1847.] Early Confessions inadequate. 243 wise in this case? A confession, which embraces peacefully in one communion the worshippers of the Word, which was from eternity with the Father, and those, to whom this worship appears as idolatry; the deriders of the mystery of the Trinity and its adorers; those, who stand upon the word of man and those who stand upon the word of God! Pardon me, if I am reminded of that coat of arms, which was once proposed to a vain, new made nobleman,-three snow-balls in hot water. Yes, so long as it was not yet awakened from its rest, the peace, that slept its soft sleep with the sweet breath of childhood, in the cradle of the apostolic church, then the simple testimony might suffice, with which they testified more to themselves than to opponents and enemies, what is the revolving point of the inner life. But when wide-spreading error began to disturb this sweet sleep of childhood, then also the necessity was soon felt of adding to that so simple primitive faith, points that were turned against error in its manifold forms. And now, after eighteen centuries, when so many conscious differences stand armed against each other, can that be the right help to weaken all contrasting colors into a feeble gray? Besides, are you the one, that to-day would allow the rationalist, to-morrow the Lutheran orthodox; and the next day the denyer of a self-conscious God, to speak to the hearts of the congregation from the same holy place? or is here too the concord to be established by the gray color of the confession? and is the sermon and liturgy to be painted over with this peace-bringing gray? And is that still Faith? You know better what faith is than to be capable of such an enthusiasm for gray? Gerhard to Emil.-What else is said in all that, than that a piece of armour like Dr. Luther and the rest, must after all go to school to you gentlemen of the quill? And in what do you think that you are more advanced than they? What does not suit you in their confessions? Perhaps some ideas are not split sufficiently hair-fine for you; a point is not correctly placed, or a dot is wanting over an i? For the sake of such arts of the pen will you look over their shoulders? You seem to me sometimes, just as much as the Friends of light, quite to forget, that it is no art to drive a coach with other people's horses and your own whip! For the sake of such trifles will you reject the confessions, assemble new councils and perplex the unlearned people in their faith? That is indeed gathering the ashes and scattering the meal. Emil.-Dear friend, moderate yourself. To hit, it is necessary not only to have a sharp sword, but to see where you strike. I have not spoken about a false point in the confessions or a failing dot over an i I have spoken in the first place of theo logical views and definitions of certain truths, which it is our office, as theologians, to establish, an office enjoined upon us of God; and then of the right, which the confessions themselves give to you laymen as to us theologians, to try them by the Scriptures. * ** But what, I ask, gives you then the right, thus at the outset, with such confidence, to regard the confessions as free from error, and the men who composed them as infallible? And will you say, that you do not do it at the outset, but be. cause you have become certain by a careful trying of their har mony throughout with the Scriptures? Can you, as protestant, dispute the possibility, that they could have erred, nay, that an. other eye than yours can in fact detect this and that error? Gerhard. The conclusion which I make is a quite simple one. Without certainty of the pure doctrine, no pure faith and no pure life; now this certainty our private judgment will give to us laymen ten times less, than that of your theologians. I need therefore a church, whose word I can follow, as the child its mother's. I will not be continually rocked upon your theological balanceboard; and I know no other way of coming down from it on to the firm ground. Emil-My design in reference to you, believe me, extends to nothing else than to procure for your faith a divine bulwark, the Spirit of the Lord, and "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Only he can tremble thus in anxiety before the word of man, who like you has built his faith upon the word of man. That faith which no human authority and no human wisdom has built up, shall human wisdom be able so soon to overrun? Gerhard. That may be very well, yet one does hastily what he long repents. You will at least be obliged to grant me some time, in order to become more agreed with myself, than I am in fact at present, whether my former faith needs recasting or not. Should I find it so you will see me very soon again at your side. Emil to Charles. It is a matter of less importance, in what theoretical form, whether in that of a fantastical dreaming, or in that of common sense, the human spirit reacts against the word of revelation; where the spirit of man no longer humbles itself before the Spirit and word of Christ, but arrogates to itself the 1847.] Rationalism not new. decision upon them, there is always rationalism. 245 But that mod ern rationalism too, in the form of common sense, you must not consider as a phenomenon so very new and peculiar to Germany. As early as Louis XIV, you can read in contemporary writers, delineations of the Parisian unbelief and scepticism, in which you fancy yourself transferred to the present. In Germany also, long before the proper period of rationalism, there were at least individual rationalists of this description; and then in England rationalism, under the name of deism, was spread in extensive circles from the end of the seventeenth century, until towards the end of the last century; and precisely at the same time, that it had obtained dominion in protestant Germany-just as if there had been a universal miasma in that atmosphere at the end of the last century, it appeared also in the protestant churches, of Scotland, Holland and France, and even in catholicism. It would then be difficult to look upon it as the child of German science. Emil to Charles.