The justification of sinners by God, when explained by the analogy of the bestowal of pardon by the head of the State, can just as little be deduced from the attribute of Lawgiver. It could rather be shown that the bestowal of pardon is in direct contradiction to the attribute of Lawgiver. For the lawgiver as such is interested in the absolute validity and universal observance of the law, whereas through the bestowal of pardon exceptions are admitted. Nevertheless the combination of these two attributes in the full power of the State is perfectly rational. No real contradiction exists between them, because, as we have said, they are differently related ideas, and because they do not come into collision with one another at the same moment. For the legislative power, which insists upon the absolute validity of the law, is satisfied when the bestowal of pardon does not in any instance interfere with legal procedure, but only follows after a verdict of guilt has been legally passed. Seeing, however, that legal right is not itself the highest good, but in all cases only a means to secure the moral goods which further the true life of the people, the full power of bestowing pardon is, in order to attain this end, united with the right of legislation in the person of one supreme authority, so that, in individual instances of legal procedure, due regard should be paid to the question, whether or not the complete execution of the demands of the law and of the judicial sentence would be more detrimental to the public moral interests than their non-execution.

It is from this side also that Tieftrunk has explained the possibility of Divine forgiveness of sins, notwithstanding the strictly obligatory character of the moral law, of which he is convinced. God is recognised by Tieftrunk as the correlate of the final end of practical reason. This end is the commonwealth in which the moral laws alone are authoritative, the Kingdom of God. In order to make this end conceivable as the standard of one’s own action, practical reason postulates the existence of God as Creator, Lawgiver, Judge, and Ruler. If, now, the moral end of the world is to be maintained in spite of the sinfulness of men, God must be thought as the Author of forgiveness, through which act compensation is made for the transgressions of the moral law. In this argument the point has been duly recognised, the validity of which we have above maintained, namely, that the attribute of lawgiver in the character of the head of the State is not the highest, inasmuch as the judicial legislation is only a means subserving the moral ends of the people. But the attribute in the character of the head of the State which corresponds to the moral destiny of the people, namely, the right of bestowing pardon, has a narrower sphere of operation, and, so to speak, only accidental validity, because the head of the State cannot actually bring about the fulfilment of the moral destiny of the people, inasmuch as he cannot play the part of moral Providence for the people. On this point, therefore, the idea of God and His Kingdom transcends the analogy of State processes. The moral legislation of God is, under all circumstances, the means toward the moral commonwealth, the Kingdom of God. The attribute of God as Founder and Ruler of His Kingdom is therefore absolutely superior to His attribute as Lawgiver. If He recognises pardon as the fitting means for the maintenance of His Kingdom, no general objection can be brought against the possibility of such pardon from His attribute as Lawgiver. It follows then that pardon, or the forgiveness of sins, is connected, not with God’s special attribute as Lawgiver, but with His general attribute as King and Lord of His Kingdom among men.

This result, which we have reached under the direction of Tieftrunk, is free from the contradictions involved in the thesis of the older school, that God carries out the act of justification as Judge, and therefore as Executor of the law given by Himself. The principle of the advance beyond the older position consists in this, that use has been made of the idea of the Kingdom of God as the common moral end for God and men, an idea altogether foreign to the representatives of the older school. And yet the idea of the all-comprehensive Divinely-instituted moral law, which formed for those theologians the inseparable correlate of their idea of God, can hold good only as a deduction from the notion of that moral commonwealth, as certainly as every moral and judicial law is deduced from the nature of the corresponding community. If, therefore, the thought of forgiveness of sins, or justification, is to have vital significance in the Christian view of the world, and if it is to be understood through comparison with the right of pardon which is enjoyed by the head of the State, it must be conceived only as standing in relation to the universal sovereignty of God over the completed moral commonwealth which is to be formed of men. Tieftrunk has, however, at the same time taken into consideration the fact that the Divine forgiveness of sins, as a deduction from the final end of the Kingdom of God conditioned by the continual transgression of the law, yet cannot be indifferent to the unconditional authority of the law. He demands, therefore, that the Divine forgiveness be conceived, not merely as a result of the law, but also as an act in harmony with the law. He finds the first prerequisite fulfilled, when forgiveness leads men to love the law; the second, when reconciliability becomes a commandment of outstanding importance in the law, and when irreconciliability, conceived as the law of a moral kingdom, would be self-contradictory. Tieftrunk has here, it is true, raised an important problem, but his solution is sophistical. Reconciliability is certainly a principle which claims paramount importance as between those who are equal in every respect, but which has no unconditioned validity as between those of whom the one is superior in authority to the other. Else the result would be, that through unlimited application of this particular principle, the universal legal order of common life would be destroyed. The solution of the question, how the Christian truth of the Divine forgiveness of sins can be reconciled with the unconditioned validity of the moral law, must therefore be reserved for future consideration.

§ 18. In the meantime our task is to ascertain in general the attribute of God through which the positively Christian conception of the forgiveness of sins is to be understood. Now it is almost inconceivable that the orthodox theologians, in spite of their endeavours to reproduce the ideas of Holy Scripture, have been entirely oblivious of the fact that Jesus explicitly connected this operation of God with His attribute as Father. He directed His disciples to invoke God as Father when they prayed to Him for forgiveness of their sins; and, to bring home to them the necessity of their forgiving their fellow-men, He promised them that their Father in heaven would also forgive them their sins (Luke xi. 2—4; Mark xi. 25; Matt. vi. 9—15). In so far, too, as the forgiveness of sins is mediated through the expiatory death of Christ, the apostles recognise the love, or the grace, or the righteousness, that is, the self-consistent saving purpose, of God as the ground of that scheme (Rom. iii. 25, 26, v. 8; Heb. ii. 9). Moreover, the Old Testament idea of sacrifice, through which this whole circle of conceptions must be understood, contains nothing analogous to the judicial procedure of vicarious punishment; the sacrifices of the law are rather the symbols of a Divinely-ordered scheme for the appropriation of the Covenant-grace (vol. ii. p. 185). It is true that the God whom we invoke as Father, has also inherent in His nature the attribute of impartial Judge (1 Pet. i. 7); but He acts as Judge only in vindicating the rights of His people. The title of Judge as applied to God has therefore for Christians no real place alongside of, or over, the relation in which He stands to them as Father. It is only, therefore, when the love of God, regarded as Father, is conceived as the will which works toward the destined end, that the real equivalence of forgiveness and justification, which is represented in the religious conception of things, can be made good. If, however, God be preconceived as Judge in the forensic sense, the two ideas come into direct antagonism with one another, as was indeed explicitly maintained by the leading representatives of the older theology. The man who has gone through the punishment he has merited can, of course, be no more looked upon as a criminal, but he cannot by any means yet be regarded as an active and successful member of the moral community; in order to attain this place, the discharged culprit must give special evidence of his fitness for membership in the community. If, therefore, a judicial procedure on the part of God is recognised in this, that He regards sinners as free from punishment and guilt on account of the satisfaction which Christ has made, He must also, in order to judge them as positively righteous, impute to them the merit of Christ. It has been shown (p. 89) that this train of thoughts carries us beyond the limits of the conceptions derived from the analogy of the human judge. But the forgiveness extended by a father to his child combines in one act the judgment that a fault committed by the child ought to bring about no alienation between father and child, and the expression of the purpose to admit the child, as a right and gracious action, to the unfettered intercourse of love.

The attribute of father stands in relation to the peculiar moral and legal fellowship of the family. Therefore all the preceding arguments regarding the attitude of God to the forgiveness of sins, which have been derived from the analogy of the head of the State, that is, the legal and only relatively moral society of the people, are found to be incongruous with the Christian idea of God. The representation of God under the attribute of Father corresponds exactly to the transference to the whole of mankind of His relative moral and legal Lordship over the people of Israel for the bringing about of the highest moral end. Now, not only does this universal destination of the Kingdom of God exclude comparison with the form of government of any definite people, but the designation of God as our Father shows expressly that the real analogy for the Kingdom of God should be sought, not in the national State, but in the family. The consequences which this principle involves for the representation of the Christian view of the world cannot yet be brought out. One result, however, is the confirmation of a formerly established position (p. 62), namely, that the forgiveness of sins by God as Father finds no real standard of comparison in the right of pardon which belongs to the head of the State. The difference between the two is seen in this, that the right of pardon is only exercised in individual instances of legal condemnation, which as such stand in no connection with one another and always form exceptions to the recognised legal order, while the forgiveness of sins by God as Father is a universal, though not unconditioned, fundamental law, established in the interest of the community of the Kingdom of God.

If, then, justification in the Christian sense is related to God under the attribute—to use a human analogy—of Father, not of Judge, the ground on which Heidegger distinguished justification and adoption (p. 77) becomes untenable. The only valid distinction between the two ideas is that forgiveness, or justification, or reconciliation, refers generally to the admission of sinners to fellowship with God in spite of sin, whereas in adoption the confidential relation to God which is thereby established is specially described in terms of the normal relation of children to a father. The connection being such, the idea of reconciliation is shown to be of equal constitutive significance for Christianity with the name of God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the ideas of reconciliation and adoption agree with one another also in a formal respect. For adoption must also be conceived as a resolution of will in the form of a synthetic judgment (p. 80). The Reformed theologians, who alone give the idea of adoption an independent place in the Christian system, occupy themselves with describing the distinctions between the notions of Divine and human adoption. But we ought rather to seek to ascertain the harmony between the two. Now such harmony cannot be found in the idea of the establishment of a right of inheritance for a person of alien descent. For those persons who have in the Christian sense been adopted by God as His children, attain that rank only under the presupposition that in a certain real sense they derive their being from God, that is, that they have been created in His image. In harmony therewith, and in contrast to the alienation which sin causes between God and men, the adoption of the believing signifies their reception into that peculiar fellowship with God which is represented under the analogy of the family. Now, the moral fellowship of the human family rests not only on national descent, but on a judgment of the value of this fellowship by the husband and wife, and on the purpose of the father to educate his children to become spiritual and moral persons. The father’s moral relation to his children therefore rests in every case on an act of υἱοθεσία, so that this idea is not exclusively applicable to children of alien descent. The certainty of blood-relationship is not the sufficient ground of the father’s care; for there are fathers who shirk their responsibilities. Therefore the resolution to bring up one’s children does not follow from the analytic judgment that one is the author of the children’s life. On the contrary, this resolution, like every other resolution, is a synthetic judgment, even though it usually appears as a logical conclusion from the recognition of blood-relationship. The latter, however, is the case only when the resolution to give moral education to the children is included in the resolution to form the marriage union. On the other hand, the resolution to assume charge of a natural child for the purpose of moral education is usually absent, unless the purpose or resolution to enter upon the marriage state be combined with the sexual connection. If, therefore, the Divine υἱοθεσία in the Christian sense is understood in reference to the closest conceivable spiritual fellowship between man and God, then the form of the resolution, which is a synthetic judgment, is in exact harmony with that of the analogous resolution in the relationship of the human family, which we have taken as our standard of comparison. Seeing, however, that the resolution to admit children to moral fellowship applies not only, as a general rule, to children of the blood, but also, in extraordinary cases, to alien children, and that the resolution can extend in these cases only to the transmission of property rights, the idea of the Divine υἱοθεσία cannot be held to be completely harmonious in these essential respects with its human analogue. For those who are admitted to the rank of children of God are all, by virtue of their innate moral destiny, “of Divine race,” but all in reality, because of sin, “as alien children” to God. Through the paramount influence of this fact, therefore, the Divine υἱοθεσία appears as most closely analogous to the human legal form of adoption. If, now, justification is an operation in which God appears under the attribute of Father, then the adoption of men as God’s children is a substantially equivalent idea. The latter modifies the former only in this respect, that the fellowship with God to which sinners are admitted, is conceived to be as close as that which exists between the head and the members of a family. Therefore the functions in which the believing make manifest their justification and reconciliation must also be conceived as the functions of sonship to God.

