Dr. Kuyper’s work on the Holy Spirit first appeared in the Heraut in weekly installments, after which it was published in book form, Amsterdam, 1888.
This explains the object of the author in writing the book, viz., the instruction of the people of the Netherlands. Written in the ordinary language of the people, it meets the need of both laity and clergy.
However, depth of thought was not sacrificed to simplicity of speech. On the contrary, the latter was only the instrument to make the former lucid and transparent.
The Heraut is a religious weekly of which Dr. Kuyper has been the editor-in-chief for more than twenty years. It is published on Friday and forms the Sunday reading of a large constituency. Through its columns Dr. Kuyper has taught again the people of the Netherlands, in city and country, the principles of the Reformed faith, and how to give these principles a new development in accordance with the modern conscience of our time.
Dr. Kuyper is not an apologist, but an earnest and conscientious reconstructionist. He has made the people acquainted with the symbols of the Reformed faith, and by expounding the Scriptures to them, he has maintained and defended the positions of those symbols. His success in this respect appears conspicuously in the reformation of the Reformed Churches in 1886 and in the subsequent development of marvelous energy and activity in Church and State, which are products of revived and reconstructed Calvinism. Without the patient toil and labor of this quarter of a century, that reformation would have been impossible.
In his religious and political reformations, Dr. Kuyper proceeded from the personal conviction that the salvation of Church and State could be found only in a return to the deserted foundations of the national Reformed theology; but not to reconstruct it in its
worn-out form. “His fresh, brave spirit is entirely free from all conservatism” (Dr. W. Geesink). He is a man of his time, as well as forhis time. The new superstructure, which he has been rearing upon the carefully reuncovered foundations of the Reformed theology, he seeks to adapt to all the needs, demands, and distresses of the present. In how far he has succeeded time only can tell.
Since 1871 he has published in the columns of the Herautand afterward in book form the following: “Out of the Word,” Bible studies, four volumes; “The Incarnate Word,” “The Work of the Holy Spirit,” three volumes, and “E Voto Dordraceno,” an explanation of the Heidelberg Catechism, four volumes. This last work is a rich treasury of sound and thorough theology, dogmatic and practical. He has published several other treatises which have not yet appeared in book form. Among these we notice especially “On Common Grace,” which, still in process of publication, is full of most excellent reading. The number of his works amounts already to over one hundred and fifty, a partial list of which is to be found following this introduction.
The following works have been translated into English: “Encyclopædia of Sacred Theology” (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898); “Calvinism and Art”; “Calvinism and Our Constitutional Liberties”; “Pantheism and Destruction of the Boundaries”; “The Stone Lectures.”
For the better understanding of the work, the translator begs to offer the following explanations:
“Ethical Irenical,” or simply “Ethical,” is the name of a movement in the Netherlands that seeks to mediate between modern Rationalism and the orthodox confession of the old Reformed Church. It seeks to restore peace and tranquillity not by a return to the original church order, nor by the maintenance of the old Confession and the removal of deviating ministers through trial and deposition (Judicial Treatment), but by making efforts to find a common ground for both parties. It proceeds from the idea that that which is diseased in the Church can and will return to health: partly by letting the disease alone to run its course (Doorzieken)—forgetting that corruption in the Church is not a disease, but a sin (Dr. W. Geesink); partly by a liberal diffusion of Bible knowledge among the people (Medical Treatment).
Dr. Chantepie de la Saussaye, a disciple of Schleiermacher, was the spiritual father of this Ethical theology. Born in 1818, Dr. De la Saussaye entered the University of Leyden in 1836. Dissatisfied with the rational supernaturalism of a former generation, unable to adapt himself to the vagueness and ambiguousness of the so-called Groningen school, or to find a basis for the development of his theological science in the treasures of the Calvinistic theology, he felt himself strongly attracted to the school of Schelling, and through him he came under the influence of Pantheism. During the years of his pastorate in Leeuwarden (1842-48) and in Leyden to 1872, he modified and developed the ideas of Schleiermacher in an independent way. The Ethical theology was the result. Its basic thought may be comprehended as follows: