THE SCHOOL OF LEYDEN. In no theological system had any satisfaction been afforded to the joint feeling of attachment to the old confessions and of a desire to develop them in conformity with the requirements of the age. Many rejected the Groningen school because it depreciated the formularies of the church, and did not know how to value their scope or to elaborate them for immediate usefulness. The Leyden school filled the vacancy. Taking its origin in a disposition to establish a connection between the faith of the Reformers and our own, its aim has been to unite the old traditions with the new opinions.

The father and expounder of the School of Leyden is Professor Scholten, formerly of Franeker, but now of Leyden. He is well known as the author of historico-critical introductions, and of a History of Philosophy, but his reputation has been acquired mainly by his Doctrines of the Reformed Church, a work of great clearness, profound erudition, and romantic interest. As the reader peruses its fascinating pages he is bound by a spell which he cannot easily break. The remark of Dugald Stewart, on reading Edwards On the Will, occurs to him with peculiar appositeness, "There is a fallacy somewhere, but the devil only can find it."

There is, according to Scholten, a distinction between the principles and dogmas of a Church. The former are the norm and touch-stone of the latter. The Reformers were not always logical in their reasonings, and have left an unfinished task for the present day. Man arrives at a knowledge of the truth by the Holy Scriptures, but they must not be understood as containing the only revelation from God; He also reveals himself to the world through the hearts of all believers. The Bible is the source of the original religion. There is a difference between the Scriptures and the word of God. The latter is what God reveals in the human spirit concerning his will and himself. The writing down of the communication is purely human; therefore, the Bible cannot be called a revelation. We know, by the testimony of the Spirit, that God's word in the Scriptures is truth. But Scriptural authority must not be accepted,—a liberty which would apply to a Jewish but not to a Christian age. Jesus and the apostles did not compel men to accept truth by a proclamation of authority, but by an irresistible moral power. Even in times when the liberty and individuality of faith have been lost in the Church, there were men who did not answer the question, "Why do you believe?" by saying, "Because the Church has spoken;" but by appealing to their interior consciousness.

Historical criticism must be called in, Scholten further holds, to prove the certainty of the facts of revelation. But the truth of the Christian religion cannot be established on this plan. With Rousseau, Lessing, and others, he opposes any attempt to make the best historical grounds the basis of a religious conviction. The truth of Scripture is testified by human nature itself, which, educated by Christianity, recognizes freely and personally the truth of the gospel. The natural faculty that performs this high office is reason, not feeling. Scripture is the touchstone of the Christianity of a conviction, but not of its truth. The Reformers very properly distinguished between a first and secondary authority, and allowed themselves complete liberty in their search after the origin of the books of Scripture. This was not a dangerous experiment, for he who has once come to know Christianity as the highest form of religion, can never fall into a negative criticism. If the religious contents of the Bible find their justification in the interior consciousness of man, then the question arises, "Can human reason attain to the supersensual, or is it limited to the sensuous experience?" The organ of all natural knowledge of God is reason; while its fountain is the physical, intellectual, and moral world. The first Adam did not possess that knowledge of God which was thoroughly enjoyed by the second. But can man attain to the knowledge of God while in a sinful condition, and while the light of his reason is darkened? Assuredly he may, for sin does not belong to the essence, but to the condition of man. The Reformed theologians built on the acknowledgment that Religion has her seat in the being of man, and sees in the Christian the expression of the reasonable religion. The material principle of the Reformed church is the doctrine of God's sovereignty and free grace. The weakness of the Reformation lay in its inconsistency, for it substituted the authority of the letter for that of the Church.

Scholten's abhorrence of authority has led him to a denial of miracles. From this point of view he can freely join hands with the Rationalists. In his latest work, the Gospel of John, he takes occasion to retract the favorable opinions formerly expressed concerning that portion of the New Testament. He has been fearlessly assailed by Oosterzee, La Saussaye, Da Costa, and other leading theologians. Unfortunately, he exerts more influence over the young theologians of Holland than any other Dutch theologian. He is ardently supported by Knenen, the exegete, his colleague at Leyden; and by Rauenhoff, the ecclesiastical historian. We close our estimate of Scholten with a word on his opinions of Christianity in general. It is neither superhuman nor supernatural. It is the highest point of the development of human nature itself, and, in this sense, it is natural and human in the highest acceptation of those terms. It is the mission of science to put man in a condition to comprehend the divine volume presented by Christianity.[94]

THE SCHOOL OF EMPIRICAL-MODERN THEOLOGY. The two leading representatives of this important branch of contemporary Dutch theology are Opzoomer and Pierson. The former, a professor in the University of Utrecht, left the sphere of theological instruction for a time, and took a prominent part in political debates in order to combat the claims of the anti-revolutionary party. He exerted little influence during the first years of his professorship in Utrecht, but since his publication of a manual of logic, The Road of Science, he has had a large share in founding the school with which he is now identified. In this work he maintains that observation is the only means of arriving at certainty, and that everything which cannot be proved by experience is uncertain, and has no right within the domain of science. This is the central thought of his whole system.

Pierson stands related to Opzoomer as Mansel does to Sir William Hamilton. The son of religious parents, he was at first rigidly orthodox. He is now pastor of the Walloon Church at Rotterdam. His early writings were touchingly beautiful and attractive, for it was in them that he laid open his inner life. But in his later works he assumes the air of the censor and scoffer. He was long the personal friend of La Saussaye, but, owing to doctrinal differences, they have parted and now pursue different paths. He is an orator of the American type. His opinions are elaborated in his two works, The Origin of the Modern Tendency, and the Tendency and Life. In the latter treatise we learn not merely the personal views of Pierson, but the creed advocated by all the adherents of the empirical-modern theology.

The New Theology, he holds, has an indisputable right to assume the epithet "modern," in distinction from "liberal." The latter term is borne by the Groningen school, which always opposes the church-creed. The principle of reform has not been fully carried out by the Protestants. The Protestant builds his faith on the Bible, but on what does he build his faith in the Bible? Is it not the testimony of the Holy Spirit? He has this support only through the Bible. Certain liberal theologians, like the orthodox, are extremely illogical in their conclusions concerning the word of God. The former will not accept of verbal inspiration, yet they call the Bible a divine book, which, fortunately, could be no better. Though they laugh at the story of Jonah and the whale, they accept every word of Christ, who quotes the story. They will not hear of present miraculous interpositions of providence, but accept some of the miracles of the Bible. There are Catholic priests who are affability itself, while there are orthodox Protestants possessed of ultra views. In contrast with all these classes stand the heroes of the Modern Theology, who possess the "passion for reality," and are endowed with the new cosmology of Galileo.

All true knowledge, argues Pierson, is self-knowledge. Reality comes to us in the impressions we receive of it. I see, I hear; and whether there is a reality outside corresponding to the impression, is a question never asked by a reasonable man. One who has a fever on a July day complains of cold. The bystanders deny his right to say it is cold. Now do they obtain their right from a comparison of their impressions with something objective? No. His knowledge is subjective in this sense; that it arises from sources which are in him alone, while theirs is objective, because they compare their impressions. Error is not in the impression but in the explanation. Man has more than sensual impressions. We have a faculty which brings us into contact with a spiritual world. The religious man is by necessity an anthropomorphist. He claims a personal God, a Father, a Redeemer, an Ideal. We need a sharp analysis to see the reflections of the contents of our religious feeling. Our mind seeks a conception of God, the basis of which must be the idea of the Absolute, Infinite Being. The Scriptures must be criticised by our reason. The first three gospels, which tell us what Christ said and did, are not authority for us. Their writers are unknown, in the main, and by no means original. But exact criticism may succeed in giving us a portrait of the Prophet of Galilee. He lived a life according to the spirit, and proclaimed a religion such as no one before or after him has been able to do. Is it not enough that he has glorified humanity, and made himself adored as king of humanity, even with a crown of thorns upon his brow? The hearts of men have been disclosed to him, and he has caused to well up therefrom streams of love, which none can turn aside. Is his name not glorious when we think that the penitence of a Magdalene, and the sorrow of a Peter, are flowers which have permanently sprung up from earth only after that earth had been drenched by his blood and tears? But the Church has made a mythological character of Christ. It has contemned the real Jesus who stood in opposition to authority and tradition. In his name the Church has enthroned and glorified this authority. It was not from a system but from a principle that he expected the regeneration of man. We have a safe revelation in the world about us. It is God's work in and around ourselves. Explore it; study yourself and man; but do it with such a spirit and purpose as Christ possessed.