The union (Gleichheit) with God, which must be included among the privileges which the justified enjoy as the children of God, finds expression in the formula, that justification brings the believing into possession of eternal life. In Luther’s proposition (in chap. v.), “Where the forgiveness of sins is, there is life and blessedness,” this attribute is conceived as a present possession. It will be sufficient to recall propositions of similar import in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession.³ Calvin holds precisely the same views.⁴ To take a final example, in the Formula of Concord, Art. 4, the connection between justification and eternal life is made so close, that good works are regarded as equally invalid as the condition for eternal life as they are for justification. In these propositions, as contrasted with the Catholic view, the possession of eternal life is brought from the sphere of the future and the world-to-come into the present state of the earthly life of the believing. By this interpretation of justification we also rise beyond the mystical standpoint. The mystics claim to enjoy the blessedness of the future in moments of ecstasy in the present life. They have, however, to suffer for their elevation of spirit at such moments through subsequent lassitude, aridity and barrenness of the feelings, and the sense of desertion by God. The Reformers, on the other hand, live in the faith that eternal life, and the joy which attaches to it, namely, blessedness, are present gifts, continually enjoyed as the result of the forgiveness of sins. But yet this thought, although presented in a series of proof-passages, has not been made quite clear by them. From the Catholic use of the formula, which was familiar to the Reformers, we must conclude that “eternal life,” in their view, denotes a peculiar union and fellowship with God. In the Greek Church, indeed, “deification” is used as an expression equivalent to “eternal life.” This usage has extended also to the Western Church. Bernard, for example, started from this idea in his exposition of the doctrine (vol. i. p. 117). The mediaeval mystics, although they strove to attain blessedness in the ecstatic knowledge of God, or the annihilation of their own wills, were yet led through their Neoplatonic conception of God as the only Reality beyond the idea of blessedness as consisting in union with God, to that of blessedness as consisting in the losing of self in the Divine essence. But Luther had no such idea in his mind. This is evident from the fact that ever since 1518 he set himself in deliberate antagonism to all mysticism.⁵ Moreover, the re-acceptance of the mystical view is out of harmony with the doctrine of justification (vol. i. p. 356). Therefore the original Lutheran sense of eternal life cannot be ascertained through the notion of the unio mystica. To determine the precise method in which we must conceive this relation of justification will, however, require a special investigation.

§ 19. As an operation of God upon men, justification is correlative to faith. This is the condition which prevents justification, or the forgiveness of sins, being represented as a contradiction to the presupposed estimate of sin. Up to this point, in our definition of justification, man has been treated in his peculiar character as sinner, and the subject of the consciousness of guilt. It was presupposed that with sin a state of alienation between God and men was brought about through the existence of real moral opposition between them. Justification, then, signifies the bringing back of the sinner into nearness with God, the removal of the alienating effect of the existent opposition to God and the accompanying consciousness of guilt. If, however, man in his relation to justification were to be represented only as sinner, his alienation from God, both in the objective and in the subjective respect, would continue, and the opposite status, that, namely, of justification, could not even be conceived. The sinner must therefore be thought of likewise as the subject of faith. Here, it is true, a new difficulty may be found. For if the condition must be fulfilled before the result can be reached, the faith of the sinner really appears to precede his justification. The question then will be whether and how the sinner can fulfil this condition. This difficulty may, however, be waived in the meantime, if we take into account the opposite fact that the idea of reconciliation, in which justification is represented inclusive of its result, makes the faith of the sinner to appear precisely as the result of justification. Justification effects a change in the consciousness of guilt in this respect, that the feeling of mistrust towards God which is bound up with that consciousness, and the shrinking from Him which results therefrom, are replaced by a consenting movement of the will towards God (§ 15). This new direction of the will to God which is evoked by reconciliation is, in the Evangelical view, faith; and, in so far as it expects to be determined solely by God, it belongs as a special class to the general idea of obedience (vol. ii. p. 324).

The meaning of the idea of faith, and the relation in which it stands to justification, have indeed been accurately determined in Evangelical theology. From various passages in Melanchthon⁶ we ascertain that faith means neither the acknowledgment of the correctness of traditional facts, nor the acceptance of orthodox propositions, but trust in God’s grace. Calvin has elucidated the idea of faith with still greater care than Melanchthon.⁷ He emphasizes the fact that the knowledge which is included in faith, having for its object the goodness of God, is of quite a different nature from our knowledge of the world, which consists in the explanation of phenomena and perceptions. Faith is emotional conviction of the harmony between the Divine purposes and the most intimate interests of man. A certain interest, it is true, attaches to our ordinary knowledge of the world, as is shown in the act of attention. But the interest which expresses itself in emotion—that is, interest not in the discovery of truth for itself, but in the feeling of moral pleasure and in the satisfaction of our own spirit—is of quite a different nature, inasmuch as it connects the maintenance of our whole personality with the highest standard of our life, the Divine goodwill and our own blessedness. In this analysis of Calvin’s main theses it will be seen that the strong emphasis which Melanchthon laid on the will has disappeared. Calvin does, however, also recognise the place of the will in the act of faith, when, in treating of the emotional character of faith, he brings out the significance of faith as obedience. But his treatment of the matter is not quite clear. Emotion is a modification of feeling; and many emotions, especially those with which we are here concerned, have a peculiar resemblance to the will. But in acts of will we recognise a clear purpose, and this characteristic mark is just what is wanting in movements of emotion. Here, then, a difference comes to light between Melanchthon and Calvin. This difference is clearly expressed in Calvin’s statement that the apostles derive trust from faith. Luther and Melanchthon, on the contrary, define the idea of faith accurately, making it precisely equivalent to the idea of trust in God. We may understand Calvin’s statement in the same sense if we conceive him to have meant “derivation” analytically. But Calvin’s further explanations do not make this clear. In Calvin’s school, as, for example, in the Heidelberg Catechism, § 21, the original Protestant interpretation of faith as trust continues, but by the high Reformed Orthodoxy Calvin was understood to maintain that fiducia stands in a synthetic relation to fides, and therefore does not in all cases accompany the latter.⁸ But trust is a function of the will, and therefore also, in the case under discussion, conceived as trust in the saving will of God, bound up with the characteristic mark of a clear purpose. We trust in God, Who, through the promise of forgiveness, shows our blessedness to be His aim. This connection of ideas governs the self-consciousness of the believer, as well as all the characteristic marks of emotion, conviction, certainty, obedience, and pleasure, as Calvin has rightly shown.

That the will plays a part in the act of faith is recognised also by Thomas Aquinas, even when he attributes faith specifically to the intellectus, and defines it as assent to the truths revealed by God. For, in order to distinguish faith from knowledge, he lays down the principle that in knowledge one is moved to assent to the truth through the object itself, but in faith and opinion not through the object of knowledge alone, but therewith also through the co-operation of the will. If these be the common distinguishing marks, then knowledge is opinion, if it be accompanied by doubt, or fear of the opposite possibility; and the knowledge of revealed truth supported by the will is faith, if it be accompanied by certainty regarding what is known.⁹ In the Tridentine Decree, Session vi., it is recognised that faith in this sense is fundamentum et radix justificationis; it is acknowledged, however, that something else must accompany this initial act of faith, in order to attain justification. Here then it is admitted that a rational knowledge of Revelation, comprehended in a formal resolution of the will, is not a sufficient ground for justification. It is therefore further maintained that, in order to attain justification, love must accompany faith, and that in a relation so close that love becomes the very essence of faith. Now the argument which Thomas advances in support of his thesis goes directly to prove that love to God as the highest good gives its essential character to faith.¹⁰ If the Catholic idea of fides caritate formata were here accurately and exhaustively described, I should see nothing therein to contradict the Evangelical idea of faith. For faith, regarded as trust, is no other than the direction of the will towards God as the highest end and the highest good. When, therefore, Möhler¹¹ represents to us that trust in the love of God is begotten from a corresponding movement of the human soul, namely, love to God, he tells us nothing new or startling. But the above-mentioned conclusion of Thomas is not the whole Catholic doctrine. In the elaboration of the thema in the third article of the Tridentine Creed—quod unumquodque operatur per suam formam: fides autem per dilectionem operatur, ergo dilectio caritatis est fidei forma—“love” is indeed used strictly in the sense of “love to God”; but it is undoubtedly the fact, in spite of Möhler’s fine colouring, that in the Catholic doctrine this Pauline principle is used as the correlate of justificatio in the sense of “active love to men.”¹² For this is intentionally not distinguished from “love to God,” as the unrelated expression caritas shows.

Thomas, indeed, proceeds to argue that love to God and love to men are not different acts, but one and the same act, only with different extensions.¹³ The principle on which he bases this argument is, that the specific character of an act is determined by the essential ground of the object to which the act relates. According to this principle, the act which relates to a given object, and that which extends directly to the essential ground of the object, are specifically identical. For example, the seeing of light and the seeing of colours on the ground of light, are specifically one act. In the same way, love to God and love to men are represented as one act, because God is the ground of love to one’s fellow-men, and because the aim of such love is that every man should be in God, that is, should find his blessedness in God. But in my opinion the essential ground of an object is related to the object as the universal to the particular. Therefore the act which is directed to the particular on the ground of the universal will always have its relation also to the universal; but not vice versâ. Therefore, if God is the ground of genuine love to one’s fellow-men, that is, love which desires for one’s fellow-men that perfection and blessedness which they will find in God, every act of love to one’s fellow-men will also be an act of love to God; but not vice versâ, every act of love to God will not also extend to one’s fellow-men. It may be urged as an argument for the latter thesis, that the seeing of light is always also the seeing of colours. But the analogy is not valid. For light appears only in its colours; but God does not exist only in men.

The passage 1 John iv. 21, too, the meaning of which Thomas attempts to turn to fit in with his own conclusion, only contains the commandment that he who loves God shall love his brother also. That is, love to God is not in itself bound up with love to one’s fellow-men; but the latter is a special resolution of the will, quite distinct from love to God.

