moreover, wcW worthy of remark, tliat Roman Catholic policy here walks hand in hand with Protestant license. The Romanist no doubt maintains, as before, the authority of tradition ; but he does so, not for the purpose of preserving all unchanged, but in order to justify whatever change seems politic. The former advocate of infiilliblc continuance is now the advocate of as inf\dlible change. He pro- fesses to carry out the dcvclopcment wliieh the Holy Ghost, ever present, dictates in the Church. Although he sanctions by law, while the Pro- testant acts in lawlessness, yet his new principle of developement is the same which he supposes to have actuated the Reformers. And if it be once admitted that departure from existing principles may be a developement of truth, who shall decide whether the developement demanded by the time is to be found in tho Diet of Aug:>burg, or in tlie Council of Trent ? But even among those in Germany, who dare not t!ius openly play fast and loose with the truth, there are too manv incited to a hopeless work of Reformation by the false theo- logical principle— that the things that are can be gradually converted into the things which are to come, without being all made new, and that Ged will perfect His Church by adopting from man imperfect means. They expect the Holy Gliost to restore the full grace of God to the mutilated, perverted, confounded, ordinances which exist, instead of restoring those ordinances themselves to what they once were, and yet should be. And as the Church of England expects the full blessing through bishops without apostles; the Church of ^'cotland, through presbyters without bishops ; the Romanist, through usurped supremacy ; the (jreek, through independent patriarchs ; the world- ling, through the laws of the king; and the sec- tary, through personal separation from the unclean ; so they expect that professors, and philosophers, and the books of dogmatic theologians, shall be used of the Holy Ghost, as substitutes for the ordinances of Christ, not merely to awaken, but also to rebuild the Church. Indeed, not a few go far to merge divine wisdom in human, and to make the Holy (jhost only the most efficient tool of philosophy. " Das Wissen von Gott (say they), und seiner Welt ist eben auch die Vollendung des wehlichen Wissens." " Divine wisdom (say they) is the perfection of worldly. And as the know- ledge of God will ultimately disclose to us the nature and relations of all things, so the true way to commend the truth to this learned generation is to show how it can advance the cause of learn- ing; how it can descend from being the great end of inan, to be the best form of human wisdom ; 158 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: in short, to show how the Holy Spirit is the best literary teacher," In all this they forget that the creature lies under the curse, and can at present be kjiown only in a manner conformable to the same. Although the saints shall know the truth of all things, that shall not be until all be delivered from their present corruption, disorder, and darkness, in that kingdom which Solomon foreshadowed. The Spirit of Christ— the earnest of that kingdom— who blows upon all flesh, will not build up this natural and present world, or enable us to outstrip all other students by getting at worldly wisdom in some new and better way. Creation must be yet regenerate to be rightly known ; as we must now be, in order rightly to know it. We see not yet all things put under Christ. Our knowledge is that of a mystery. Natural religion may be a step to revealed; but revealed religion is not the mere perfecting of natural. It rospccts that which shall succeed things natural. If the Ilonian Catholic religion has anticipated the kingdom, the Christian philo- sophy of Germany has no less done so. However, the worst of all spurious develope- ments is that which, under various forms, assumes to be a new dispensation of the Spirit— an addi- tion to the imperfect dispensation of Christ. It is the more dangerous because of its spiritual cha- CONCLUSiON. 159 racter, and its close resemblance to the scriptural revival of the Church. The idea of three suc- cessive dispensations corresponding to the persons of the Trinity has often re -appeared in the Church. Bit it rests on one of two heresies, either that which reduces distinct persons in the Godhead to \ mere modes of action, or that which supplants the second by the third. And while the true Pa- raclete takes of the things of Christ, the false show their own things as fresh from God. They may witness against Antichrist, talk of the Catholic Church, and boast of many powers and blessings, but they cannot confess Jesus Christ come in flesh. Yet every such delusion, as that of Mahomet, Swedenborg, and others now rife in Switzerland, bespeak the desire of man to have a ministry which shall lead him on. This desire the Church has too often disappointed. Many a time, as John preceded Christ, have faithful men been raised up to break ground for a true reformation. But in- stead of waiting for that, the Church has mistaken the awakening voice for the blessing itself. The former has been worshipped, and the latter lost. Who can tell what God would have proceeded to do, had Luther's mission been understood ? Who can tell what stifled glory may have lain in the beginnings of the Anabaptist delusions ? VVessel, the precursor of Luther has well said : — " Icli 160 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY t vcrwcrfc nicht IVommcn Offenbarungcn iiiid Vi- sioncn, wcnii sie, mit dcr Walirhcit libcrciii- stiinmcnd, (lie Froiumigkclt fordcrn ; abcr so, dass man sic nicht zum Angolpunkt odcr Anker dcs Glaubens macht." The fact is, that men who fear God arc at their wit's end. In the words of the prophet, *' fear, and the pit, and the snare, arc upon the in- habitants of the earth." AKarmcd at the defencc- lessncss and perplexity into which his misuse or neglect of God's ordinances has brought Iiim, he is fain, instead of seeking tlie help of a pre- sent Saviour, tlirough present and divineministries . of blessing, to retreat upon the institutions of the past, hoping to find in them the same shelter and blessing which his fiithers found. But his liope is a vain one. They were but the chan- nels—Christ was the fountain : and the Spirit of Christ uses not past things, but present, to bless and save. Hence man's danger is, that having sought God in vain where He is not to be found —having found no water in the pit — he will con- clude it vain to seek God at all, and will conic up out of the pit to be taken in the snare of Anticlirist, who promises a fresher blessing than Christ's. Of this process, men may be at dif- ferent stages in different lauds ; nay, in some, all CONCLUSION. IGl its btages may appear at once. In England, the second is the most obvious at present; in Ger- many, we see especially the first and the last ; but there are also symptoms of the second. And the Germans may rest assured that in it their true salvation does not lie. However much they may be benefitted by an increase of reverence for the things hitherto done and believed in the Church, their health and cure are to be sought from a living God. For the Church in Germany, the true remedy lies in the restoration of her spiritual consciousness— as the body of Christ ; the house- hold of faith ; the temple of the Holy Ghost; the army of the Lord ; the mystery of the king- dom to come. '' Ein Vogel schwingt sich auf wo Eiche fallen." But, in order to this, she must feel the necessity of her case. Theoretical dreams of those who are at ease will stand her in no stead. She must cry out of deep mire, wherein there is no standing. Distress alone can create an intelligent desire; an intelligent desire must lead to the prayer of faith ; and the prayer of faith must prevail. Man cannot create the bless- ing ; but God, with whom it is, will assuredly grant it, and restore a ministry, filled with His mercy and truth, which shall fulfil the just de« sires of those that fear Him. 162 MORAL niEXOMENA OF GERMANY : *' Dciju Es muss von Herzen gclieu," " Was auf Herzen wirken soU." On this subject a living German author has, with equal modesty and discernment, almost pro- phetically expressed himself in language appli- cable, not to Germany alone, but to the Catholic Church, in the welfare of which that of Ger- many is bound up. « Keine der jetzt bestehen- den Kirchen hat ganz was zu eincr apostolis- chen gehort Welche Wege sind einzuschlagen, urn die sichtbare Kirolie aus den vorhandenen Elementen wicder so herzustcllen, wii! sie nnch der Schrifts(>in soil ? Diese frage wagj ich nicht zu entscheidon und wiirde micirirlack- lich schiitzen wenn andere uns darubcr betehren warden." The Church is so enthralled by the powers of this world, that nothing but the hand of the Lord can loose the bands of her neck. Were the Pope, the only symbol of her indepen- dence, to fall, the words of Frederic the Great would be realized, when he thus proplicsied her total conversion into a worldly thing— << Die grosse xMaehte werden keinen Statthalto° Christi mehr anerkennen. Jede wird cinen eigenen IV triarchen in ihrem Lande ernennen." The Church is too thoroughly rent in pieces for any will of Iier parts to bind them together again. Tho CONCLUSION. 