As a specimen of Pierson's style, we give his portrait of a good preacher: "All elements are concentrated in him in such a way that men will, can, and must listen, for attention is as much a state as love. You cannot command, but you may deserve it. Paint for humanity, which, though despised by the formalists, terrified by the moralists, and condemned by the Pharisees, is yet the image of him who spoke not of its guilt, but of its sickness and sorrow; not of a judgment-seat, but of the open arms of the Father; not of damnation, but of regeneration. A Holland painter came from a foreign land, and painted a Dutch landscape. But everybody who saw it, said: 'He has been in Italy.' So let it be said of every Christian minister, 'He has been in Galilee, it is the color of Jesus.'"

The opinions entertained by the defenders of the Empirical-Modern Theology have few points of sympathy with evangelical Christianity. They stand above Rationalism, but not opposed to it. The system attempts a purification-process of Christian faith. It does not break with tradition and doctrine, but claiming the privilege of using its own eyes, it rejects the authority of both. It does not admit a supernatural origin of the Scriptures, but looks with suspicion upon many of the accounts contained therein. Taught by the philosophy of experience that everything has a natural source, even in the world of mind, it finds no room for free will. It cherishes a high regard for the individuality of man, and esteems it wrong to let the particular be lost in the universal. It discards any system of morals which does not do justice to this individuality. Its ethics are deterministic, but not fatalistic. It holds that the mysteries of orthodoxy are mystifications which insult the thinking man. It claims that its doubts are not sinful, for it says: "I have not doubted from a wish to doubt." But it furnishes nothing to take the place of that which it destroys by its negative criticism. This is its fatal weakness. With its principle, "no authority," it attacks the Bible, and finds it written neither by the supposed authors nor at the alleged dates. It destroys the sanctity of that which has become hallowed by our inner experience. It takes away Christ, in all his essential attributes, from the believer.

THE ETHICAL-IRENICAL SCHOOL. We have thus far seen, in the present state of theology in Holland, few indications of the vigorous progress of evangelical truth. But the Ethical-Irenical School, combining the principal orthodox minds, stands in manly and prosperous opposition to all parties which possess Rationalistic affinities. Chantepie de la Saussaye and Professor Van Oosterzee are its leaders. These men differ on minor points, but, in general, they are harmonious co-workers against skepticism in every form. They stand in the front rank of Dutch theologians, the former having no superior as a thinker, and the latter none as an orator.

La Saussaye is not a popular writer. His style is compact and his arguments intricate. He is sometimes eloquent, however, and a close thinker takes pleasure in reading his pages. He does not like the term "orthodoxy," for he thinks it too loud a profession. He has been charged with Hegelianism because of some expressions in his Commentary on the Hebrews. But the allegation is false, for he only applauded Hegel and Schelling as thinkers, without giving any sanction to their opinions. His views are as yet but little known to the people, only a few being willing to study his weighty thoughts. He is thoroughly imbuing his congregation in Rotterdam with his own spirit, and has now many followers, who are giving his ideas to the public in an attractive form. In 1851 he had a long and serious illness, after which he deemed it his duty to limit himself no longer to the functions of the pastoral office, but to raise his voice in ecclesiastical debates. In 1852 he took part in the formation of a society called "Seriousness and Peace" and was associated with Beets and Doedes in the editorship of their organ bearing the same name. The principle of the new organization consisted in the prominence given to science and its service in theology, in opposition to the school of Bilderdyk. It held that the Scriptures are of divine authority; that they are properly expressed in the confessions of the Reformed church of Holland; and that science must be subsidized for their explanation.[95]

Soon after the appearance of Renan's Life of Jesus, the Dutch theologians were surprised by a pamphlet entitled History or Romance, which, besides giving an admirable criticism on the new work, defined very clearly the points at issue, and lifted out of its poetic frame the picture deserving more serious study. The style was recognized as that of Professor Van Oosterzee. Like everything coming from his pen, it was easily read and as easily digested. It sounded the alarm, and warned the public mind against accepting Renan's romance as history. A few sentences in Professor Van Oosterzee's little work reveal his position in the present conflict with Rationalism. "Modern Naturalism," says he, "can be conquered only by a Christian philosophic belief in revelation, and by a powerful development of modern supernaturalism.... To some, nothing is easier than to lay all supernaturalism under condemnation, especially when it is opposed only in that form in which it appeared against the worn-out Rationalism of the past century, without attending to its further development, or taking the trouble to add to Renan's critical anathema a clear and intelligible exposition of his own point of view. Renan's Life of Jesus shows us what becomes of Christianity when we regard only the ethical-religious side of revelation, and not its supernatural character. You can hope for no victory as long as you know none but a subjective ground of faith, and do not meet Satan, coming as an angel of light, with a perspicuous and powerful, 'Thus it is Written.'"

Professor Van Oosterzee was called four years ago to the chair of Scriptural Interpretation in the University of Utrecht, now the centre of evangelical theology in Holland. He had been pastor of a church in Rotterdam, and his new appointment, made at the instance of the King and his ministers, was a great triumph of the orthodox party. He had already distinguished himself by his Life of Christ and Christology, in six volumes, and by his exegetical labors in connection with Lange's Bible Work. But the oration he delivered on his assumption of office in the University added largely to his reputation, and obliterated any doubt which may have existed concerning his firm attachment to the faith of the fathers. Bearing the title, The Skepticism which is anxiously to be avoided by the Theologians of our Day,[96] it discusses the character, origin, rights, fruits, and remedy of the infidelity of the present time. The cardinal characteristic of this skepticism is, according to Professor Van Oosterzee, a denial of the great revelation of grace and truth in Jesus Christ, as the Son of God and of man, by whom salvation is made possible to us and to all the world. There are three fountains of the modern infidelity; a scholastic dogmatism, which has laid more stress on the formularies of the church than on the Gospel itself; a wild, revolutionary spirit in politics, not of native growth, but imported from abroad, which only satisfied itself by the overthrow of thrones, by the transgression of all established limits, and by its declaration of the supreme rights of reason and will; and a false philosophy, with its unholy brood of Empiricism, Idealism, Materialism, Rationalism, and Naturalism. The skepticism of the present day asserts rights to which it has no claim whatever, for it holds that the so-called mysteries of Christianity have no divine basis, and that there can be nothing supernatural in revelation. Neither can the labors of the skeptics produce substantial and permanent good in any department of theology. The only way to combat them is not by reviewing the opinions of departed thinkers and teachers, so much as by going directly back to the Bible itself, and looking at it with the aid of every new step in science. Such a weapon is a sound system. It may be termed the Evangelical-Biblical, historical-philosophical, Irenical-practical theology. If it be developed, all the shafts of infidelity will fall harmless at its feet.

Immediately after the appearance of Professor Van Oosterzee's reply to Renan, La Saussaye published his work entitled, How must Modern Naturalism be attacked? While he opposes Naturalism, he also takes exception to the usual orthodox method of assailing it. In this work, together with other treatises by the same vigorous writer, we find the Ethical-Irenical theology stated and defended.

The term Ethical is not, according to La Saussaye, the same as moral,—for morality, conscience, duty, and virtue are terms which find their home in the Kantian philosophy, and are now appropriated by the Groningen School. Ethical has application to the receptivities,—the inner wants, and states of the heart. It differs from religion just as want differs from supply. The Christian knows that religious truth, life, and action, are not the fruits of his subjective state of feeling, but of revelation, and of the communication of God to his spirit. The ethical is the natural, and the religious is the supernatural state of the heart. The Ethical theologians differ from the Supernaturalists on the following psychological ground: the former believe that the supernatural is communicated with human nature, and is so inseparable from it that a denial of it is a rejection of all that is most human in man. The latter hold that the supernatural, since it is an essential part of religion, is not necessary merely to accredit revelation, but to establish it.