We must accordingly, it is true, concede to the Roman Catholic theologians that love to God constitutes the essence of faith, if in that idea the thought is expressed that the will is directed to God as its highest end. The determination of the specific character of faith will then depend on such conditions as the attributes under which God is conceived, the idea entertained regarding man’s own power of will, and the estimate of the present capacity of the will for faith, compared with its former incapacity. Through these conditions, and others yet to be considered, therefore through the necessary modes of representing faith, it will be shown that faith is in intellectu tanquam in subjecto. That is, faith has for its material content the ideas which mediate the movement of the will which is expressed in it. This material element of faith, however, is not really faith in its specific character, apart from the essential form of the love to God which is related to it. The error in the Thomist theology consists only in this, that fides informis is treated, contrary to the above principle, as a real stage of faith, and that the qualifying phrase formatio per caritatem is introduced as merely the complement of the hitherto imperfect faith. This method of procedure, of course, involves a contradiction in itself. For either caritas is forma fidei, in which case fides informis, regarded as actus intellectus, is formless matter, and therefore the possibility, not the reality, of faith; or caritas is real fides, in which case the act of will in faith is merely accidental, not the essential element. If, then, caritas Dei, as Thomas has really shown, is to be conceived as the essence of faith, one is unable to see how this thought can be made to appear contradictory to the Evangelical idea of faith as fiducia Dei. The latter is only a specialised mode of conceiving the same idea. But the notorious Catholic interpretation of caritas as “the active exercise of love to men”—the identity of which with “love to God” has not been demonstrated by Thomas—stands in direct contradiction to the Evangelical idea.

The general ground on which this Catholic assumption must be rejected is that the characteristic marks which distinguish Christianity as a religion, and those which denote its ethical purpose, are therein confused with one another; whereas, if Christianity is not to be distorted and falsified in both respects, they ought to be clearly distinguished. Justification depends solely on faith, that is, trust in God, as its direct correlate, because, in the Christian sense, it denotes the definite relation of men to God as their Father, which is necessary under the presupposition of sin, and possible in view of the consciousness of guilt. Now the active exercise of love to men does not enter as an element into this definite relation to God. The recognised Evangelical doctrine, it is true, maintains that the impulse to love one’s fellow-men, which is the fundamental principle of active human life, is essentially bound up with the very idea of justification. For Christianity is the ethical religion; and wherever entrance into the specifically Christian status before God is realised, Christianity brings into exercise also the corresponding moral impulse. But for the very reason that the religious character of Christianity and its ethical purpose are different, active love to men, which is directed towards the ethical end of Christianity, cannot hold good also as the direct condition for the religious relation to God which justification denotes. The Christian designation of God as our Father, it is true, comprises also the notion of His Lordship over the Kingdom of God. For under that title we pray to God that His Kingdom may come. Now, love to one’s fellow-men is a deduction from the highest principle which dominates all moral action, namely, regard to the Kingdom of God. Therefore the impulse to such love stands also in relation to the idea of God as Father. But the mutual relation which exists between God as Father and believers means one thing when represented as the peculiar status before the Father into which Christianity brings believers, and quite another when represented as their co-operation with the Father in advancing the common end of the Kingdom of God. The peculiar status before God into which Christianity brings believers, therefore, consists in this, that God receives believers, in spite of their sin and their consciousness of guilt, into that fellowship with Himself which guarantees their salvation or eternal life. This relationship extends to all Christians as such. In so far, therefore, as we are dealing with the entrance of each individual through faith, that is, trust, into fellowship with God, the question of the moral relationship between the believers, the impulse to which is given therewith, does not come directly into consideration: nor is it possible to see how this question should come into consideration.

Where the faith which is related to justification comes into exercise, it is related also to God. And as it is called forth by reconciliation on God’s part, it must be considered, in its relation to justification, not as a work of man possessed of independent value, but rather as the act through which the new relation of men to God, realised in justification, is religiously recognised and actually established.¹⁴ Therefore the Pietistic wresting of the idea of justification to mean an analytic judgment on the value of faith (§ 16), is an approach to the Catholic view. We must not, however, fail to observe, as a difference between the two, that in the Pietistic view the idea of love to men is not included as an element in faith. Rather, in that view, only the manifold strivings of love to God, the aspirations after full faith, that is, the desire for the knowledge of saving truth, the hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and, finally, the acceptance of Christ, through which the knowledge of and assent to the saving doctrine are raised from the sphere of intellect to that of personal conviction (vol. i. p. 359)—only these, regarded as worthy effects of union with Christ, are brought under the special judgment of justification. This view is in perfect harmony with the first application of the Thomist notion of fides caritate formata, namely, the proposition that love to God gives reality and value to merely intellectual faith. The Pietists, however, distinctly avoid the further step which Thomas takes, the attempt to pass off love to men as identical with love to God. The language they use, moreover, does not warrant our bringing any one of them into harmony with the Tridentine Creed.

§ 20. The ground of justification, or the forgiveness of sins, is the benevolent, gracious, merciful purpose of God to vouchsafe to sinful men the privilege of access to Himself. The form in which sinners appropriate this gift is faith, that is, the emotional trust in God, accompanied by the conviction of the value of this gift for one’s blessedness, which, called forth by God’s grace, takes the place of the former mistrust which was bound up with the feeling of guilt. Through trust in God’s grace the alienation of sinners from God, which was essentially connected with the unrelieved feeling of guilt, is removed. This is evidence that the guilt, so far as it prevents access to God, is forgiven by God. The purpose of God to forgive sinners is represented by the Reformers, under the notions of promissio and evangelium, not only as an openly revealed volition, but also as one which lays the foundation of a fellowship among men. In the gradation of the bearers of this Revelation, Christ, as the Mediator of the Gospel, is reckoned first. The next place after Him is accorded to the community which He founded, every member of which has authority to proclaim the justifying grace of God, especially the official representatives of the Church, whose function is to transmit the promissio remissionis peccatorum propter Christum. Besides these human organs, who by their word make the revelation of God in Christ efficacious for the community which He founded, the sacraments are channels of the same sin-forgiving grace, inasmuch as they contain the Word or Gospel of God as their essence, and apply the Gospel in a peculiar way to the members of the community. Therefore the unity of the Church is essentially bound up with the pure preaching of the Gospel and the proper administration of the two sacraments, and in the same degree with nothing else. Now the pure Gospel is defined in the Augsburg Confession chap. vii., as the preaching of justification in the above-represented sense, namely, as depending on the merit of Christ, and thus excluding the idea of human merits.¹⁵ This preaching of the Gospel is the distinctive mark of the existence of a community of believers; for, according to the same Confession chap. v., it is only through the Word of God, in preaching and sacraments, that faith is called into existence. It follows, then, that, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, faith is identical in each individual case, and common to all the members of the community. Against this representation, however, the objection has been made that faith may be awakened in men through their own efforts, without the regular instrumentality of the publicly preached Word.

But these fundamental views of the Reformation are not disproved by the fact that very many hear the preaching of the Word without being led through any mechanical compulsion to the point of faith, and the contrary fact that very many attain to faith without being directly led thereto through the hearing of a preached sermon. The principle was not arrived at from the consideration of such instances. Therefore it ought not to stand in the way of a full investigation of the manifold experiences of life. The recognition of the principle, in reality, only involves the proviso, that one cannot arrive at and maintain individual conviction of faith in isolation from the already existing community of faith, and that that community is coextensive with the spread of the Gospel, that is, the public preaching of the forgiveness of sins. And even if a man’s conversion were as far as possible from being occasioned by the hearing of such preaching, yet the thesis in the 5th Article of the Augsburg Confession would be proved true by the fact that all the spiritual ideas which are effective in bringing about a conversion are derived from the Gospel, and become known to the converted person only through the Gospel; that, therefore, his conversion is entirely dependent on the purpose of God revealed in the Gospel. The maintenance of this principle is necessary for the welfare of the Church, in order that the individual’s own struggle for faith may not be esteemed as independent of, or opposed to, the public preaching of the Word. The effect of such individualistic ideas would be, as seen, for example, in the history of the Anabaptists, that the Church would be given over to the conflicts of sectarianism, and that the faith itself would be falsified. The connection of faith with the revelation of grace through the Word was also plainly recognised by Calvin.¹⁶ If, therefore, the community of believers is coextensive with the influence of the Gospel, and if the Gospel has no other sphere for the proclamation of its glad tidings of God’s readiness to forgive sins, then those striking statements of Luther are intelligible, namely, that “the Church is full of the forgiveness of sins”; that “within the fold of the Christian Church God daily and richly forgives me, the individual, all my sins”; and that “the Church, as a mother, bears and nurtures every individual through the Word” (vol. i. pp. 161, 176). Calvin repeats the latter statement (Inst. iv. 1. 4). Finally, Luther pursues the same thought in a characteristic way. He loves, namely, to represent the Church as the Bride of Christ, with whom, in accordance with marriage right, Christ joins in a mutual exchange of benefits, He taking upon Himself the sins of the believing, and Himself imparting His righteousness to them.¹⁷ In this representation of the process of justification by faith, however, Luther insists on the fact that the blessings which accrue to the individual are only imparted to him in common with all the others with whom he is bound up, through the same salvation, in the unity of the Church.

This idea, that the benefit of justification accrues to individuals as constituting the community of believers, corresponds to the significant expressions used in the New Testament regarding the sacrifice of Christ. For the conception of Christ’s sacrifice through the types of the covenant sacrifice and the yearly sin-offering of the Israelites brings the forgiveness of sins which results from Christ’s sacrifice into direct relation to the community founded by Him (vol. ii. p. 216). The individual can therefore appropriate the forgiveness of sins by faith only when he unites in his faith at once trust in God and Christ, and the intention to connect himself with the community of believers. For the individual who is led to faith always finds the domain of human life which is determined and governed by the forgiveness of sins already marked out for him; and, moreover, he has to attach himself to the community of believers all the more decisively that he is indebted to that community for the knowledge of salvation and for stimuli of incalculable strength urging him to appropriate salvation. The relation of justification to the community of believers has been recognised not only by Brenz, who followed strictly in Luther’s footsteps (vol. i. p. 209), but also by successive ascetics and theologians from Spener to Jer. Friedr. Reuss.¹⁸ The idea has disappeared, however, in the orthodox Lutheran Dogmatics, because Melanchthon, the founder of that Dogmatics, rejected the above-quoted statements of Luther. The first edition of his Loci theologici contains no article at all on the Church. Here, therefore, he explains justification as exclusively an experience of the individual. In the following editions he has appended a chapter on the doctrine of the Church. He has, however, preserved unaltered his former scheme of justification. Melanchthon has indeed kept in view the factor of the Gospel, or the Word, of God, or the Divine promise. But he has nowhere made it clear that the community, to which the ministry of the Gospel is committed, thereby comprehends within its scope the process which he analyses as the experience of the individual. He testifies on several occasions that the community is the bearer of the Gospel;¹⁹ but he nowhere brings this idea into connection with the explanation of justification as mediated through the promises, or the Gospel, of God. The Reformed theology, on the other hand, following Calvin’s example, has rightly understood and maintained Luther’s view (vol. i. p. 205), and has accordingly represented the justification of the individual as conditioned by the existence of the community (vol. i. p. 309). In spite of this representation, however, the mystical conception of the scheme of salvation, which completely isolates the individual from connection with the Church, has gained a place within the sphere of the Reformed Church as well as the Lutheran.

Mysticism (vol. i. pp. 120, 356), which claims to lead men to the attainment of essential union with God, is quite different from the Evangelical doctrine of justification by faith; and its sentimental communion with Christ as the Bridegroom is quite different from trust in Christ as the Bearer of the Divine promise. The mystical communion of love with Christ, it is claimed, transcends trust in the merits of Christ. The true believers, says Wilhelm Brakel, receive the Lord Jesus into their hearts; they do not remain content with the benefits guaranteed by Him, but turn for full satisfaction to the Source Himself. Union with God, says Johann Arndt, in agreement with Tauler, is found in one’s own heart; for “the Kingdom of God is within you.” “In our heart is the real school of the Holy Ghost, the real workplace of the Holy Ghost, the real house of prayer in spirit and in truth.” In this statement, so little account is taken by Arndt of the authoritative instrument of grace, the preached Word of God, that he expressly maintains the revelation of the eternal Word within the pious soul, the communication of God’s mind within the loving heart.²⁰ The doctrine of justification in the usual orthodox representation is indeed recognised by the mystics as the presupposition of these inner experiences, but has no influence on their circle of thought. If that doctrine had been still rightly understood, they would not have returned to the mediaeval types of religious life which had been condemned by Luther. Wherever Mysticism is found, the thought of justification no longer retains its true significance as the key to the whole domain of Christian life, but is so depreciated as to become a mere formal precondition of the immediate union with God, or the immediate communion with Christ, which Mysticism strives to attain.²¹ One of the chief marks of distinction between the two opposite views, however, is that, wherever men give way to mystical states or aspirations, they imagine that the sphere of the preached Word and the promises of grace, therefore the necessary subordination to the public Revelation in the Church, is transcended and may be forgotten. The falsehood of this pretended immediate communion with, or immediate relation to, Christ, in which men endeavour to enjoy all possible forms of blessedness apart from and beyond the forgiveness of sins, has also been shown by Calvin in the passage: “Haec vera est Christi cognitio, si eum qualis offertur a patre, suscipimus, nempe evangelio suo vestitum” (Inst. iii. 2. 6). Now the Song of Songs, from the allegorical exposition of which all those plays of fancy are derived, does not belong to the Gospel with which Christ is invested (vestitus). The whole mystical scheme, in fine, lies outside the spiritual horizon of the Reformers; it has no point of agreement with their doctrinal standards; it stands in contradiction to both the direct and the indirect estimate of the value of the community of believers and the public preaching of the Word of grace, which the standards attest; and, judged in its own special character, it is no improvement on the Reformed type of religious life, as certainly as it is derived from the practice of Monasticism.

§ 21. With justification by faith in the Evangelical sense, there is bound up the attribute of Christian freedom from the law. Under the heading libertas christiana the older theologians bring together various heterogeneous ideas. The place of the doctrine in the theological system is thus rendered uncertain. One hardly knows at the first glance whether Melanchthon, in closing his principal theological work with the doctrine of Christian freedom, means thereby to distinguish freedom as the highest mark of Christian life, or is merely adding a supplement, the content of which he was unable to insert elsewhere. As he deduces the principal points in the doctrine of Christian freedom from the redemption mediated through Christ, the place which he has selected for the exposition of the doctrine is certainly not rightly chosen; the section, indeed, actually appears to be merely a supplementary treatment of sundry hitherto forgotten points. In any case the Lutheran divines have regarded the matter in this way; for not only has the locus “de libertate christiana” entirely disappeared from their systems, but they have introduced the various elements of the idea scattered here and there in all possible places, and mentioned only incidentally. Not only so, but later divines, like Hollatz and Buddeus, omit the idea altogether. On the contrary, in Calvin’s Institutio the doctrine of Christian freedom immediately follows that of justification, and is related to it by the express statement that it is necessary for the understanding of the meaning of justification.²² Therefore, in the great majority of the Reformed divines, the “locus” entitled “de libertate christiana” either appears in its true place, or the subject is treated in connection with the ideas of justification and adoption.

Melanchthon enumerates four grades of freedom—freedom from sin and the wrath of God, the freedom of the new life inspired by the Holy Ghost, freedom from the Mosaic law, and freedom from the yoke of human ordinances in the worship of the Church. Under the aspect of freedom from the Mosaic law, Melanchthon also maintains the right of the different national legislations. Now, if we compare this combination of ideas with Calvin’s, we find that Calvin omits the first—freedom from sin and the wrath of God (and rightly, because this attribute is not co-ordinate with, but rather, as an expression of redemtio, the basis of the following), and also the third—freedom from the Mosaic law (again rightly, because the Mosaic law not only belongs to a quite different order of things from the Christian faith, but is introduced into the Christian system merely through an entirely false conception of the significance of the Old Testament for the Christian community). While Calvin has thus retained only the second and fourth of those four grades of Christian freedom, he has put in the forefront another aspect of freedom, to which he was necessarily led from regard to the true nature of justification. It is just the other side of justification by faith, that nothing of law or legal works should play a part in it.²³ To this fundamental principle we must reduce the last of the aspects of Christian freedom, the right, namely, to regard human ordinances in the Church as indifferent. There remain, therefore, two principal forms of freedom—freedom from all considerations alike of Divine and of human law in the act of justification itself, and the freedom from legal compulsion, that is, the freedom of will in rendering obedience to the Divine law, which one enjoys as the result of justification in the status of faith. Luther’s treatment of the subject of freedom also leads to these two results.²⁴ It is easy, however, to see that these two aspects of freedom are heterogeneous, and that the second does not belong to the explanation of justification as a religious relation to God. For it describes the nature of the moral conduct which goes along with justifying faith, but yet cannot be derived solely from that faith—even though the Reformers, on grounds which cannot yet be considered, entertain that notion. We have here, therefore, to take account only of the freedom from Divine law and from human Church laws which is asserted when justification is referred to faith alone.

As the definite form of this doctrine has without doubt been modelled on Paul’s arguments in the Epistle to the Galatians, it might be asked what practical interest we have in still retaining it in mind. For since the time when Jewish Christianity disappeared from history, the error of the “foolish Galatians” has only reappeared among the Pasagians in North Italy (in the eleventh century), and the Russian Sabbatniki (since the end of the fifteenth century); while against the temptation to relapse into Jewish Christianity we Protestants are quite secure. If, then, the conception of Divine law, from which by virtue of justification the believer is free, be understood in a less accurate sense than Paul intended, the thought of freedom from Divine law will mean that justification in the Evangelical sense does not include the conditions which the Catholic view of justification claims to be essential—in short, that the two homonymous ideas are directly incommensurable. For if active love to one’s neighbour be an essential element in justification, as the Catholic view represents, then the law plays a part in the process of justification; and if the value of justification be enhanced through obedience to Divine and ecclesiastical commandments (Trid. Sess. vi. 10), then human Church ordinances are obligatory for justification. Therefore the notion of Christian freedom from the law has for us only this meaning, that justification, as we understand it, is quite different from justification in the Catholic view. Thus it is quite evident why Luther, in comparing his present with his former monastic life, and Calvin, like Luther, from his Reformed opposition to the Catholic practice, had so strong an interest in maintaining the principle that moral action is no part of the process of justification, and that justification has nothing to do with the performance of ceremonial rites, therefore that the believer as such is free from the law. On the contrary, where Evangelical life has gained possession of the field independently of Catholic types of doctrine, one may, as is actually shown to be the case, have no personal interest in the notion of freedom from the law, but regard it as merely the test of the difference between the two opposed conceptions of justification.

The matter, however, is not yet settled. The Pauline principle that “through the works of the law no man is justified,” is indeed only the negative side of the prophetic expression that “the just shall live by faith” (vol. ii. p. 309). But Pharisaism, the falsification of Christianity by which is here guarded against, has a significance which has extended quite beyond its immediate historical appearance. The error of Pharisaism consists in this, that it transforms the religious relation of men to God into a legal relation, and represents ceremonial rites as the substantial elements in the formation of moral character, and therefore as works of merit for God and men (vol. ii. p. 277). This error was fallen into not only by that Jewish party, but also by many within the Christian Church. It is met with especially in various Catholic positions which are most closely connected with the idea of justification. It is Pharisaic, when the assertion is made that the justification which is grounded on grace is enhanced in value through obedience to the Church’s commandments; for the Church’s commandments have only a ceremonial content, which is of no value for the public well-being. It is Pharisaic, when increase of grace is derived from good works, reckoned as merits (Trid. Sess. vi. can. 32); for “merit” signifies, at least according to Thomas, a legal claim upon God, even though the claim be due to grace (vol. i. p. 71). Therefore the principle of freedom from the law and of freedom as against human Church ordinances is valuable as a standard for the recognition of the Pharisaic error in the Christian religion. Even Evangelical Christianity has not altogether avoided that error.

A specially significant application of the relation of freedom from the law to the idea of justification has recently been made by Schweizer. He arranges the whole history of religion according to that principle. Between the religion of nature and the religion of redemption he places a second necessary stage, namely, the religion of law, asserting that in that stage the pious soul, in harmony with the influence of the moral world, acknowledges its dependence on the wisdom, creative power, providence, and judicial authority of God.²⁵ This assumption, however, is of doubtful value. For the definition is not applicable to the religion of the Old Testament. The latter, moreover, did not degenerate into “mere religion of law and Judaistic holiness of works” through having first shut itself against the possibility of advance to the religion of redemption. For Pharisaism is older than Christianity. And again, it is not in harmony with the description of Pharisaism as a “mere religion of law and legal rights” that the religion of law is again recognised as the positive historical preparation for the religion of redemption, and also as an abiding element of that religion in the act of penitence. When, however, Schweizer says that once the religion has been fully revealed, the pious consciousness is made absolutely free from the religion of law, he is merely giving expression to the thought of libertas a lege.²⁶ A special significance is not to be attached to this negative statement. Schweizer is hardly justified, however, in concluding from these facts that “the moral Rationalism of which Kant was the founder, and also in some measure the older Socinianism, were attempts to comprehend Christianity itself again as a mere religion of law, excluding all that claims to be revelation and redemption as imagination or error.” This characterisation does not adequately describe even the Socinian position, far less the Rationalism of the disciples of Kant. For both tendencies of thought are averse to all ceremonial practices. They do not surrender the significance of the grace of God, and they are far from reducing religion to notions of law. As a general rule, Protestantism is little exposed to the Pharisaic error. For even where in Evangelical Christianity ceremonial practices are esteemed too highly, there is found, as far as one can observe, no accompanying claim of right before God. The Sabbath rest, as observed in the Puritan habits of life in Scotland and England, is indeed in entire harmony with the Pharisaic conception of the Mosaic law; but in as far as the practice is maintained as a national custom it is free from the suspicion of a claim of right upon God. It would only become the occasion of a religious error, if, for example, it were made the basis for the judgment that the Christianity of Germany is imperfect because it is without that custom. The case is similar when Pietists deny the existence of faith in those persons in whom they miss the exact demeanour and modes of speech which they have made into a ceremonial law for themselves.

§ 22. Justification or reconciliation is the determination of God as Father to admit sinners, in spite of their sin and consciousness of guilt, to that relation of fellowship with Himself which includes the right of sonship and the inheritance of eternal life. This relation to God is subject from the other side to the condition that faith, that is, the direction of the will to God as the highest end, should be called forth in the sinner, and that the feeling of mistrust which operates in the consciousness of faith should be converted into trust in God as Father. And finally, since justification or reconciliation is the fundamental principle of Christianity as a religion, through which all other corresponding functions first become possible, and at the same time forms the content of the public preaching of the Gospel, it must not merely be officially represented by the existent religious community, but must also be realised in the experience of every individual within the community. With regard, however, to the question of the extent of God’s purpose of justification, there still remains unsettled the controversy between the Lutheran and the Reformed theologians (vol. i. pp. 305–314). Both the contending parties can appeal to definite expressions in the Epistles of the New Testament in support of their views (vol. ii. p. 216). In the Reformed view, the Divine purpose of justification through Christ is limited to those persons whom God has eternally elected in their individual capacity as recipients of salvation. This true community of Christ is the primary object of justification, which is manifested in the resurrection of Christ; the individual experiences that grace only in so far as he belongs by election, call, and spiritual incorporation, to the true community of Christ. For the eternally reprobate there is neither a purpose of justification on the part of God, nor the corresponding purpose on the part of Christ, even although His work in itself might have had power to secure pardon for all men. In the Lutheran view (vol. i. p. 308), the wish of God, in accordance with which He has provided for the reconciliation of His justice through Christ, is directed to the salvation of all men, and Christ has also in intention made satisfaction both for elect and reprobate. But the offer of salvation which is made to all men results in justification effectually only in the case of those who exercise faith. On account, therefore, of this necessary condition of an effective result, God has eternally elected from the mass of the sinful race the individual persons whose faith He foresaw.

Neither of these opposed views is true; for they have alike two errors in common. The Lutheran view, on the very face of it, shows inconsistency in its conception of God. For according to that view, God’s openly-expressed will, as made known in the Gospel, is directed to the salvation of all men; while His secret will, which alone is really effective, limits salvation to a portion of mankind, those, namely, who fulfil the condition of faith. This inconsistency, it is true, does not appear in the Reformed system of doctrine, as officially represented. It is involved, however, in that system. For along with the particular purpose of election and justification, the law-giving will of God extends the promise of salvation to all men. The other, the fundamental, error in both theories consists in this, that the human race on the one side, and the community of the elect on the other, are represented as sums of individuals, and that on both sides the real destination of individuals to salvation is given out as an eternal act of God. Now, the only passage in which Paul speaks of an election of individuals (Rom. ix. 11) merely conveys the sense that the Divine act is superordinate in respect of relative temporal priority to the self-activity of men.²⁷ All the other expressions of the apostles on this subject (Rom. viii. 29; Eph. i. 4; 1 Pet. i. 1) refer to the community as a whole. Eternal election of individuals is neither a Biblical idea nor a religious conception, but merely a deduction of Augustine’s from his abstract idea of God—an idea which makes all temporal history nothing but unreal appearance. Now, our intuition of time is arrived at through the distinction which we draw between our different ideas; our notion of time is fixed through the thought of the dependence of effects on causes. The reality of the world for God, as we must needs conceive it, depends on the condition that in the whole the individual also, which is subject to change, is willed by Him. If so, then the form of time also has its validity for Him. Now the individual man is dependent on a succession of middle causes. God can therefore conceive the individual only as he appears in time. Eternal predestination of individuals to salvation, whether unconditioned or conditioned by the faith which God has foreseen, is altogether contrary to reason.

In the Lutheran teaching, in particular, there is a peculiar limitation of the ordinary usage of words, by which justification is made to find its correlate in the individual believer as such. It has been already observed how the original close relation of justification to the end of eternal life, a relation through which the idea of justification receives a quite characteristic colouring, has been overlooked by the Lutheran divines (§ 15). In the Reformers these two thoughts appear as interchangeable ideas, which are not to be conceived apart from one another. The Lutherans, on the other hand, regard the Divine purpose to bestow eternal life upon all men as belonging to the domain of antecedent grace, without reflecting that that gift can only be conveyed as the result of justification. Moreover, when they represent the satisfaction which Christ has made for all men, both elect and reprobate, as the means whereby the antecedent universal gracious purpose of God is freed from the restraints due to His justice, they do not add the thought that the grace of God thereby becomes effective for all men. Rather, they deduce as the only consequence of the redemptive work of Christ the public proclamation of the Divine grace in the Gospel, along with the conditions brought into existence by the work of Christ. It is only here that the principle first finds expression, that he who fixes his faith thereon is justified. Now, in this scheme the idea of justification is so represented that the extension of the privilege of the new fellowship with God, which is no more fettered by sin, is made superordinate to all possible changes in the sinners, especially regeneration. But justification does not become effective in the case of the individual except through the condition of faith. Now faith is only possible as the result of regeneration. Therefore regeneration necessarily precedes justification. Therefore, also, the idea of regeneration is superordinate to that of justification. That is, justification can only be brought into relation with the individual as such by surrendering what the Lutherans are interested in maintaining, the superordination of justification to regeneration. The Lutheran theologians have sought to escape from their false position by defining regeneration through the Holy Ghost, which they allow to precede justification, in the strictest possible sense as donatio fidei (vol. i. p. 304), and by making renovatio or sanctificatio, that is, the capacity for good works through the Holy Ghost, follow justification. But even supposing this sequence of ideas were represented not in the form of time, but logically, there can be found within the idea of the Holy Ghost no conceivable ground why the establishment of religious susceptibility and that of moral capacity for good works should not take place in one single act. Moreover, faith, even when regarded as susceptibility to the Divine grace, is only conceivable as the positive direction of the will to God, and as such is no mere formal activity, but a real power with a definite content. Thus it is only by means of doubtful distinctions that the Lutheran divines apparently evade the difficulty which they incur through the exclusive reference of justification to the individual. If one continues to regard this method of conceiving the idea of justification as valid, while refusing to be bound by the recognised distinctions, then the thought of justification is distorted into an analytic judgment on the value of faith (p. 84).

The Lutheran representation of justification which we have just discussed harmonises with the Reformation conception of the problem in so far as the latter finds justification in the experience which necessarily falls within the limits of the individual life. On this depends another characteristic feature of the original Reformation view, namely, the representation of justification as the immediate result of the work of Christ. Dogmatic theology has, however, placed a wide gulf between the work of Christ and the justification of the individual, in respect not only of time, but also of the object. Inasmuch as justification is the content of the Divine purpose of grace, which results from the reconciliation of that purpose with the justice of God through the work of Christ, and is thereby distinguished from the antecedent grace of God, a formula comes into existence which is worthy of special attention, although it appeared in history only before the stereotyping of the Lutheran doctrine, and once more in the time of its decadence. The work of Christ is regarded, namely, not only as the efficacious means of reconciling God, but also as the expression of the gracious will of God directed to the redemption and justification of the whole human race. After Osiander, contrary to the original opinion of the Reformers, had differentiated both temporally and logically the ideas of redemption and justification (Gerechtmachung) through Christ, Strigel sought to maintain the identity of both ideas (vol. i. p. 241). To this end he had to distinguish between the successive justification (Gerechtsprechung) of individual believers and the value of the historical event which revealed the justifying grace of God in general. He was thus led, through maintaining the Lutheran universalism, to construct the formula that through Christ the human race has been redeemed, sanctified, and justified, but that these benefits are applied to individuals only when they believe in Christ and are baptized in His name. This formula recurs in Fresenius.²⁸ It is noteworthy in this connection that Fresenius arrives in the last sentence at the view of Samuel Huber, which had been rejected in its day by the Lutheran theologians.²⁹ And this is no mere accident. For if we bring justification into such close relation to the redemptive work of Christ as the religious view of Luther and Melanchthon demands; if, further, we attribute no particular “ reference ” to the Divine purpose of redemption and justification; if, finally, we regard the purpose to justify all men as the expression of the eternal determination of the will of God in order to give decisive weight to the temporal revelation of the will of God—then the eternal destination of salvation, or election, holds good for all men. But if so, then the election of all men, being afterwards rendered inoperative through the decision of individuals for unbelief, has the character only of a wish which remains for the greatest part unfulfilled. The flaw in the Lutheran conception of the Divine scheme of salvation in the world, therefore, appears also under these presuppositions, although at a different point from that in which it appears in the authoritative type of doctrine of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Although Huber’s thesis, that God has eternally elected and foreordained to life all men through Christ, cannot be established on exegetical grounds, and bears on the face of it the character of a fixed idea rather than a theological proposition, yet, as a protest against Calvin’s classification of men as either eternally reprobate or eternally elect, it is not without interest. It was from the very outset an unwarranted overstepping of theological competency to define the Biblical thought of Divine election more precisely by filling out, through rational processes, the opposite thought of reprobation. For the religious interest is only concerned with the question whether oneself belongs to the number of the elect, while one’s human sympathies, when not suppressed by dogmatism, will always rise in revolt against the idea of eternal reprobation as represented by Luther (De servo arbitrio) and Calvin. And besides, the cognitive interest is not satisfied by this idea of reprobation, since one is not competent to subsume definite men under this predicate. Therefore Huber is worth our remembrance, if only we confine our attention to the negative side of the gratia universalis which he proclaimed so indefatigably. Huber was, however, a very poor theologian, inasmuch as he did no justice to the thought of the election of the human race in Christ, which he deduced from Eph. i. 4, 5. The doctrine of twofold predestination, as held by Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, has absolutely no connection with the thought of election in Christ. Thus, when the later Reformation system-builders saw themselves compelled to come to an understanding with this formula, the orthodox Calvinistic school maintained that the predestination of redemption through Christ was subordinate to the predestination of the elect individuals to salvation, as the means to the end. But, as I have already shown (vol. i. p. 306), some of the most important Reformed theologians have determined the relation of the two ideas differently. They think of Christ, in whom the community as a whole is elected, under the attribute of His Lordship over the community, and accordingly regard the predestination of Christ as the chief Heir of God as preceding the election of the community to participation in His inheritance, as the ground precedes the consequence.³⁰ This view, which is held by Amesius, Heidegger, and Witsius, involves, in truth, as much as the orthodox view, the validity of the idea of particular election with all its peculiar consequences, therefore also the thought of reprobation. The latter, however, no longer rightly. For the condition under which reprobation became co-ordinated with election has disappeared. The community is elected as a whole in Christ, its Head; the reprobate, on the other hand, are reprobated only as individuals. Amesius further, through his expressed comparison between the solidarity of the elect community in Christ and the solidarity of the human race in Adam, opens up a new view of the meaning and end of election. He represents the creation of men, namely, as completed through the Son of God, Whose communion with the human race was predestinated in the eternal election of God. This thought was already indicated by Zwingli:³¹ and it has since been more fully developed by Schleiermacher.