163 sabjective efforts of those religionists who would turn the world into a cloister, and the Church into a conventicle ; and w ho, w ith all their good intentions and personal piety, well merit the ap- pellation of " namcnlose Wilden," given them by an antc-reformution reformer, must wholly miss tliQ mark. No provisions, emanating from the State ; no coidederacies of men ; no combination of Protestants against the Papacy, to make all men Protestants; no craft of the Papacy to bring all back to her bosom ; no efforts of the Czar, or the Greek patriarchs, to make all men orthodox, will do the work. The idolatry and power of man must cease ; each must be willing to be as good as dead, save at the time, and in the way, in which God appoints to use him. Nothing but that precious oil which flows from the Head ; nothing but a mission from Ilim adopting and embracing the whole; the constitution of an ecclciiastical centre, of which place shall be the accident ; a restored apostolic government, divine in its origin, accordant with the common faith and discij)line once delivered to the saints, modifijd iu its application by wisdom and mercy, but unalterable in essence, spiritual, im- partial, and unflinchingly holy — will do. Apos- tles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, 164 MORAL PIIENOMnXA OF CKRMANY: must again comfort, reprove, correct, and instruct. The raising of tlie dead ; the casting out of devils ; the cleansing of lepers; the healing of the sick ; must bring men out of ilreams into realities again, and lift the Church out of tlie taxis of this world. Above all, the instant hope of the appearing and kingdom of Christ must at once purify and up- hold her. Then, be the faithful remnant as small a3 it may, shall a Catholic work be done, and a witness, such as God will acknowlcdjxe, be again given by faithful men and by the Holy Ghost, to His present grace and coming judgment. Tlius only can the Church be effectually pre- served from undue interference with men. She knows that she is born to rule ; and if she limits Iier hoj)es to this world, she will ever strive to do so now, whether by Papal priestcraft or sectarian flatteries. But if she truly wait to sit with Christ on His throne, her ambition, rightly directed, is Jiarmk\ss, yea, helpful, to the powers that be. Every nation has a sphere peculiar to itself, and a work common to all. And the proper part of each is to contribute its utmost towards the groat work of Christendom — the ])reparation for the ap- pearing and kingdom of Christ. As to the pros- pects of Germany, it matters little what share she may take in the strifes of the potsherds of the I CONCLUSION. 105 earth— how formidably her children may be disci- plined as a nation of soldiers — what part she may act in a European Pcntarchy — how long she may sing in defiance of France — <' Sic sollen ihn niclit haben, Den freien deutschen Rhein " — or how long the memory of Hermann may live in the linked escutcheons of her diet — "EinMann, ein Bund, ein freies deutsches Volkl" It matters little how she stands the sappings of Russian intrigue, and scatters the clouds of the ISIorth — or how independent her " Zollverband'' may make her of England's " porrocta majestas ad ortum Sol is ab Hesperio cubili." It matters little how long she may lead in literature — how nearly she may rival in agriculture and arts — how great a thoroughfare of trade she may become — or with what railroad speed she may go a-head with the foremost in that reckless career where, stung to frenzy, or gladdened to drunkenness, "audax omnia perpeti; Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas." But it does matter very much, at this turning point of her destiny, whether in her the evil shall choke the good, or the good surmount the evil — whether she belong to the wise virgins or the p2 166 MORAL PHENOxMENA OF GERMANY : CONCLUSION. 167 foolish — whether she furnish sods of God or sons of Belial — whether Christ or Antichrist be her God. The war in lieaven is now waged between the spirits which confess, and those which do not confess, Jesus Christ come in flesh — between those holpen by Satan to perfect and deify the creature, and those holpen of the Holy Ghost to prepare Christendom as the temple of God for the return of Christ. The struggle is, whether the things seen shall abide, or the things unseen be revealed — whether the throne of man's dominion shall deny or express that Jesus is Lord — whether the world shall groan under the tyranny of Antichrist, or rejoice in the rule of Christ. " Die Gewalt von unten (says the author of • Die Kirche in unserer Zeit' — boi Baith, Leipzig) " ist die aufgehende Sonne der alle Mensehen huldigen ; Monarchen selbst demLithigen sich vor deni gefUrchteten Itival ; die Iloeligestellten dicserWelt beben vor ihren Drohungen ; die Ehrgeizigen und die Geld- siichtigcn achten auf ihren Anwuchs ; die Stimme des Gewisscns lasst sich in ihrer Gegcnwart nicht liiiren ; die Priester selbst opferen an ihrem Al- t:ire." And to the same eftect are the words of a late pamphlet, published at B( rlin (bei MuHer) — *' Ueberdie llotfnungder Kirche. Die Protestan- tisthe Kirche hat sich in dem Nebel der Unsicher- heit vcrloren ; die Griechische liegt unter einer abgottischen Obrigkeit niedergestreckt ; die Rii- mische, bei ihrem Buhlen mit den demokratischen Tendenzon derZeit,istauf dem geraden Wege, fur ihre geriihmte. unerschiitterliche Grundlage, den S ^ndgrin'u des Meeres einzutauschen ; und alle Kir- chen s lu im'Gefahr durch den Antichrist wie Da- vid's Weiber durch Absalom, verfiihrt zu werden." The evil days of oppression by (iod's ordinances perverted are well nigh past. The worse op- pression by man's ordinances is to come; and to the eye t\\? looks out for some refuge of God's build- ing, ' ■ chief object on the dark horizon is the rising temple of lies. Nicholas de Lyra, like II ip- politus, long since declared that Antichrist, the topstone o^ apostasy, springs, like the giaiits of Noah, fropi unhallowed union — arises in Babylon aii.. comes to Jerusalem — arises out of confusion in the Church, to blaspheme and to perish in the presence of God — is fostered by pride — is received by those who will not acknowledge the name of (iod — deceives Christian, Jew, Gentile alike, each in his own way — and takes with appropriate baits everv class of men, the learned, the ambi- tious, and the covetous, the simple, the feuful, and the penitent. The spirits of darkness, content to l)e denied by an enlightened age, if only they X 108 MORAL PIIFVOMENA OF GERMANY: have leave to work, will abet him with powers, and signs, and lying wonders. Christ shall bo announced in the desert and in the secret places. Many shall say — " I am he." The false dcvelope- ments of Christianity, by Mahomet, Joachim, 8we- denborg, shall be followed by deeper, yet more promising delusions: men shall seek to spirits, that peep and mutter, who will not seek to their God. False Christs who promise deliverance from evil without departure from sin, false apostles and paracletes, heralding a false millennium and ex- liibiting its powers, shall, in guises manifold — poli- tical, religious, scientific, theatric — delude man- kind — shall make false casts of every stamp of God— and shall, to the eye of flesh, outdo, in all things even the most sacred, the messengers of Him who saith — " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Power from the people, re- ligion from man, shall prevail. The Tzebaoth shall arrogate the worship of their Lord. For this consummation Christendom has been preparing by the sins of many centuries. " Die Weltgeschichtc ist das Weltgcricht." God will not unrighteously permit a judgment to which the sin has not been commensurate. He is not un- wise, to inflict a judgement unlike the sin. He gives to all the fruit of their doings. There could CONCLUSION", 1G9 be no Antichrist till Christ had come ; but tlicre have been many Antichrists in the Church from the beginning, who have not abode in, but have denied, the Father and the Son. Now, thev ex- pect their recapitulation under one head, and their binding together, as the scales of leviathan, but not by the Holy Ghost. It is because Christen- dom has nursed in its bosom every form of oflonce against the person, the holiness, the truth, the government, the grace, and the glory of Ciirist, that from her shall proceed the monster mIio shall sum up the whole. If we could trace the invisible as the visible, the history of Christ's sufferings in Judea might find its ample parallel in the history of those acts by which the Chris- tian Church ha i vexed, quenched, and blasphemed the Spirit of Christ. Him who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, these Antichrists will blaspheme, and perish, being sent alive into the pit ; and, if we would escape the judgement, we must escape their snare, by help of the eye- salve of Clirist. We must stand fast in the com- mon and original faitli, rejecting and denouncing all alien to it ; we nmst, with fasting and tears, implore the Lord not to remember our offences — nor the offences of our forefathers — but to spare His people ; to raise up His power, and come among us, and with great might succour us ; to 170 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: CONCLUSION. 