While La Saussaye agrees with Van Oosterzee in application of the term ethical, he does not hold with him that the "Thus it is written" is an adequate reply to the Rationalist. Neither will his view of miracles harmonize with that of the professor, or with Vinet and De Pressense, of whom he forcibly reminds us in many of his opinions. The supernaturalistic theory, La Saussaye contends, is incorrect. The Church has paid too much attention to the exterior features of miracles, but far too little to their ethical import, and to the connection between nature and spirit. Miracles can be defended only on the ground that the power to work them is still in the church over which Christ presides and to which he communicates his energy. The Naturalist who opposes the present power of miracles can be convicted by an appeal to his own personality; for he is not merely nature, but also supernatural, free, spiritual. He feels himself responsible; he has a conscience. Renan, in his picture of Christ and his apostles, places salvation on an equality with deliverance from sickness, and makes it mere socialism. If we would rebuke the skepticism of the present day we must return to first principles; not to the doctrines, but to the facts on which they rest. Revelation presupposes the ideas of God, law, responsibility, sin and judgment. We must recognize Israel's law, though national in form, as written on the hearts of all men. When you prove the ethical idea in religion you show at once its necessary factor. The life of the Church is a spiritual, supernatural, and therefore wonderful life. It is the great standing miracle which proves the truth of God. The first and all-important thing to be done by us is not to fight the naturalism outside of us, but that which is in us. Above all, let the church feel and show the power of the resurrection. The true method of gaining "the world" is by the awakening of the Church to a consciousness of those elements of truth in her possession. The enemy we fight is not men but a spirit,—the spirit of negation, destruction, and Satan. Let us believe in that Saviour who makes the soul at peace with God, reconciles man to the Infinite, and leads and encourages us to attempt to appropriate by our thoughts the undeveloped in our souls.

On what then depends the future of the Church? We hear La Saussaye describe in eloquent words the conditions of her success: "I do not hesitate to declare," he says, "that the future of a nation depends on a revival, in the very bosom of the Protestant Church, of a profound and enlightened piety, of an alliance of faith with science, an alliance which constituted the strength of our illustrious wise men, and to which we ought to devote whatever greatness there is yet left us. It is only by the payment of this price that the Netherland Church can reconquer that place which she once occupied among Christian people. But since she does not fill this position, since we are afraid of majestic science, and only employ our resources to treat of questions in detail, since the stream of our piety runs through a narrow channel, and since science only moves in the direction of a foolish liberalism, European Protestantism must suffer from the unhappy vacancy that is now left in the ranks of the Church of the Netherlands."[97]

The Church of Holland is now passing through the most important crisis in its history since the Arminian controversy. The orthodox party is vigorous, and many strong men are attaching themselves to it. But their foes are vigilant and bold, and the result cannot yet be seen. The crisis is a necessity created by the evil elements of the eighteenth century. When the mineral was in a state of fusion in the bowels of the earth, it became mixed with foreign and gross elements. But we cannot now disengage the impure accessory by breaking the mass with a hammer. If it be put into the crucible just as it is, the elements will separate of themselves. The theology of Holland, like that of every other Protestant country, is now in the crucible. The heat is intense, but the intensity guarantees the destruction of the dross which has gathered about the truth. There are many good men in the Church who cannot see the connection and bearing of the gigantic efforts now making for the overthrow of faith in Holland. Looking upon them as abnormal, they become discouraged. Therefore they have cherished a warm attachment to the doctrine of the speedy coming of Christ. It is now a more common expression than ever before in that country, "Christ cometh!"

Next to the philosophical and religious causes of the present momentous crisis, stands the absence of popular thought and of Christian work. There had been a reliance on the symbols without proper meditation upon them, or a disposition to trace them back to their Biblical fountain. Men believed what their fathers had told them, or, as the French say, "Parceque tout le monde le disait." The teachers of the young thought in the old routine. But the Rationalistic theologians are driving every friend of the Church and every firm believer in Scripture to reason for himself, with the Bible for his basis; and in no country is religion more rapidly christianizing science than in Holland. Young theologians preach more earnestly than their predecessors had done for a century. La Saussaye is an illustration of how an individual is influencing the tendency of the theological mind. He has never published a complete system, though his friends are anxiously awaiting the appearance of his Psychology. It is the man himself who has done so much for emancipating the individual, and placing him upon the immovable truth of the Bible.

Very recently the Church of Holland has applied herself to earnest, practical work. Her evangelizing efforts will now compare favorably with those of French Protestantism. In no country have the congregations been more attached to the clergy than in Holland. But the intimacy has diminished the development of individual labor and responsibility. Everything was left to the pastor. Religion consisted in being preached to and edified. Prayer meetings, and humanitarian and evangelizing associations were unknown. But, of late, many Sunday Schools have been organized; religious societies have been established; and missions have attracted profound attention.

The first missionary society ever formed in Holland was the Moravian Mission to Zeist, in 1732. Sixty-five years elapsed before a second one came into being. Not one was instituted from 1797 to 1851. Since that date twelve foreign missionary organizations have been established, and the religious people of the country are devoting a large portion of their means and labor to their prosecution. So great is the popular interest in missions that an Evangelical National Missionary Festival, held in the open air in July, 1864, attracted many from the surrounding country to take part in the exercises. It was a Christian Feast of Tabernacles. The assembly met in a large pine wood. Carriages, horses, and the rude vehicles of the peasantry lined all the roads leading thither. The singing of the old Dutch Psalms could be heard at a great distance. The assembly, numbering from ten to twelve thousand, gathered around the pulpits erected in various places, where returned missionaries and celebrated preachers from different cities were speaking on topics adapted to the occasion. The scene was deeply solemn, and highly calculated to awaken and quicken the conscience of every hearer.

Two Home Missions are contributing important service to the religious and physical improvement of the poor and neglected. One is the Society for National Christian Education, founded five years ago, and now under the presidency of that tireless Christian statesman, Groen van Prinsterer. Its centre is the Hague, but it has agents scattered throughout the country to seek out any locality that may need a school. It has normal schools in Rotterdam, Utrecht, Groningen, and Nymegen. It is educating many thousands of children who would otherwise go through life without any religious instruction. The other Home Mission, the Society for the Propagation of Christian Truth in Amsterdam, is more local in its character. Though very young, it has founded sixteen Sunday Schools, attended by two thousand children; a Christian lodging or boarding-house at the cheapest rate for homeless females; a room where the members of the society can regularly meet to attend Bible lectures, or to hear reports about home or foreign missions; an infant school; a drawing-school for boys; and knitting and sewing-schools for girls. A large popular religious library has been formed, which is constantly increased by the current useful literature. All of these institutions are under careful Christian direction.[98]

The leaven of Christian faith is at work. The masses are beginning to feel its permeating and purifying power. La Saussaye has despondingly said that "what the church of Holland is now wanting is faith in itself, in the genius which has distinguished it, in the mission which is confided to it,—faith in its future." She must have faith in God before she can have faith in herself. The one leads to the other. God's strength is never perfected except in weakness. It is from without that we receive new power. The disciples who met in the upper room of the temple were visited by an energy to which they had been total strangers. The Spirit came not from their own hearts, but descended from heaven. Yet their hearts were immediately illuminated, and they felt the force of the promise, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Real strength is not self-development alone, but reliance on that Love and Power which, now, as long ago, can save the burning bush from destruction.

FOOTNOTES:

[92] D. Chantepie de la Saussaye. La Crise Religieuse en Hollande, Souvenirs et Impressions, pp. 24-29.

[93] Da Costa, in his biography of Bilderdyk, enumerates other participants in the revival in the Dutch Church; among whom were the two brothers Van Hogendorp, Nicolaas Carbasius, J. T. Bodel, Nyenhuis, Brugmans, Elout, Ran Van Gameren, Baron Van Wassanaer, Willem de Clercq, the poet, and author of a work on the Influence of Southern Literature on that of Holland; Van der Kemp, author of an admirable Biography of Maurice of Nassau; and Koenen, author of an historical work on the Refugees in Holland.

[94] An article by Scholten on Modern Materialism and its Causes, may be found in the Progress of Religious Thought in the Protestant Church of France. London: 1861, pp. 10-48.

[95] La Crise Religieuse en Hollande, pp. 12-107.

[96] Oratio de Scepticismo, Hodiernis Theologis Caute Vitando, quam habuit Johannes Jacobus Van Oosterzee Theologis Doctor: Roterodami, 1863.

[97] La Crise Religieuse en Hollande, p. 200.

[98] Christian Work, Sept. 1863, and July and August, 1864.



CHAPTER XVI.

FRANCE: RATIONALISM IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCH—THE CRITICAL SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY.

Some French clergymen, who were sojourning in Berlin in 1842, asked Neander, "What ought to be done to arouse the Protestants of France to thinking upon theological subjects?" "Give yourselves no trouble on that score," replied the professor; "Theology will yet have its good day among you. You have in France the soil in which true theology loves to germinate and grow—I mean Christian life. This has brought you your great theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it is sure to do the same thing in the nineteenth." The present century has not yet run two-thirds of its course, and yet the prophecy has been literally fulfilled.

The spectacle presented to-day in France is highly interesting. The period of indifference has already terminated. The first step toward new vitality has therefore been taken. French theology is displaying an animation and seriousness which may well excite the notice of the whole civilized world. The great minds are bestowing upon sacred subjects an attention nowhere surpassed in vigor and acuteness. Important religious questions are taking their place beside political themes, and the circle of theological readers and thinkers is constantly enlarging. Each class is deeply engaged in the discussion of all the new phases of opinion. Every man chooses his party, cherishes his own convictions, and preaches them boldly. The traveler who may make only a brief stay in Paris will find the representatives of all the professions spending the whole evening in the criticism of the last books from the Liberal Party, and of the rejoinders of their orthodox opponents. Now, for the first time since the seventeenth century, a state of general religious inquiry and earnestness exists. It is not difficult to interpret this quickening of national thought on theological questions. It means that France will have no small share in the decision of the great points at issue between evangelical believers and their critical, destructive antagonists.

A half century ago the Reformed and Lutheran churches were sunk in skeptical formalism. They were divided into two parties, neither of which possessed spirit enough to defend its position, or grace enough to ask God for his blessing. One adhered to the cold Supernaturalism of the eighteenth century, the other to a system of philosophical Deism. The reduced state of piety was largely due to the oppression suffered at the hand of the state. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which deprived Protestants of both religious and civil liberty, occurred in October, 1685, and it was not until 1808 that the law of the 18th Germinal once more recognized their rights, and placed Catholicism and Protestantism on an equal basis. The whole interval was marked by a stagnation of fearful character. At the time of the Revocation, the Reformed church had eight hundred edifices and six hundred and forty pastors, but when the restoration occurred it had but one hundred and ninety churches and the same number of pastors.

The apostasy of the Protestants went to a fearful extent. For example, at the very time of the infamous worship of the Goddess of Reason, a pastor and his elders carried their communion plate and the baptismal vessels to the mayor, to have them melted down for the nation. Improvement began about 1820. There were but three Protestant chapels in Paris, and the services were dull and unattractive. To the late Frederic Monod belongs the imperishable honor of commencing the renovation by means of his little Sunday school. "Never will the traces of his labors be effaced," says M. de Pressense, "for he it is to whom we owe the first furrows in the vast field which now we rejoice to see white unto the harvest." A domestic evangelical spirit, embracing the most distant provinces, began to be apparent in the ministrations of the clergy and in the popular attendance at the services.

A foreign agency also contributed to the awakening. In 1785 a Wesleyan mission was commenced in the Norman isle of Guernsey, and in the following year Adam Clarke was sent to Jersey. It was designed to make the Channel Islands the beginning of French missions. Wesley predicted that they would be outposts for evangelizing efforts all over the Continent. In a short time Jean de Quetteville and John Angel went over into Normandy, and preached the gospel in many villages. Dr. Coke, the superintendent of the Methodist missions, went with the former preacher to Paris, where they organized a short-lived mission. But the labors of Mahy, who had been ordained by Coke, were very successful. Large numbers came to his ministry, and many were converted through his instrumentality. When peace was declared after the battle of Waterloo, three men, Toase, Robarts, and Frankland, sailed for Normandy. In 1817 Charles Cook joined them. He went from town to town, stirring up the sluggish conscience of French Protestantism. He terminated his arduous toils in 1858, leaving behind him a French branch of the Methodist church, which embraces one hundred and fifty-two houses of worship, one hundred ministers, lay and clerical, and fifteen hundred members. Merle d'Aubigne has said of Dr. Cook that "the work which John Wesley did in Great Britain Charles Cook has done, though on a smaller scale, on the Continent." His death was lamented by all the leaders of French Protestantism. Professor G. De Felice, of Montauban, has affirmed that, of the instruments of the French awakening, "Dr. Charles Cook was not the least influential."[99]

The new religious interest arising from the native and imported influences was so fatal to the prevalent skepticism that Voltaire and his school have now but few adherents. Skeptics of France consider that type effete, and unworthy of their support. "The present disciples of Voltaire," says Pastor Fisch, "are compelled to deny his language if they would remain true to the spirit of their master. For, to deride Jesus Christ would manifest an inexcusable want of respectability."

But infidelity has only changed its position. Des Cartes, the apostle of Rationalism in France, had taught that God was only a God-Idea, or human thought continuing itself in divine thought and in infinity. He would make no greater admission than that God had put the world in motion. The principles of Des Cartes, clustering around this opinion, have never lost their hold upon the French mind, and are now influencing it to a remarkable degree.

Cartesianism gained new power by the agency of the Eclectic School, whose champions were Royer-Collard, Maine de Biran, Cousin, and Jouffroy. Their great achievement was the unification of the philosophical systems of Germany and Scotland. But the Eclectics are now in a state of dissolution.

Positivism, as a subordinate system, is the work of Comte alone. This, too, is every year losing its hold upon the land of its birth. Its fundamental principle is, that in virtue of an inner law of development of the mind, the whole human race will gradually emancipate itself from all religion and metaphysics, and substitute for the worship of God that of love of humanity, or a mundane religion. The law of development consists in the psychological experience that all the ideas and cognitions of the human mind have necessarily to pass through the three stages of theology, metaphysics, and positivism. It is only when it arrives at the stand-point of absolutely positive, or mathematically exact knowledge, that human thought attains its goal of perfection. The religion of mankind is divided into three stages; fetichism, polytheism, and monotheism. Its representatives are Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. Catholicism is better suited than any other form of religion to the perfect development of human society. The Christian world is now in the transitory stage of metaphysics, which, by and by, will lead to the golden age of Positivism. This is the absolute religion, or the worship of humanity, which needs no God or revelation.

While Comte has so deeply impressed the thinking circles of France that his opinions are still perceptible in the doctrines of the Liberal Party, another great agent has been operating upon the young, uneducated, and laboring classes. We refer to the light French novel, or feuilleton literature. Such writers as Sue, George Sand, and Dumas, father and son, have published many volumes which were issued in cheap style, and afterward scattered profusely over the land. These works have been extensively read, not only in France, but in all parts of the Continent, Great Britain, and the United States. A recent traveler has averred that he found many persons perusing them in the reading-rooms of Athens. But the public mind sometimes needs a path by which it can effect a transition from a skeptical to an evangelical condition. May it not be that, as far as France is concerned, the minds of the masses have, by this agency, been deflected to such an extent from the infidelity of Encyclopaedism that popular evangelical literature will now find a readier entrance than it could otherwise have effected? If a taste for reading be once created, it may be won, under judicious management and by the aid of God's Spirit, to a purer cause than that which first excited it. The tendency of the works in question is indisputably pernicious, but, if we may think they will serve as a medium of passage for the French masses to the reading and adoption of the great truths of the Gospel, let us not be too slow to accept the consolation.

Such are some of the agencies which have been operating upon the French mind. It now becomes necessary to take a survey of the present theological movements, and to show in what relations the Rationalistic and evangelical thinkers stand to each other.

The Critical School of Theology is beyond all comparison the greatest foe of orthodoxy in France. The English Rationalists exhibit but little scholarly depth, having borrowed their principal thoughts from Germany. The Dutch are too speculative to be successful at present, and the Germans have already grown weary of their long warfare. But the French School, claiming such writers as Scherer, Colani, Pecaut, Reville, Reuss, Coquerel, and Renan, is not to be disregarded, nor are its arguments to be met with indifference. It is, however, most gratifying to state that those ardent friends of the Gospel who resist the attacks of this school manifest a zeal, learning, and skill, quite equal to their ill-armed opponents.

By virtue of that principle of centralization which has long been in force in France, the Critical School of Theology makes Paris the chief seat of its influence. Availing itself of the advantage of the press, it now publishes an organ adapted to every class of readers.[100] The members of the Critical School are connected with the Protestant Church, yet they claim to teach whatever views they may see proper to entertain. They profess deep attachment to the Church, and in their journals advise every one to unite himself with the fold of Christ. If the Reformed Church, in which the most of the Rationalists are found, were not bound to the State by the Concordat and Budget it is probable that it would be divided. One branch would be the Reformed Church of France, founded in 1559, with a clearly determined creed, which none but a General Synod would have power to modify. The other would be the Church of the Future, which would proclaim the admission of no dogmas, no liturgy, and no discipline, and would give power to every one to preach contradictory and negative doctrines in its pulpits.[101]

The association of Rationalists in Paris is called the Liberal Protestant Union. It claims that Protestantism, as represented by the churches, has ceased to be progressive and civilizing. According to its platform, there is no religious authority but free examination; while hostility to all common symbols, and to all profession of faith, is a duty. The Union was immediately opposed. Among other indications of the ill-favor with which it was received was a Remonstrance, signed by some of the most distinguished laymen of Paris. Their language in defense of the Bible as authority for faith was unequivocal. "We do not believe," they said, "that righteousness is indifference; nor do we believe that there is, or can be, a church without a doctrine, a religious doctrine, which unites believers and forms the bond of the Church."

The opinions of the French Critical School of Theology, at which the Remonstrance was aimed, may be briefly stated.

No system is adopted. It professes none, and studiously avoids the embarrassment consequent upon any obligation. Colani says, "We do not present to our readers any fixed system; we have none; we are asking for one conscientiously, patiently; with all our contemporaries, we are in the midst of an epoch of transition. We call around us those who, dissatisfied with the forms of an antiquated system of dogma, and fully admitting salvation by Christ alone, desire to labor in raising the new edifice which is to be built on the solid basis of Him who is at once the son of man and the Son of God.... Not a school, not a system, but a tendency is that which we represent. The device on our banner is 'The True Development of Christian Thought.'"[102] It is difficult to arrive at a knowledge of what this leader is so modest as to call only a "tendency." It claims to have the right of judgment concerning all the truths of the Bible; holds that the Rochelle Confession is a very good monument of the faith of the fathers, but should not now be imposed; that the Bible has no more authority than the books of Plato or Aristotle; that each man has a revelation in himself, free from the imperfections of the Mosaic and Christian revelations; that science, criticism, and examination open the only path to truth; that miracles should be discarded; that Protestantism has lost sight of its mission; and that a second Reformation, embodied in the Church of the Future, is needed to complete the first.[103]

An acknowledged leader of the liberal party has made some statements which more nearly approach the enunciation of a system than we have been able to find in any other authority of French Rationalism.

M. Reville says, "The modern Protestant theology [Rationalism] aspires not to deny the doctrines of the Reformation absolutely, but to preserve the truth that is in them by filtering them through a medium more conformed to our science and our reason. The dogmas of original sin, the trinity, the incarnation, justification by faith, future rewards, and the inspiration of the sacred writings, may serve as examples. On the first of these dogmas, renouncing the idea of an original perfection, the reality of which is contrary to reason, and to all our historical analogies, modern theology would insist on the evil influence which determines to evil an individual plunged in society where sin reigns, on the necessary passage from a state of innocence to a state of moral consciousness and struggle, on the fall which man endures when he sinks from his higher nature to his lower, and renounces God's will to serve his own. As to the trinity, avoiding the scholastic and contradictory tritheism of the old creeds, intent on vigorously preserving God's essential unity, and at the same time his conscious or personal life, this theology attaches itself to the grand idea of the Divine Word pervading the world, as the uttered thought, the objective revelation of God, conceived as manifesting himself to himself in his works. In humanity this eternal word becomes the Holy Spirit, the light which lightens every man coming into the world, but which shines in all its splendor in Jesus Christ. In this series of ideas the incarnation loses that stamp of absolute contradiction which it takes from the orthodox idea of one and the same person, who is at the same time God and man, finite and infinite, localized and omnipresent, praying and prayed to, knowing and not knowing all things, and impeccable, yet tempted. The pure and real humanity of Christ is the basis of the system, and the system may be summed up in these words: The Son of Man is the Son of God. Man is justified by faith, not as the old orthodoxy taught, that is, because he believes that satisfaction was given to God in his place and on his behalf, but because he has confidence in the eternal love of God, and in his own destination for good, as evidenced by Christ in his life and in his death.

"The eternity of future sufferings gives place to an idea more in conformity with sound philosophy, and the revelation of infinite love, according to which, pain resulting from sin, can have for its object only the amelioration of the sinner, and special stress is laid on the spiritual truth that heaven and hell are much less different places than different states of the soul. The inspiration of the Scriptures, that dogma the truth of which consisted in the scriptural value of the Biblical books, as giving a sure basis for faith, as supplying aliment to piety, and elevating the heart, more and more loses its miraculous character to approach analogous phenomena drawn from religions in general, or from other fields where the mind of man reveals itself as inspired. The change of views, however, does not take from the Bible its character as a truly divine book; still does it remain in religion the Book of Books."[104]

It is unsafe to adduce the testimony of any member of this school as an absolute standard of the theological position of all the rest. There is a wide diversity of opinion among them, as any one will perceive who has attempted the comparison. But after examining the individual opinions of some of these men, it will not be difficult to form a correct judgment of their intellectual position as a whole.

One of the most laborious of the number is Edmond Scherer, formerly Professor of Theology in the University of Geneva. His first point of departure from orthodoxy was on the inspiration and authority of the Bible. He became absorbed in German Rationalistic criticism, and adopted its leading principles. His skeptical views caused such offense that he was led to resign his position, when he soon commenced the publication of his views in the new Revue de Theologie at Strasburg. He has subsequently kept aloof from all participation in the State Church and confined himself mostly to writing essays. Some of them have recently been collected into a volume, entitled Miscellanies of Religious Criticism.[105]

Protestantism, according to Scherer, has a right to free inquiry. Once give it the Bible as authority, and you drive it back to Catholicism. This is what has already been done by Protestants, whose religion has numbered its days. Authority has been its ruin, and now it has no liberty. The Evangelists contradict each other in many instances. The Apostles failed to quote the Old Testament correctly. Their gross errors are sufficient of themselves to overthrow all the claims of Scripture to authority. It is not certain that the Gospel of John is authentic; that the discourses of Jesus are correctly reported; that Jesus taught his consubstantiality with the Father; that the divinity of Christ involves his omniscience; that Christ had any intention to decide questions of criticism and canonicity; that he believed in the inspiration of the Old Testament; that he acknowledged the divinity of the Canticles and Ecclesiastes; or that, if he sanctioned the inspiration of the Old Testament, he did the same thing concerning the New.

The New Testament, says Scherer, is full of errata. It contains different records of the same facts. Take as an example the conversion of Saul, of which there are three accounts in the Acts. The discourses of Christ are described in different contexts; the same discourses are not related in similar words; and there is no exactness in the narratives. There are differences in the Gospels, affecting the ideas and actions of Jesus, which sometimes amount to positive contradictions. They exist also between the first three Gospels and that of John. The last Evangelist gives a very different account of many points in the history of the passion and resurrection of Christ, especially in respect to the last Supper and the chronology of the whole passion-week. Christ announced his second coming as near at hand. Hence he, or the Evangelists in reporting him, were grossly in error. There are, in a word, serious objections to accepting the New Testament as authoritative; because we find in it the use of the Septuagint; quotations from the Old Testament in a sense not intended in the original; influence of Jewish traditions; Rabbinical arguments; uncertainty in reports of the discourses of Christ; contradictions between different accounts of the same facts; errors in chronology and history; and Messianic hopes and expectations not in accordance with external events. What right have we, therefore, to accept as infallible that in which we find such an admixture of error? It is the duty of religious science to reconcile revelation with the growing requirements of human thought, and to smooth over the transition from the dogma of the past to that of the future. Dogmatic exegesis does this by separating the substance from the form, faith from formulas, and by distinguishing and pointing out the religious element under the temporary expression which reveals it.

What then is the Bible which Scherer's exegesis presents to us? Faith in it rests on two bases; first, the inspiration and canon of Scripture; and second, the subjects or organs of inspiration. The first is untenable and false, for the stand-point of authority has already spoiled everything in our theology. Authority determines beforehand what we must believe, whereas reason alone should perform that office. There is a communicated revelation to our own minds which should claim the high office of authority. The Bible, in an objective sense, is a divine book, because it contains the remembrance of the most important events in the religious history of the world. Judaism and Christianity are there in their completeness. The Bible is therefore more than a book; it presents us with the living personality of those who founded Christ's Kingdom on earth. Inspiration, such as we find in the Scriptures, is not confined to them, for it is immanent wherever there is intelligence. The spirit of the Bible is the eternal spirit of God; but it is the same spirit which has inspired all good men in past Scriptural periods,—the Augustines, St. Bernards, Arndts, and Vinets. It is a falsehood of theology against faith to deny these men the same kind of inspiration which we find in the Scriptures. Biblical inspiration differs in different writers. They wrote from diverse stand-points. The chroniclers of Scripture told all they knew, but not much could be expected of them. Who would dare to speak of the inspiration of the books of Samuel, Ruth, Kings, and Chronicles?

But let us hear what Scherer says of the miracles of Christ. No evangelical facts should be taken as points of departure in testing Christianity. It is absurd to speak of Christ's miracles as being designed for manifestations of his divinity. Conceding them to be prodigies, they are far below those of Moses and Elijah. Christ did not work miracles in attestation of his power. He performed them in connection with his own words or expressions of other persons. When he gave miraculous power to his disciples, he simply did it as a means of beneficence. Miracles, in their true sense, are opposed to both the Jewish and Christian notions of them. Those of Christ are not the attestation and recommendation of his ministry; they are acts of that ministry; acts which have not their value exterior to themselves; whose value is not in their argumentative character, but in their own intrinsic nature. They constitute an integral part of the gospel, but nothing more. Christ's cures are not solely the symbol, they are the counterpart of the spiritual redemption brought by him unto the world. The authenticity of miracles is another question, and belongs altogether to exegesis.[106] Taking the Scripture narrative as a whole, we greatly err in attaching any authority to it. Mohammed and the false prophets should be placed side by side with Moses and Jesus Christ; for the religion of Christ is a purely human one, like that of Buddha and the Arabian prophet. The Mosaic account of creation is evidently absurd; for man was at first a monkey.

M. Larroque contends that the time has now come for a total departure from the last pagan tradition. Christianity has passed its allotted time, and is now in its death-pangs. Material interests claim minute attention. All we want is the assertion of a pure, rational religion. It was a great misfortune that Marcus Aurelius did not popularize the theism which he expressed in his writings. It would not then have been possible for Constantine to establish the Christian religion, and the world would have been spared the irruption of the barbarians, and the many subsequent periods of darkness.[107]

M. Rougemont adheres to the accommodation-theory. It is the only method of relief in this day of darkness. God, in revelation, has only addressed himself to the physical man. He communicated his spirit—not the Holy Spirit—to the prophets. But that was exterior action. The sacred volume is the historic witness of revelation, and is merely a relative necessity. The Church has existed before the Scriptures, and could still live if they were extinguished.[108]

M. Colani is prominent both as preacher and writer. A pastor of Strasburg being sick, he was urged to supply the pulpit for a few Sabbaths. Though he accepted with great reluctance, he was successful in pleasing the congregation. He was chosen permanent pastor, and has continued the functions of his office, together with the chief editorship of the Revue de Theologie. His opinions are to be found in that periodical, and in several successful volumes of sermons. He professes to be neither satisfied with Rationalism in its destructive sense, nor with orthodoxy. He is confessedly one of the champions of the Critical School. Skepticism, he contends, is perfectly legitimate. We are authorized to doubt; our opinions are fallible; we must be prepared to change them whenever we think we can find better ones. The Bible is intended to reveal to us a life, not a dogma. We find in it no effort to describe dogmas; no theological criticisms; no system of morality.[109] Religious inspiration is nothing but an extraordinary kindling of the divine spirit inherent in human nature. The Scripture writers are imperfect and limited by their own intelligence. The only way to reconcile religion and science is by history. We must study man not as an individual or nation, but as to his human nature. By doing this we will not take a characteristic for the man himself. Man is, by the testimony of history, a religious being, and history reveals his destiny.

Immortality is accepted. We have a personal life going into the infinite. Humanity develops itself by the action of the individual genius, and the individual only successfully unfolds himself by not breaking the bond which unites him to the general development of his species. We must consider the Bible as a collection of documents, over which criticism has absolute rights. We must distinguish between the thought of Christ and that of his historians. They insisted on what seemed to them miracles. Christ is in open conflict with the principle which would make miracles the necessary sign of a true revelation. He has taught the world to recognize God in the regular operation of natural laws. He never lays down any dogmatic conditions, and does not make religious character dependent on the reception of any class of doctrines. We must have faith in him alone, and not in his words. To be a Christian is to participate in the general life of the Christian church, and to take part with others in the labor of the Christian mind.[110]

M. Pecaut affirms that the present position of the French Protestant church is no longer tenable, for its principle of doctrinal faith restrains free examination. It is, however, in a transition-period, and there is an indication of progress in the present interest in great questions of theology. For the doctrines of Protestantism we should substitute a pure, simple Deism; we should substitute philanthropism for morality. The Bible is not entitled to authority, for it has no trace of inspiration. There is no such thing as mediation. We must not attach too much importance to the Messianic idea, for this would imply a special revelation. The Gospels rest on a very insecure basis. The theses of Paul betray a continued oscillation between the mystic and Jewish conceptions. As a whole, the Bible is not divine, and we should at once discard faith in its authoritative character. The only way by which Christ now acts upon persons is by the force of his example and ideas, just as Moses, Mohammed, and Socrates now influence men. Religious faith is not necessarily faith in Christ. He was not free from sin in a moral sense; he had a natural sinfulness by virtue of his humanity.[111]

M. Grotz, pastor at Nismes, was once under the influence of A. Monod, but owing to the withdrawal of Scherer from orthodoxy, he joined the Rationalists. He holds that revelation is not peculiar to the Scriptures. There are many kinds of revelation, and we find them continually in history. Every manifestation of God is a revelation. We must always examine freely and critically; nowhere does Christ enjoin the contrary. We need to use our intellectual faculties and conscience. The greatest revelation is Christ,—not his doctrines, but himself. We should always keep prophecy and miracles in the background, for they are minor questions and should occupy an humble position.[112]

Of all the members of the Critical School, Renan is the best known to the English and American public. He has written a number of works on various topics,[113] but it is by his Life of Jesus that he has gained greatest celebrity. God, Providence, and immortality are, with him, dull words about which philosophy has long played and finally interpreted in the most refined sense.

There is no reason why a pappoose should be immortal. Religion is a part of man's nature, and, in return, he is benefited and elevated by it. God's revelation is in man's innate consciousness. There is no necessity for miracles; all that we need in this life is the mere result of the operation of natural forces. The present age is one in which we should freely criticise whatever comes up for acceptance; but it is wrong to assume the propagandist. Let men have their own views; we have no right to force others upon them. Man is very much attached to the theories contained in the world's first religion. He has given it symbolical expression, for it is thus that religion will always embody itself. Man wants some way by which to tell how and what he thinks of God.[114]

The Gospels were all written, Renan contends, in the first century. The Jews were anticipating somebody who would prove a means of their improvement. Christ fitted the ideal, and the way was smoothed for his success by their visions, dreams, and hopes. The beautiful scenery of lake, valley, mountain, and river developed his poetic temperament. Then the Old Testament made a deep impression on him, for he imagined it was full of voices pointing him out as the great future reformer. He was unacquainted with Hellenic culture, and hence it was his misfortune not to know that miracles had been wisely rejected by the schools which had received the Greek wisdom. In course of time a period of intoxication came upon him. He imagined that he was to bring about a new church which he everywhere calls the Kingdom of God. His views were Utopian; he lived in a dream life, and his idealism elevated him above all other agitators. He founded a sect, and his disciples became intoxicated with his own dreams. But he did not sanction all their excesses: for instance, he did not believe the inexact and contradictory genealogies which we find in his historians.

Yet he was a thorough thaumaturgist and sometimes indulged a gloomy feeling of resentment. His miracles are greatly exaggerated. He probably did some things which, to ignorant minds, appeared prodigies, but they were very few in number. He never rose from the dead; he had never raised Lazarus. By and by, the love of his disciples created him into a divinity, clothed him with wonderful powers, made him greater than he had ever pretended to be. Hence Christianity arose. It was love like that of Mary Magdalene, "a hallucinated woman, whose passion gave to the world a resurrected God."[115] Renan's position will explain all that he says of Christ. He looks at him from the stand-point of naturalism. Christ is no mediator. As an American writer has well said: "From this life of Christ no one would ever infer that there was sin in the world and that Christ came to save sinners."

The reception of the Life of Jesus was most hearty throughout France. Criticism from every side was employed upon it. Over a hundred thousand copies were soon sold, and translations were made into all the European tongues. Its greatest success was in Roman Catholic countries. In France, Italy, Austria, Belgium, and Spain it has found a warm reception, but in the north of Europe, Protestant Germany, and England, it has had less success. As to the ultimate effect of the work, we have every reason to value the opinion of M. de Pressense, who has surveyed the whole ground, and also written the best criticism upon Renan that has appeared in any country. He says: "I am persuaded that the results accomplished by it will be, in the main, good; that it will not shake the faith of any true believer; that it will produce, with many of those who were wavering, a good reaction, which will bring them back to a positive faith; and that the common sense of the people will not fail to see that it is not thus that history is written, and that the problem of the origin of Christianity still remains unexplained in its grandeur." It is likely that an advantage will accrue to Renan from the recent action of the Government. He occupied the chair of Oriental Languages in the College of France, but was deposed by the Minister of Public Instruction. Boasting that he would still retain his title, he continued to teach in his private house. He lost his salary, but claimed the martyr-crown. When last heard from, he was traveling in the countries described in the New Testament as the scene of the labors of the apostles. His avowed purpose is to publish an attack upon the apostolic history.

Athanase Coquerel, jr., editor of the Lien, and a celebrated preacher, justly takes rank among the leaders of the Critical School. He has recently been the subject of an excitement of little less absorbing interest than the sensation occasioned by Renan. Fourteen years ago, Martin Paschoud, one of the Rationalistic Reformed pastors of Paris, selected him as his suffragan or assistant. The Consistory ratified the appointment.

In the Reformed church the assistant pastors do not hold their office by the same title as the titular or regular pastors. The continuance of the former is subject to renewal every two or three years by the Presbyterial Council. But the regular pastors, when first nominated by the Consistory, are afterwards confirmed by the Government. They cannot be removed except by the action of the state. This is the reason why so many Rationalistic pastors are now in full possession of prominent Protestant pulpits in France. No synod, consistory, or presbytery has power to try them for heresy. In fact, there is no standard of doctrine by which heresy can be tested. There being no General Assembly, with power either to establish new standards of doctrine or to give vitality to the old ones, the pulpits of the Reformed church are open to every form of teaching that may profess to be Christian.[116]

Coquerel's last renewal expired about the end of 1863, when his re-appointment became necessary. But his decline into Rationalism had been so rapid that the Presbyterial Council refused to renew the mandate, and he lost his position as suffragan by a vote of twelve against three. He subsequently published a confession of his faith, addressed to his former catechumens, in which the only point of real defense which he substantiates is the charge of Pantheism. He strongly affirms his belief in the personality of God. From M. Coquerel's essays we can derive a correct view of his Rationalistic principles. He affirms that his opinions on the trinity, original sin, the atonement, inspiration of the Scriptures, and other doctrines, called fundamental, are not a little, but altogether different from the orthodox views. He does not consider the Bible inspired, and has therefore written a work in defense of Renan, his "dear and learned friend." As for the Gospels, he finds in them the sublimest of all histories on the one hand, and traces of legends on the other; doctrines and precepts of eternal validity in one place, and stains of the errors of the age in which the books were written, in another. Reason has the right of judging all the truths of revelation. The Confession of Faith of the sixteenth century is a very good monument of the faith of our fathers, but should not now be imposed. The Apostles and Evangelists never made any claim to infallibility. There are two groups of views concerning Christ in the New Testament: First, that contained in Paul's epistles, especially in Hebrews. Paul did not identify Christ with God, nor did he misconceive the humanity of Christ, and attribute preexistence to him. Second. All the second group, consisting of the epistles of James and Peter, the Acts, and the Apocalypse, rest on a purely historical view. To the writers of the latter, Jesus seemed the Messiah; hence we have from them all that is extraordinary in his history. Christ meant in Matt. xi. 27, that he had received his knowledge from God. He did not refer to his own essence. Literal interpretation of Scripture does not bring us to a knowledge of Christ. His humanity, being all that is valuable in his character, contains the mystery that belongs more or less to every individual. His commission from God does not differ from that of other men. That which distinguishes him from his species was his knowledge of humanity and of the future. He had not omniscience, nor infallibility; nothing but superior knowledge. He had his gross defects; for example, his belief in the power of evil spirits. Yet Christ was not a real sinner, and he represented and realized progress without any arrest. Thus he is the ideal and model of humanity.

That which distinguishes Coquerel's views from Socinianism is his Christology. Contending for the moral purity of Christ, he holds that he was the second Adam. But Christ was not the Son of God. He was so denominated just as we term a hero the Son of Mars. We must look at the Scriptures in the light of reason; then we shall behold the fabulous element. Many parts differ in quality, while some are not authentic. The Second Epistle of Peter, for example, was neither written by that apostle nor was it a product of his age. But authority does not rest in the letter, or in the leaves of Scripture. The divine spirit acts in the soul freely and independently of the letter. It is high time that we renounce the puerile, disrespectful, and contradictory worship of the letter. The letter killeth.

The French Critical School numbers among its adherents many young and talented theologians, some of whom are already distinguished for profound learning and literary activity. But the history of Skepticism discloses the fact that religious error has always attracted the young to its embrace. One half of the triumphs of infidelity are attributable to the flattering promises which it makes to those who have not lived long enough to know that infidelity is nothing but a colossal structure of egotism. The deluding voice says to the young man, "You live in a progressive age, and why are you not progressive yourself? Your fathers believed the old Confessions, imagined Christ to be divine, and the Scriptures inspired. We do not blame them much, for they knew no better. But, if you follow in their footsteps, the world will never give you any credit for originality; your slow chariot will move on in the old rut; you will never accomplish anything; your generation will be in advance of you. Be a man! The field of usefulness, prominence, and honor, opens before you. Think for yourself! The Bible is a book of the past, and you should have more manliness and independence than to be guided by its declarations."

It is not surprising that the temptation to fall into this snare is, for many, too great to be resisted. This is true not only of many young Frenchmen, but also of large numbers of Englishmen and Americans, who are casting about for a permanent creed. When they yield, they little dream of the unhappiness in store for them. They never have the consolation derived from settled opinions; life passes without a fixed faith; old age becomes miserable; and death, however much it may appear to be a relief, is a step into darkness and uncertainty.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] Stevens, History of Methodism, Vol. 2, pp. 331-339.