-The fact is, that aside from this or that local commotion, and personal learned contest, this rationalistic theology, within not more than about one generation (from 1770 to 1800), without any scientific contest worthy of remark, and without any counter revolution, made speedy and complete conquest of almost all the church authorities, and almost all the pulpits and lecturing desks of Germany. I know of only one parallel to such an unopposed march of victory into the enemy's country, that of Napoleon in Prussia in 1806. And was it not in both cases nearly the same cause, which made the victory so easy to the enemy. If you had a still clearer impression of the almost total supremacy of rationalism at the beginning of this century in Germany, and not only in Germany, but, as was said above, in most parts of the protestant, and even the catholic church, what you see of newly awakened faith, in all confessions, at the present time, must appear to you much more as a miracle, than what it really is, a sign of that life-renewing and renovating power, which dwells inextinguishably in Christianity. Emil to Charles-For the veiled destiny of the future no one People talk only of reason and of good taste, of energy of spirit and of the advantage of those who know how to place themselves above the prejudices of the education of the society, in which they are born. Pyrrhonism is in fashion in many things. It is said too that honesty of spirit consists in not believing lightly, in knowing how to doubt on many occasions.—Le Vassor, De la veritable Relig. 1688. can give security. I cannot therefore allay your apprehensions in this direction; on the contrary I must awaken anew in you these apprehensions in another direction. If you find, and that too after all which has been said between us, the power of the times, that has the promise of victory, still on that side, where the clamouring multitude stands, then open your eyes to know, that far more serious apprehensions are brought home to you! The more perseveringly you despise the still but living waters of Siloah, now that they are offered to you, the more certainly, be lieve me, will your descendents be obliged to content themselves with a new pouring of insipid water. But I wish that you could raise your eyes with me and many others, to a church of the future, as it has already begun to build itself, in which the truly pious men among you, will find that which the better part of you has hitherto striven after. I see much on many sides, that permits us to look to the future with a hoping spirit. Let now a great event seizing all hearts with equal interest, come over the church of the immediate future; let, for example, the hearts of men melt together in the fiery ordeal of a universal catastrophe, and the man will not be wanting, who will speak out that which is common to all, in such clearness and such power, that a confession will not need to be made, but will already exist, and the hearts of men will assent to it, as once to the Augsburg Confession, without balloting. Charles. That something new and great is preparing itself in church and State, is in all hearts; only it appears to me improbable that it will bear the stamp that you think it will, as I must still judge, when I see all the religious striving of the present time tending towards another end. Emil-I must reply to you, that all religious striving tends to this end and to no other. You yourself will not designate as a religious striving, that zeal which likewise debates upon religious questions at present, only in order to keep religion, that has become a power of the age, as far away as possible; but all religious striving must tend to that end. The pitiful issue of those church-forming endeavors, which rest upon another ground than that of biblical faith, might convince you, that now, as ever, the church-forming power is not in rationalism. When the English deist Williams applied to king Frederick II. for support for a deistical church, projected by him, that monarch, who knew at least what others needed, gave the answer that a church, which needed the support of potentates immediately in its beginning, 1847.] The American Pulpit. 247 did not appear to stand on firm footing. And when his deistical friend the Marquis d'Argens in Potsdam wished to establish a deistical form of worship, the same monarch desired first to see the list of subscribers shown, for at least ten years. Never and nowhere, so far as history reaches and gives testimony, has pure rationalism, has religion having only human reason for its basis, shown a church-forming power, not even where, as in England and America, all room was left for it. A period of six years is the longest, that a large rationalistic church community, has hitherto been able to survive.1 He who understands the holy word religion, who is conscious what man seeks in religion and through religion, communion with God, he has no other aim, and can have no other aim, than Christ, the Son of the living God. And you too, my friend, will attain to rest, only when you rest in him. ARTICLE III. THE AMERICAN PULPIT, — ITS ENDS, ITS MEANS, AND ITS By Rev. W. A. Stearns, Cambridge, Mass. In no part of the world is the business of preaching so arduous, or so powerful in its effects, as in the United States. We deal with shrewd, intelligent minds, with men who are not to be imposed upon by ceremony, sophistry, or mere declamation, with thinkers, free thinkers in a good sense of the term, whose understandings however are capable of being enlightened, and whose hearts can be moved to noble impulses, purposes and exertions. It cannot therefore be amiss to devote a few pages to a consideration of the American pulpit,-its ends, its means, and its mo tives. Its ends are the highest present and eternal welfare of man, 1 The rationalistic religious society of Theophilanthropists in Paris subsisted from 1796-1802. |