We have to take account of three ideas, in virtue of which Schleiermacher rose above the limits of theological tradition, and which act and react in certain definite ways on one another. Although the conception of redemption denotes comprehensively the whole work of Christ, yet it does not form a suitable expression of the Divine decree, inasmuch as it stands in direct relation to the fact of sin. The latter is indeed ordained by God, in order that men should realise the formerly-existent insurmountable incapacity of the God-consciousness as a personal activity, and thus acquire the longing after redemption. But as God is not the Author of evil, and as the latter is no creative thought of God, redemption denotes not so much directly the Divine decree concerning men, as rather the practical effect of that decree in harmony with the special circumstances. Therefore the Divine decree of redemption applies properly to the completion of the creation of men in the Person of Christ. In this idea there is expressly included the thought that the attainment of perfect human life was not to be reached along the lines of mere natural development from Adam (§ 89, 1). If, now, the privilege of sonship to God which is bestowed in justification is the positive new status in which men participate in the life of Christ and in His relationship to His Father, then we must not think of merely isolated acts of justification. These acts are only manifestations in time of the one eternal Divine decree of the justification of men for Christ’s sake. This decree is identical with that of the sending of Christ into the world, and also with that of the creation of the human race, in so far as human nature is perfected and made pleasing to God in Christ (§ 109, 2. 3). Now the election of those who are justified, and who as such enter into the Kingdom of God which was founded by Christ, is an idea which the common Christian feeling applies to all who are already within the circle over which the influence of Christ’s work extends, or who may hereafter enter into that circle. This idea, moreover, is regarded as an expression of the Divine world-order, which demands, as necessary conditions for salvation, the freedom of each individual and his personal relation to the world and to the history of the accomplishment of salvation. A judgment on the eternal and unconditioned reprobation of individuals, therefore, cannot possibly be deduced from this idea of election, but only the judgment that certain individuals have not yet been brought within the sphere of the operations of Divine grace. But if we follow theological tradition in its idea that those who die outside of the fellowship of Christ have no possible access to fellowship with Him, this means that those persons are altogether non-existent as regards the domain of the new creation of humanity which was opened up by Christ. But, seeing that even the elect enter only gradually into this domain, the conception of predestination cannot in any way be related to individuals. The following proposition results instead: “There is one Divine predestination, according to which the whole of the new creation is called into being from out the whole mass of the human race” (§ 119). This is not only an essentially new definition of the problem of election, but also the opening up of a way towards the settlement of the controversy regarding the extent of justification.³²

The writers of the New Testament, as a general rule, confine the definite application of the benefits of Christianity to the Christian community, that is, to those persons who therein represent a peculiar stage of humanity. Whenever Paul, for example, treats of predestination and eternal election, he has the community of Christ in view (Rom. viii. 29, 30; Eph. i. 4). This limitation of horizon is in harmony with the fact that redemption and justification, regarded alike according to Divine purpose, according to the purpose of Jesus Himself, and as matter of actual experience, are correlated to the community of believers (vol. ii. p. 216). Paul, indeed, in one instance (Rom. v. 18) relates justification to all men, in the same way as he has related the sentence of condemnation which attaches to Adam’s transgression. But in the explanatory addition the thought is restricted to “ the many,” an expression which has been already used as a key-word in the comparison between Christ and Adam. The “ all,” whom God “ has shut up under disobedience ” in order again “ to have mercy upon them ” (Rom. xi. 32), refers, as the context shows, not to individual men, but to the nations, which were formerly opposed to one another as Gentiles and Jews. In 2 Cor. v. 14, 15, those for whom Christ died are described as “ all,” but in the following sentences this “ all ” signifies only the community of believers. In John (1 John ii. 2), Christ in His atoning death is recognised as the Propitiation, “ not only for our sins, but also for the sins of the whole world.” This antithesis, however, in order to be made good, must be supplemented by the qualification that the community to which the sacrifice of Christ stands in necessary relation, extends over the whole human race. There remain, then, only the two passages, Heb. ii. 9 and 1 Tim. ii. 4–6. In the former of these, the phrase ὑπὲρ πάντος distributes the benefits of the death of Christ to individual men. In the latter, the expression “ all men ” is not to be understood, as it is by Augustine, as meaning “ all kinds of men.” Whether, however, the expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews is in real contradiction with the other line of thought, must be questioned. For the immediately following arguments of the writer in regard to the sacrifice of Christ maintain the strict relation of that sacrifice to the Covenant-community. Now, in comparison with those fully-developed arguments, the expression in ver. 9 appears merely as a preliminary and incompletely defined remark, suggested by the language of Ps. viii., which opens the discussion in which the sentence in question is found. The first Epistle to Timothy, again, is not by Paul. The statements that “ God wills the salvation of all,” and that “ Christ is the ransom for all,” were without doubt called forth owing to the Gnostic limitation of the benefits of Christianity to “ the spiritual ” (πνευματικοί). On account of their entire divergence from the express word of Christ, as well as from the apostolical (especially Paul’s) conception of Christianity, they are not to be accepted as theologically authoritative. The same holds with regard to 2 Pet. iii. 9.

These passages of the New Testament give no confirmation to the Lutheran theory of the application of the grace of God to all individual men. The Calvinistic doctrine of the co-ordinate relation of blessedness and reprobation to individual men is equally without support in the New Testament. Paul speaks, indeed, of “ hardening,” partly on the occasion of his introducing definite quotations from the Old Testament (Rom. ix. 13, 17), and partly, in reference to the Jewish people, as a temporary dispensation of God (Rom. xi. 7, 26). But these sentences are quite wrongly used, when mere temporal hardening is made equivalent to eternal reprobation. How little, alike in the latter context and in general, Paul is thinking of individuals, how much rather, when pursuing the theme of the application of the grace of God, he has large masses of mankind in view, is evident from the fact that he finds consolation for the present hardening of the people of Israel in the prophecy of their conversion. He has thus no interest in the destiny of the many individual members of this nation who depart life before that consummation. It is in the same light that we must understand his declaration that he has fulfilled his call to preach the Gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and that he has no more place in that geographical region for his activity (Rom. xv. 19, 23). The apostle makes that assertion, not on the ground that he has brought the Gospel within the hearing of every individual man in every inhabited spot of that region, but that he has preached the Gospel and established a Christian community in the chief city of every province. He thus thought his task accomplished when he had made the knowledge of Christianity possible in every nation of men. He speaks of the universality of the extension of Christianity, accordingly, in view of all the different nations, Jews and Gentiles, who, when God has compassion upon them, are received into the community of Christ (Rom. xi. 28—32).

As against this scriptural limitation of the problem concerning the relation of the universality of Divine grace to the universality of human sin, the theology of both Confessions has failed to take sufficiently true bearings. In neither, whether in respect of sin or of pardon, are the different nations treated as portions of humanity. But for that reason the conception of humanity in these systems of theology is both obscure and fluctuating. In the peculiar expression he gives to the doctrine of original sin, Augustine views the descent of sin as a simple instance of natural propagation, and regards the human race as massa perdita, without at all attempting to distinguish the individual members of the race. He first forms his general notion of men under the attribute of the sinfulness transmitted from their ancestors; then, led by his Platonic mode of thinking, he makes that general notion equivalent to actual humanity. In order, however, to be able to fit in the quality of guilt into this general notion, he takes the human race to mean all the individual men who in Adam sinned with their own personal responsibility. These utterly heterogeneous propositions, the one of which results from a realistic, the other from a nominalistic conception, form together the common doctrine of original sin. The idea of pardon, whether conceived as applicable to all men or merely to a portion of mankind, takes its form from the latter of the two propositions. Pardon is conceived only as applicable to individual men, who are made the objects of Divine grace entirely in reference to their own particular sin, and in no other respect.

The notion of humanity, however, can be represented with certainty only when the idea of races and nations, of grades and species within the genus, receives attention, and when not merely the points of agreement and difference in natural endowment, but also the diversity in spiritual activity within these groups, are taken into consideration. For the notions of genus and species are so mutually related that the individual belongs to the genus of men only as sprung from a definite nation, and further, from a definite family of nations or race. In this respect the existence of man is subject to the same conditions as all organic nature. For, in this realm of knowledge also, the notions of genus and species are not categories in the nominalistic sense, merely for the correct ordering of our experiences; rather, the observation of natural objects leads us directly to these notions. Their objective validity, moreover, is not impaired by the fact that in natural phenomena variations from the special type exist, and that transitional forms between different species and different genera are found, which suggest the hypothesis that species have sprung from species, and genera from genera. For by the conception of species we are not to understand an absolutely immutable complex of characteristic marks. Rather, the peculiar characteristic of a species may be thought of as acquired, without our doubting the fact of its fixity for the sphere of present experience.