171 ^^vouclisafe unto Ilis Church, the ministry of apos- tles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers ; to unite and carry onward to perfection all His saints." Without apostles, S:c., the acting of the Church must be defective — her state impure and unprej)ared. As none but they wlio are crucified to the world sliall stand in its judgement, so we cannot be cru- cified to tlie world unless we hold it crucified to us. Wliile Germany holds out so many elements of liope, the unclean commerce of the German phi- losophic mind with everything tliat may be known may well fill the intelligent Christian with alarm, as to the part which Germany may act, in ripening the revelation of the Man of Sin, in hatching this cockatrice egg. Nothing can touch the seat of defilement — nothing can cleanse the spirit of man, but the Spirit of God. His mode of operation is by the personal ordinances of the Church ; and in their restored order and efliciency lies the hope of deliverance for Germany — the Hercules who shall strangle the serpents. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings shall God still the enemy. No argument — no armistice — no sentimental or cosmopolite cliarity — no making of many books — no combining of many men — no Gustav-Adolf- societies for the maintenance of one part of the Church to the neglect of the other — no Swiss pro- J^osals to frame out of Ultra-Protestant narrow- ness a creed fit to satisfy the mighty longings of the Catholic Church at the end of the ai:e — no cobblings of a net which cannot hold the fish — no calling up of ghosts to guide living men — no assembled synods — no clever propo- sals — no State provisions, can do the work. It must be a Catholic ministry, with a visible centre of unity — a ministry not usurped by man — not imposed by the State — not voted in by the peo- ple — not bolstered up by flesh; but given of the Lord himself; apostolic in the proper sense of the word, having evident mission from on high ; apostolic in origin, in character, and in i)owcr; embracing the fulness of the Holy Ghost; and evolving the proper ministries of Christ, no longer curtailed and confounded by the bungling im- provements of man. It must be the restoration of faith in the man Jesus Christ at the right hand of God, in the personal presence and manifesta- tion of the Holy Ghost, with all His gifts and dis- tributions. And, above all, it must be the instant hope that Christ shall come again to raise the dead, and change us which are alive ; which hope alone can purify and enable us to serve the living God, and wait for His Son from heaven. This no man can do — this God will do. 13ut let none 17'2 MORAL rilENOMENA OF GERMANY: break loose from tlie blessings that are, till God give better. Let none confederate to build a Babel of their own. Christ is the *' Breaker ;" not wc. On this subject, the sentiments expressed by Carl Ilothe, a Berlin clergyman, in his short, but lucid, practical, and comprehensive work on the constitution of the Church, are so just as to de- serve insertion here. After enumerating the three prevalent heresies on Church polity— the first, that of hierarchy, exaggerating the clerical office (in- cluding episcopacy) into the apostolic, as if charged with the care of the whole Church ; the second, that of democracy, destroying tlie dignity of the clerical office ; and the third, that of indepen- dency, insulating each congregation— he proceeds to consider the value of the proposal to aid the revival of the Church by restoring the episcopal office where it has ceased ; and he thus expresses himself, '' .Alen ask for bishops ; but they are not what men truly desire. Where is it written that they are intrusted with tlie government of the whole Church, and with single or conjunct deci- sion, in doctrine and discipline ? A bishop, in the scriptural sense, is the shepherd of a flock, but not of the whole Church. Tlie guidance of the latter belongs not to bishops, but to apostles. 1 hat bishops have come in the place of apostles CONCLUSION. 173 is the assertion of the hierarchy, but an erroneous one. What men seek after is, truly, not bishops, but apostles."— (p. 166). Further on he proceeds as follows :-^" The Church is at present contained in the State, and ought so to be ; yet such a con- dition is the fruit, not of necessity, but of sin ; not because the theory of her constitution requires it, but because such is the will of the Lord. She serves, because she has deserved to serve. It is good that she should know this, and humbly sub- mit to it ; but let her not be required to renounce the very remembrance that she is the free-born daughter of a great King, and that her present condition is one of servitude. Let not her rela- tion to the State be called one of unity, but ra- ther one of subjugation— in hope. It is the time of her fasting for the absent Bridegroom, when she may well complain, as in tlie Psalms—' We see not our signs, and there is no more any pro- phet or teacher.' The highest gifts of the Holy (jhost— the apostolic and prophetic — are taken from Iier; therefore she is scattered : and, with- out support in herself, she can do no better than lean upon the powers of this world. And v. oe to those V. ho, impatient and arbitrary, would tear the Church out of this bondage ! Many have 174 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMAxNY: attempted it, giving themselves forth as apostles and paracletes, but being really deceivers, fana- tics, and false prophets. History has judged them, let let not the Church be comforted by proving to her that things could not be otherwise than they are, a!id by requiring of her to be satisfied with everything, and to cease her sighs, prayers, and hopes of deliverance. Shall this deliverance ever arrive mthin the bounds of this dispensation, and before the Lord Himself do come ? Shall there ever be a time when the Church shall be governed by apostles, whom He has sent ? Who would venture to affirm this ? And yet it is cer- tain, that until then there can be no true unity of Churchand State, in mutual recognition, freedom, and love. But as little as we venture to affirm that she shall be so governed, so little dare any man venture to deny it. And all those theories are to be rejected as erroneous which imply the impossibility that the Church can in this a-e be set free by the restoration of the apostolic gifts, ^uch theories fix the Church in the elements of the world, and assume that her present unnatural condition is her original and natural one Hut although the Church should cherish the humble conviction that she is, by the will of the Lord, a bondmaid to earthly power; yet they who have CONCLUSION. 175 \ power over her should, on their part, bear in mind that she is of royal descent. They should not dispose of her as of her property, or impose on her any unworthy yoke. They should, with reverence, give her the measure of freedom, of which, in her present circumstances, she is capa- ble. And they should be ready at any moment to resign the power which they possess over her into the hands of the Lord, or of them whom He shall send." (p. 171). And again, speaking of the proposal to invest the general superintendents with the scriptural title of " bishop," he protests against the idea that they would then represent the apostolic element in the Church. " The apos- tolic office (says he) which binds the whole Church into a unity, is at present, in the counsel of God, a place left vacant, into which no man can intrude himself^ save by error or deceit. Yet although this key-stone of the Church, which would put the finish to its organization, is want- ing, yet there will be an unconscious effort in the Church to fill up the blank, and to bring forth out of herself an inferior organization of similar character, when unable to attain the superior." —(p. 199). Now this last mentioned tendency—namely, to provide herself with a lower and wholly inade- 170 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY : quate form of that for which she sIiouKl wait on God till He bestow it — is one pregnant witli dan- ger to the whole Church, and especially to its (Jerniaii branch. Impatience, the fruit of zeal, without corresponding faith in the zeal of the Lord of hosts, has throughout marred the bless- ing of God— so Adam fell ; so Sarah got Islimael ; so Moses failed to deliver ; so Saul lost the kinfj- dom ; so would the Church have apostles of men, instead of apostles of Christ. The Pope has been proved a usurper; bishops have been found unable to save the Church ; from one end of Germany to the other, clergy and laity begin to see, as with one eye, that the civil ruler, whom the Church souorht to as a protector, is not her true governor, and to sigh with one breath for deliverance from that "eiserne Umarmung" wliich impedes the the circulation of her life, and the develope- ment of her functions. And, by a wonderful working of God, the hearts of many civil rulers, and especially that of the King of Prussia, have been disposed towards granting to the Church the same liberation for which she longs. This lias been begun by measures intended to sepa- rate civil from ecclesiastical offices ; to encourage synods of the clergy ; to foster the spirit of wor- siiip; and to provide for the oversight of con- CONCLUSION. 177 gregations. But it must ever be remembered that legislation, in the way of guidance, pro- ceeding from the wrong source, only aggravates the evil which it proposes to remedy; that synods can only ascertain and express— but can, as little as a king, satisfy—the spiritual demands of God's people ; and that the mere will of parts disjoined can never combine them again. If to be set free be— to be turned adrift in the world— better far that the Church were always a bondmaid. It is the "government of the universal Church in the right way" that makes her truly free, and renders other guidance needless ; and that is to be ob- tained—not by hasty assertion or concession of liberty— but by patient faith, watchful prayer, and conscientious labour. There must be faith in the way of God's working, ere He can work. No one of us has done all the good he knows, learned all he might, or mourned as he ought. If faithful in little, we shall be entrusted with much. The " Free Church of Scotland/' which, though abstractly commendable for its jealousy of State interference, and its solicitude to meet the desires of the flock, has, in its reckless vindication of personal liberty, sacrificed the place of the priest at the ehrine qf popularity, nvA plmi)es itscjf oi) H^ sensitive prtl)ot{o.v7 nnd i)^^vi\ y.\i^r^]^ ^^^v 178 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY: CONCLUSION. 179 well draw a lesson from a German divine, who looks for the liberation of the Church through the restoration of ajwstolic gifts, and recognizes truth which her single-string and Procrustes-bed will not allow. As to the Church of England, her day is come — her good things have done their work — her liturgy- is now too narrow for the faithful, and too stringent for the faithless. Latent diversities are developed into schisms. In spite of the cry for unity, every man's hand is against his brother ; each treats his friend as if he might one day be an enemy ; and for the healthy rotundity of Catholic truth and forms, each would substitute the acute angles of his own system and manner. The Evangelical party — long Dissenters in practice and feeling — now publish their sentiments as those of the Church herself, and denounce as Popish every true ecclesiastical principle. The zealous Church- man, seeing no further than " England for the English," would rival, and not aid— would debar, and not welcome, Greece and Rome. In Oxford, the priestly— in Cambridge, the diaconal— among the masses, the popular element— assume exaffsre- rated forms. The Tractarians, obedient in theory, and loyab "ot to their diocesans, but to their own ideas of what their diocesans should say and do, go a-head of, reprove, and teach the bishops of the Church, without any commission — without the thought or pretence of apostolic authority, so to do. Of the bishops — surprised at being again called really to guide the Church — some are pitted against each other ; others united in help- less neutrality — a feeble rallying-point for those not yet appropriated by any faction. Among the multitudes of clergy lately aroused to fidellly, more look to the bishops as to the quarter whence help should come, than rejoice in them as present helpers. And of the laity — whether the elegantly religious, who play with a minister of Christ as with a toy, but will not obey him — or the irreli- gious enemies of shams, although many may be curious to see what the bishops will do, few have any real episcopal guidance, or would accept it. The bishops are not singly competent to deter- mine how they shall guide their clergy and peo- ple. They make confusion worse when they try it. They shrink from bringing dangerous ele- ments into the explosive contact of a council. The old convocation, if revived, would be found a mere secular and most clumsy machine, unfit for the work required. Were a true ecclesiastical synod by any chance to meet, a faithless and un- godly population, an ill-instructed and temporizing 180 MORAL PHENOMENA OF GERMANY*. Government would not tolerate its right action ; and if any efficient council meet, it will, probably, be that of a remnant disowned by the State and the populace alike. Add to all this, that the sacred autliority of the bishops, profanely buffeted in the market-place by every anonymous scrib- bler, is betrayed by their own clergy, and trampled down by those who should obey them, in the phalanx of open confederacy and on tlie arena of rude debate ; and one cannot avoid the convic- tion, that the day for complacent laudation of "our excellent Cliurch and admirable formula- ries" — the day of devout wishes, that fur ccntu- ries we may worship as for centuries we have done — is gone by. There may be ecclesiastical patriots, who, refusing to part with their mere Church-of-Englandism, or to admit a ray of fo- reign light on what, with a boast, and not a blush, they style their *' home-spun" religion, will rather perisli than capitulate. But if the Anglican Church is to be saved, she must cease to be Anglican. Her idolized apostles' successors must retreat into their due limits to make way for apostles them- selves. They must rise to their true dignity, as stars held fast in the hand of the Lord. They must bo joined to the Viifolo Christian priesthood by fi]} .'vuihorUy Qn4 junedjctlpi) y/hioli, vii»^revoi' CONCLUSION. L^l located, shall be neither constituted by the Par- liament, nor confined to the realm cf En8 19^