The notion of the human genus, now, comes directly within the sphere of Christian theology in so far as the Christian view of the world involves a destination of men to fellowship with God, and to a common moral development, which shall apply not to one nation, but to all nations. This presupposes that men, who differ from all other created beings by the capacity for rational thought and the gift of speech, carry in them also the marks of an original endowment, which proves their kinship with God. On the other hand, the anthropological problem of the origin of racial differences, which is decided now for, and now against, their originality, is of no consequence for theology. In referring the different nations and the individual members of these nations to the common destination of men in the Kingdom of God, Christianity takes for granted national differences, whether these are to be regarded as original or as historically developed. For this purpose, however, account is to be taken, not so much of the peculiar natural endowments of the nations, as of their spiritual character. Now this is always something acquired. Therefore, for the scientific treatment of the relation between individual men and the generic end of man as posited in Christianity, the undoubted fact must be taken into account, that every individual man attains the full development of his spiritual capacities within the limits of his national speech, and of the peculiar morale which his nation acquires, partly of necessity through the local conditions which govern the maintenance of the common national life, and partly in the free use of these. But in the same way, also, other historical experiences of the nations influence the peculiar type which Christianity assumes among the members of these nations. The Christianity of the Western nations, for example, is conditioned in a quite peculiar way by the fact that these nations at one and the same time became adherents of the Christian religion and entered into the spiritual inheritance of the classical nations. How strongly our Western Christianity has been influenced by the aesthetic and intellectual tradition of the Greeks, and by the continued operation of Roman models in law and State, one can prove even from certain errors which have been handed down in theology. We must therefore recognise the fact that the individual enters upon the common human task of Christianity, never merely as an individual, but always under the conditions, whether favourable or unfavourable, of his peculiar national education. The truth here brought out is completed by the further observation that, in order to fulfil its destined end, Christianity must win over the nations as wholes. That is, it can only really accomplish its universal human purpose when it brings under its influence all the social conditions under which the spiritual life of individuals exists. A Christianity which should remain anti-national in the minority of a people would destroy the necessary foundation on which the spiritual existence of its adherents rests, and thus itself sink into a fruitless particularism. One hears, indeed, from Pietistic circles precisely the opposite view, namely, that since the time of Constantine Christianity had been led into a path quite foreign to its nature, inasmuch as the end sought was no longer the conviction of individuals, but the reception of whole nations into the Church. This result, then, having been attained by force, the peculiar conditions came into existence which had to be amended after so many centuries by the conversion of individuals as such. This contradiction of views ramifies to such an extent that we cannot here pursue the subject further. If, however, the nations are destined for Christianity, as we may assume also in accordance with the suggestions and the evangelistic method of Paul, the universal destination of Christianity is not impaired by the fact that the members of a Christian nation do not all enter upon the destination which validly obtains for them. This position has already been justified by a Reformed theologian³³ by the help of analogies, the significance of which cannot be denied, even though the introduction of the idea of reprobation is out of place.

The significance of Christianity for the human race has to stand a much more difficult test in the ascertained facts of ethnology. These facts were unknown to the first advocates of Christianity, but they cannot be left out of account by us. Paul, speaking from the extent of his knowledge of the different nations of the world, could maintain that Christianity was as much appropriate and accessible to barbarians and Scythians as to Jews and Greeks. We, on the other hand, know that the diversity in the character of nations is very strongly conditioned by graded differences in their spiritual endowment and acquired moral disposition. This fact of graded differences is already cognisable in the different families of languages. For languages are regarded as more imperfect or perfect in proportion to the degree in which they express less or greater versatility of spirit, or make possible a less or greater extent of spiritual culture. And further, the lower or higher degree of moral development, whether of the community or of the individual, which appears tangibly in the difference between the nomadic and the settled nations, is conditioned by the nature of the land in which the nations live. These and similar ethnological conditions are the grounds of the distinction between the unhistorical, the particular-historical, and the world-historical nations. Now, there is not found an equal disposition towards the Christian religion at each of these different stages. With regard to the unhistorical nature-peoples, Martensen³⁴ expresses the opinion that, regarded from the natural point of view, they are still in an embryonic, and therefore imperfect, condition. On the other hand, Steinthal³⁵ declares his conviction that the difference between the unhistorical and the prehistoric nations (thus, for example, between the Australian negroes and the Germans before the “wandering of the nations”) is precisely the same as the difference between sickness and health. The former of these opinions is evidently formed, quite naturally, on the universalistic principle of the Lutheran doctrine. But the second view depends none the less on theological considerations, inasmuch as it is based on the assumption of a special degree of moral corruption. On different grounds, particular-historical nations like the Chinese and the Hindus lack the disposition towards Christianity as much as the nations which adhere to the other universal religions, Buddhism and Islam. Therefore it is only, strictly speaking, the world-historical nations of the West—that is, those nations which, through inhabiting lands affording the conditions which are favourable to mutual intercourse, have developed a common history—which have arrived at an idea of the natural and moral unity of the human race sufficient to enable them to embrace the practically thoroughgoing Christian idea of the unity of the race. For the common highest task which devolves upon the world-historical nations which have embraced Christianity is essentially bound up with the idea that they are united together in the religious community of the one only true God.

No one, of course, is in a position to predict whether the nations which stand outside of the history of Western culture will be led to embrace Christianity, and whether Christianity will fulfil its universal destination in regard also to them. In any case, such a consummation is only possible in the measure in which these nations enter, through their own effort, into the circle of culture of the world-historical nations. For the existence of the Christian religious community is historically bound up with this section of humanity. But even if the possibility of such a consummation be denied, there is still no reason why we should doubt the universalism of the Christian religion. Only, the extent of that section of humanity which is destined to take part in the highest spiritual task is to be conceived as narrower than is often done. For that the Christian universalism does not cover the whole human race in its natural existence, is evident from the fact that certain nature-peoples, through contact with civilised Christian nations, have not advanced along the lines of national development, but rather have become enervated and died out. One would, accordingly, be disposed to judge that nations which show no prospect of going over to Christianity are prevented from doing so by their own abnormal character, in other words, by their remoteness from civilised humanity. I am far, however, from denying a priori the possibility of the extension of the Christian community over other peoples which have not yet reached the stage of the world-historical or particular-historical nations. For the means of arriving at a scientific demonstration are wanting. And thus the expression of a personal conviction on this subject is of as much or as little value as the expression of the opposite opinion.

If the nations fulfil their destined end, namely, their development into one whole supernatural humanity, through their reception into the religious community of Christianity, then this whole is also the object of the decisive operation of God which determines its peculiar origin and existence. Justification, therefore, is the operation of God in which He receives sinful men into fellowship with Himself, from the point of view that they shall at the same time, in the Kingdom of God, reach their destined human end, namely, the highest morality. Now, just as little as the individual, whether in a physical or spiritual respect, can be rightly represented outside of the sphere of his nationality, as little can the individual, regarded as an object of Divine justification, be represented outside of the Christian community—whether he be conceived as one justified equally with the others, or from the point of view of his education by the preceding generation, meaning by “education” not legal determination, but organic development of character. Therefore justification is directly related to the religious community as a whole, which in God’s thought is always antecedent to the individual members of the community. Thus justification is the expression of the establishment of the religious community, whose character consists in this, that sin forms no barrier to the enjoyment of fellowship with God. It is also, however, the expression of the maintenance of this community, which consists in this, that every individual who experiences justification within the community becomes, by virtue of this quality, an organic medium of the continued existence of the community in its peculiar character. For, in an organism, all the individual members work together as means to the welfare of the whole, and apart from this no member exists as a member of the whole.

1. Justification, or the reception of sinners into the relation of children of God, must be referred to God under the attribute of Father.

2. The justification of sinners by God depends on the condition of faith: in other words, justification results when, conceived as reconciliation on God’s part, it calls forth in the sinners that faith which, conceived as the direction of the will to the highest end represented in God and as trust in God in Himself, does not include love to men, and, conceived as freedom from the law, excludes all ceremonial conditions, equally with any co-operating presupposition of a legal claim before God.

3. Justification, or reconciliation, as positively connected with the historical manifestation and activity of Christ, is related in the first instance to the whole of the religious community founded by Christ, which maintains the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ as the direct means of its existence, and to individuals only as they attach themselves, by faith in the Gospel, to this community.

---

← Chapter I. The Definition of Justification · Contents · Chapter III. The Subjective Side of Justification Considered in Detail →

Footnotes

1. Cf. Joh. Friedr. Fresenius, Abhandlung über die Rechtfertigung eines armen Sünders vor Gott (1747. New edition by A. F. C. Vilmar, 1857), p. 8: “As regards the Author of justification, He can be no other than the Supreme Lawgiver. For justification is a judicial act, which proceeds according to Divine law.” F. A. Lampe, Geheimniss des Gnadenbundes, part i. (1726) p. 429: “Seeing that the expression ‘to justify’ refers to a judicial act, it will be most fitting to represent the whole scheme of justifying grace under the form of a judicial process.” ↩

2. Compare, however, Amesius, Medulla, i. 27. 10: “Iustificatio est gratiosa sententia, quia non fertur proprie a iustitia dei, sed a gratia. Eadem enim gratia, qua Christum vocavit ad mediatoris munus et electos ad unionem cum Christo attraxit, censet etiam eos iam attractos et credentes ex illa unione iustos.” ↩

3. iii. 176: “Iustificamur ex promissione, in qua propter Christum promissa est reconciliatio, iustitia et vita aeterna.” 233: “Sicut iustificatio ad fidem pertinet, ita pertinet ad fidem vita aeterna … Fatentur enim adversarii, quod iustificati sint filii dei et cohaeredes Christi.” ↩

4. Inst. iii. 14. 17: “Efficientem vitae aeternae nobis comparandae causam scriptura praedicat patris coelestis misericordiam et gratuitam erga nos dilectionem, materialem vero Christum cum sua obedientia, qua nobis iustitiam acquisivit; formalem quoque vel instrumentalem quam esse dicemus nisi fidem?” ↩

5. See the corresponding expressions on this subject in his Operat. in Ps. v. (Opp. exeg. lat. xiv. p. 239), and De captiv. Babylon. ecclesiae (Opp. lat. var. arg. v. p. 104). Cf. also the fragment which Löscher, Vollständ. Timotheus Verinus, i. p. 31, communicates from a manuscript in his own possession: “Ad speculationes de maiestate dei nuda dederunt occasionem Dionysius cum sua mystica theologia et alii eum secuti, qui multa scripserunt de spiritualibus nuptiis, ubi deum ipsum sponsum, animam sponsam finxerunt. Atque ita docuerunt, homines posse conversari et agere in vita mortali et corrupta natura et carne cum maiestate dei inscrutabili et aeterna sine medio. Et haec certe doctrina recepta est pro summa et divina, in qua et ego aliquamdiu versatus sum, non tamen sine magno meo damno. Ut istam Dionysii mysticam theologiam et alios similes libros, quibus tales nugae continentur, detestemini tanquam pestem aliquam, hortor. Metuo enim, fanaticos homines futuros, qui talia portenta rursum in ecclesiam invehant et per hoc sanam doctrinam obscurent et prorsus obruant.” Cf. Gesch. der Pietismus, vol. ii. p. 32. ↩

6. Apologia C. A. ii. 48: “Fides quae iustificat, non est tantum notitia historiae, sed est assentiri promissioni dei,—est velle et accipere promissionem remissionis peccatorum et iustificationis.” 77: “Sola fide in Christum, non per dilectionem, non propter dilectionem aut opera consequimur remissionem peccatorum etsi dilectio sequitur fidem.” Loci theol. C. R. xxi. p. 744: “Fides est assentiri universo verbo dei nobis proposito, adeoque et promissioni gratuitae reconciliationis, estque fiducia misericordiae dei promissae propter mediatorem Christum. Nam fiducia est motus in voluntate, necessario respondens assensioni, seu quo voluntas in Christo acquiescit.” ↩

7. Inst. chr. rel. iii. 2. 7: “Nunc iusta fidei definitio nobis constabit, si dicamus esse divinae erga nos benevolentiae firmam certamque cognitionem, quae gratuitae in Christo promissionis veritate fundata per spiritum sanctum et revelatur mentibus nostris et cordibus obsignatur.” 8: “Assensionem ipsam iterum repetam cordis esse magis quam cerebri, et affectus magis quam intelligentiae. Qua ratione obedientia vocatur fidei.” 14: “Cognitionem non intelligimus comprehensionem, qualis esse solet earum rerum, quae sub humanum sensum cadunt … Sed dum persuasum habet, quod non capit, plus ipsa persuasionis certitudine intelligit, quam si humanum aliquid sua capacitate perciperet … Unde statuimus, fidei notitiam certitudine magis quam apprehensione contineri.” 15: “Sensus plerophoriae, quae fidei tribuitur, est nempe qui dei bonitatem perspicue nobis propositam extra dubium ponat. Id autem fieri nequit, quin eius suavitatem vere sentiamus et experiamur in nobis ipsis. Quare apostolus ex fide deducit fiduciam … Ostendit, non esse rectam fidem, nisi cum tranquillis animis audemus nos in conspectum dei sistere.” ↩

8. Gomarus, Loci communes, p. 425, maintains that fiducia is effectus fidei, and denies that it is forma fidei. Cf. Geschichte des Pietismus, vol. i. p. 323. ↩

9. See Summa theol. ii. 2, qu. 1, art. 4. ↩

10. Qu. 4, art. 3: “Actus voluntarii speciem recipiunt a fine, qui est voluntatis obiectum. Id autem, a quo aliquid speciem sortitur, se habet ad modum formae in rebus naturalibus. Et ideo cuiuslibet actus voluntarii forma quodammodo est finis ad quem ordinatur … Actus fidei ordinatur ad obiectum voluntatis, quod est bonum, sicut ad finem. Hoc autem bonum, quod est finis fidei, scilicet bonum divinum est proprium obiectum caritatis, et ideo caritas dicitur forma fidei, in quantum per caritatem actus fidei perficitur et formatur.” ↩

11. Symbolik (6th ed. 1843), § 17, pp. 169, 170. ↩

12. Conc. Trid. Sess. vi. cap. 7. ↩

13. Qu. 25, art. 1: “Habitus non diversificantur, nisi ex hoc, quod variant speciem actus. Omnis enim actus unius speciei ad eundem habitum pertinet. Cum autem species actus ex obiecto sumatur secundum formalem rationem ipsius, necesse est, quod idem specie sit actus, qui fertur in rationem obiecti et qui fertur in obiectum sub tali ratione, sicut eadem est specie visio, qua videtur lumen et qua videtur color secundum luminis rationem. Ratio autem diligendi proximum deus est. Hoc enim debemus in proximo diligere, ut in deo sit. Unde idem specie actus est, quo diligitur deus et quo diligitur proximus. Et propter hoc habitus caritatis non solum se extendit ad dilectionem dei sed etiam ad dilectionem proximi.” ↩

14. Apol. Conf. Aug. ii. 56: “ Fides non ideo iustificat aut salvat, quia ipsa sit opus per sese dignum, sed tantum quia accipit misericordiam promissam. ” ↩

15. Apol. C. A. iv. 20, 21; ii. 101; viii. 42, 43, 58–60. ↩

16. Inst. chr. rel. iii. 2. 6: “ Principio admonendi sumus, perpetuam esse fidei relationem cum verbo, nec magis ab eo posse divelli, quam radios a sole, unde oriuntur. ” ↩

17. Cf. Geschichte des Pietismus, vol. iii. p. 122. ↩

18. Cf. ibid. vol. ii. p. 26 ff. ↩

19. Apol. C. A. iv. : “ Ecclesia proprie est columna veritatis; retinet enim purum evangelium.” Tractatus de potestate papae, 24: “ Tribuit Christus principaliter claves (i. e. evangelium) ecclesiae et immediate.” ↩

20. Geschichte des Pietismus, vol. i. p. 296, vol. ii. p. 50. ↩

21. Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 23. ↩

22. iii. 19. 1: “Tractandum nunc de christiana libertate, cuius explicatio praetermitti minime ab eo debet, cui summam evangelicae doctrinae compendio complecti propositum est. Est enim res apprime necessaria, ac citra cuius cognitionem nihil fere sine dubitatione aggredi conscientiae audent; praesertim vero est appendix iustificationis, et ad vim eius intelligendam non parum valet.” ↩

23. iii. 19. 2: “Sublata legis mentione, et omni operum cogitatione seposita, unam dei misericordiam amplecti convenit, quum de iustificatione agitur, et averso a nobis aspectu, unum Christum intueri. Non enim illic quaeritur, quomodo iusti simus, sed quomodo, iniusti licet ac indigni, pro iustis habeamur.” ↩

24. Opera latina ad reform. pertin, ed. Schmidt, tom. iv. p. 225: “Clarum est, homini christiano suam fidem sufficere pro omnibus, nec operibus ei opus fore, ut iustificetur. Quodsi operibus non habet opus, nec lege opus habet; si lege non habet opus, certe liber est a lege. Atque haec est christiana illa libertas, fides nostra, quae facit non ut otiosi simus aut male vivamus, sed ne cuiquam opus sit lege aut operibus ad iustitiam et salutem.” P. 229: “Non operando sed credendo deum glorificamus et veracem confitemur. Hoc nomine fides sola est iustitia christiani hominis et omnium praeceptorum plenitudo. Qui enim primum implet, cetera omnia facili opera implet.” ↩

25. Cf. Christliche Glaubenslehre, vol. i. p. 311. ↩

26. Op. cit. p. 321. ↩

27. According to the usual interpretation, Gal. i. 15 also belongs to this category. I am very doubtful, however, whether Paul is here speaking of his election by God before his birth. ↩

28. Cf. Rechtfertigung, v. 8: “ Since Christ has also become, by virtue of His manhood, the Head of the whole human race, therefore one man is as much to Him as another: therefore all may have equal part in His satisfaction.” vii. 32: “ Although the real imparting of the righteousness of Christ to an individual man can only take place when he has come into being and has fulfilled the necessary conditions, yet he was reckoned as already present at the time of the great atoning sacrifice of Christ, not through a necessary predestination, but through a free imputation, not only believers but all men having been included in this imputation… . The ground of the whole business of redemption and justification is the covenant of peace which the Father made with the Son in the eternities. In this covenant the multitude of all men and also the all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ were regarded as present.” ↩

29. Cf. Schweizer, Protestant. Centraldogmen, vol. i. pp. 501 ff., 532 ff. ↩

30. To the note on vol. i. p. 306, I add the following supplementary remarks. When I there stated that Arminius was the first to lay stress on the thought of election in Christ, I knew quite well that the formula had already found a place in theological usage. I did not need to be taught that it already occurs in the Formula of Concord. But with what degree of clearness is it there used? The Lutheran formula, which Musaeus (in Baier, vol. iii. pp. 12, 14) draws up— “Quod est causa, cur deus in tempore nobis salutem conferat, id etiam causa est, cur ad salutem nos elegerit. Atqui meritum Christi est causa, cur deus in tempore nobis salutem conferat; ergo meritum Christi est etiam causa, cur deus nos elegerit”—became possible for the first time after the lines of demarcation had been drawn between the Arminians and the Calvinists. One sees quite easily, indeed, that the Lutheran development of doctrine, from the time of the Formula of Concord, proceeded on the way towards this goal. But at the beginning of this process the appearance of a difference on this point between the Lutherans and Calvinists was anything but clear, especially as Zanchi (in Gerhard, Loci theol. viii. 8. 149) expressed himself in a characteristically Lutheran way on the subject.—The formula of Amesius and the later Calvinists was also anticipated by Calvin. But it is very interesting to observe how little the latter, in the period of his strongest dependence on Luther, was able to discriminate his thought of the election of the community in the Person of its Lord, and Luther’s thought that Christ is the ground of the knowledge of our election. In the first edition of his Institutio of 1536 Calvin says: “Cum Christus dominus noster is sit, in quo pater ab aeterno elegit, quos voluit esse suos ac in ecclesiae suae gregem referri, satis clarum testimonium habemus, nos et inter dei electos et ex ecclesia esse, si Christo communicamus. Deinde cum sit ipse idem Christus constans et immutabilis patris veritas, minime haesitandum est, quin eius sermo vere nobis enarret patris voluntatem, qualis ab initio fuit et semper futura est. Quando itaque Christum et quidquid eius est, fide possidemus, certo statuendum, quod ut ipse dilectus est patris filius haeresque regni coelorum, ita et nos per ipsum in dei filios sumus adoptati et sic eius fratres ac consortes, ut eiusdem simus haereditatis participes; ob id certi quoque simus, nos inter eos esse, quos dominus ab aeterno elegit” (C. R. xxix. p. 74). It is worth while to investigate the history of this point of doctrine in its whole context. ↩

31. De providentia, cap. 4, Opp. iv. p. 98: “ Deus hominem non in hoc solum condidit, ut imago et exemplum eius esset, sed in hoc quoque, ut ex his creaturis, quae de terra factae sunt, esset quae deo frueretur, hic commercio et amicitia, isthic vero possidendo et amplexando; sed in hoc, ut umbram quandam praefiguraret eius commercii, quod aliquando per filium suum cum mundo initurus erat.” ↩

32. Hofmann follows the same line as Schleiermacher; but he surpasses him in the precision with which he relates the reconciliation which was brought about by Christ’s obedience to the new humanity, which he sees in the community of Christ (vol. i. p. 621). Cf. von Zezschwitz, Die Rechtfertigung des Sünders vor Gott in ihrem Verhältniss zur Gnadenmittelwirkung und der ewigen Erwählung (Die allgemeine lutherische Conferenz in Hannover, 1868), pp. 95, 96. Von Zezschwitz relates eternal election in Christ not to individuals, but to a holy human race, as the realisation of the Divine creative purpose, in which “ each individual is elected, adopted, and justified as a member of the humanity in process of perfection,” but so that “ one who has been already justified and thus also predesignated in time, may through apostasy fall away from the path of perfection,” and his place in the eternal race be taken by another. ↩

33. Wolfg. Musculus, Loc. comm. xvii. : “Scimus non omnes redemptionis fieri participes; verum illorum perditio, qui non servantur, haudquaquam impedit, quominus universalis vocetur redemptio, quae non est uni genti, sed toti mundo destinata. Resolutio illa telluris, qua passim omnia ad germinandum aestate solvuntur, recte universalis dicitur, etiamsi multae arbores et innumera loca nec germina nec fructus proferant. Sol ille generalis totius orbis illuminator est, quamvis multi sint, qui nihil ab eo lucis accipiant. Ad eum modum habet et redemptio ista generis humani, de qua loquimur, quod homines reprobi ac deplorate impii non accipiunt, neque defectu fit gratiae dei, neque iustum est, ut illa propter filios perditionis gloriam ac titulum universalis redemptionis amittat, cum sit parata cunctis et omnes ad illam vocentur.” ↩

34. Dogmatik, p. 416. ↩

35. Philologie, Geschichte und Psychologie in ihren gegenseitigen Beziehungen (1864), p. 39. ↩