[100] For thinking circles, it issues the Revue de Theologie et de Philosophie Chretienne, founded fifteen years ago by Scherer and Colani. It influences the general public by the daily political paper, Le Temps, and the Revue Germanique. The Strasburg Revue and Paris Lien, are for the special benefit of Protestants in general; while the Disciple de Jesus Christ and Piete-Charite are designed for children and uneducated persons.

[101] M. De Coninck, Christian Work, April, 1863.

[102] Progress of Religious Thought in the Protestant Church of France, pp. 8-9.

[103] L'Eglise Reformee de France et la Theologie Nouvelle, pp. 5-7.

[104] Progress of Religious Thought in the Protestant Church of France, pp. 89-90.

[105] Progress of Religious Thought in the Protestant Church of France. Biographical Notices, pp. iii.-iv.

[106] Essays: Theological Conversations; Errata of the New Testament; What the Bible is; The Miracles of Christ.

[107] Examen Critique des Doctrines de la Religion Chretienne; Renovation Religieuse.

[108] Christ et ses Temoins.

[109] Revue de Theologie. Oct. 1853.

[110] Essay: Views and Aim. Sermons: What there is in the Bible; The Simplicity of the Gospel.

[111] Le Christ et la Conscience.

[112] Essay: What is Revelation?

[113] Studies of Religious History; On the Origin of Language; Averroes and Averroism; History and comparative System of the Semitic Languages; Book of Job; Essays on Morals and Criticism; Solomon's Song.

[114] Miscellanies.

[115] Life of Jesus. American Edition.

[116] McClintock, Letter of March, 1864, in New York Methodist.



CHAPTER XVII.

FRANCE CONTINUED: EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY OPPOSING RATIONALISM.

The influences operating against the integrity and progress of the Protestant church of France are opposed by vigorous agencies. From the clergy and laity men of eminent endowments have arisen who, in ecclesiastical councils, and through the press, have defended evangelical Christianity with a spirit worthy of their Huguenot ancestors. Their task has been herculean. At every point of the horizon infidelity has appeared, and sought to gain a hearing in Paris. Romanism has crippled the advance of truth among the masses. The priesthood enjoy the favor of the government. But the faithful and learned adherents to orthodoxy in all parts of the empire are able to cope with their antagonists. Inspired by such men as Vinet and Monod, they do not stand merely on the defensive, but are constantly aggressive.

Foremost of the modern reformers of France stands the name of M. Edmond de Pressense. He is a vigorous writer, takes an active part in public religious movements, and edits the Revue Chretienne, a theological monthly, which, in both the ability and orthodoxy exhibited in its contents, has no superior in the world. Through this medium M. de Pressense is able to keep up a constant attack upon his adversaries, and to discover all their subterfuges as fast as they may appear. We do not look to this theologian for a system, because he publishes his views mostly as replies to the assaults of Rationalism. Yet, by an analysis of his writings, we shall find him entertaining such opinions as do equal honor to his devout spirit and gigantic intellect.

M. de Pressense believes that it is the duty of the Church not to create a moderate Rationalism to take the place of the bolder system, but to engage anew in a vigorous warfare against a school that would contest the divine basis on which Christianity rests. Such, he holds, is the task of the Christian philosophy of the present day. Evangelical Protestantism is everywhere manifesting a necessity of reorganization. And it has need to do so. The Church of the present day is engaged in an inner crisis, which, in one respect, is legitimate; for it has the great burden of expurgation and reconstruction upon it. The burden consists in separating the immortal truth of the gospel from human imperfections, and in finding in it a more complete expression. The present crisis has dangers and temptations which, in our day, render moral and intellectual life very difficult, and multiply shipwrecks before our eyes. "We wish," M. de Pressense declares for himself and his co-laborers, "to serve the cause of evangelical theology, and nothing else. We do not lift a standard which would summon all opinions and systems without distinction. We stand upon the position that there is a positive revelation, which is not the most distinguished product of human reason, but a divine work of redemption by him whom we appeal to as the Son of Man and the Son of God, who 'died for our sins and rose again for our justification.' It is in the Holy Scriptures that we find the revelation which supplies the immortal wants of our conscience. Apostolical Christianity does not come to us as the first theological elaboration, the first system in a series. It is Christianity itself, and consequently the primitive type, from which we ought never to wander. It is the norm and rule of theology. Within these limits we freely admit the liberty of thought. Variety of opinions has nothing which frightens us; and we would regard uniformity and unanimity on secondary points as a fearful evil."[117]

The purity of the Protestant theology of France is an aim constantly before M. de Pressense. He holds that, notwithstanding the diversity of its formulae, this theology is distinguished by two features: first, it accepts the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and considers them alone as containing the normal type of Christian thought; second, it believes firmly in redemption, and that is in the salvation of ruined humanity brought about by the sacrifice of the Man-God. Though the fall of man was great, it was not absolute. Man was ruined by apostasy, but he was not left destitute of all higher life. He retained some vestige of his primal nature. A sense of the divine, a religious aptitude, and the longing to return to God, subsist in his heart. These render his redemption possible; for the moral law, which had been vindicated by the terrible consequences of the fall, is maintained in all its integrity in the restoration of the fallen creature. A certain harmony was necessary between man and God in order to salvation. Had our nature been thoroughly perverted, no contact would have been possible. We would not have had the capacity to receive from God that great gift which was the only mode of repairing the fall of beings created in his image and formed to possess him.[118]

This being the condition of man, M. de Pressense maintains that the result of this divine teaching was to convince him of his weakness and evoke the desire of salvation. Therefore Christianity comes in to supply a felt want of human nature. Here is the first point of contact between conscience and revelation. The Cross is not simply a testimony to the Father's love, like the flowers at our feet, or the starry sky above our head. It is the altar of the great sacrifice which restores man to God and God to man. Christ is for us a Saviour as well as a Revealer.[119] There is one perfection which can be perceived by neither the eye of the body nor by that of the soul, unless it be revealed by a supernatural fact. We mean the mercy of God. Pardon does not consist in the pure and simple abrogation of condemnation; nor can it restore guilty humanity to communion with God while the state of revolt lasts. Humanity can only be saved by returning to God, and it will not return to God until the divine law has been perfectly filled by it. Christ alone is capable of completely carrying out the divine law. The obedience must go as far as sacrifice, for the fall of man demands it. By coming here, Christ took upon himself the wrath of God. He who was without sin was treated like a sinner. He suffered and died, but his sufferings and death rose to the height of a free sacrifice of love and obedience. Condemnation, thus accepted, is no longer condemnation. It is an act of union with God, un acte reparateur,—a redemption.

The Bible, according to M. de Pressense, is not a metaphysical geometry, but a description of the struggle of Divine love with human liberty. This great Bible history, if we consider it at the time when the Redeemer accomplished our salvation, stands before us as the most striking consecration of the moral idea. Redemption is the painfully reestablished agreement between the human and the divine will by a mysterious sacrifice. It is the most perfect reciprocal penetration of the divine and human by means of liberty. If the moral idea be consecrated by Christ, it will lead to the Gospel. No one will become a Christian unless he has determined to listen to his conscience, and never question concerning moral certainty. We know of no other corner-stone in morality or in religion. But, in order to bring the truths of the Gospel home to the heart, there must be religious liberty. Christianity is the religion of love, but to what could a reconciliation amount which is not free? It is the religion of freedom; and God, in order to save us, has need of freedom.

M. de Pressense, in his recent discussion on the religious bearings of the French Revolution, proves from an historical stand-point the absolute necessity of the separation of Church and State. His excellent work is entitled, The Church and the French Revolution; a History of the Relations of Church and State from 1789 to 1802. The motto upon the title-page, derived jointly from Mirabeau and Cavour, will indicate the spirit of the book: "Remember that God is as necessary as liberty to the French people—The Free Church in the Free State." We trust the day is distant when M. de Pressense will be compelled to lay aside the pen. He is engaged in a contest of momentous issues. That he has violent enemies might be expected; yet he has also the sympathy and prayers of many warm supporters. Hopeful and ardent, he sees indications of success where others imagine darkness and failure. And why not? He has God and truth on his side.

The Evangelical School has an able defender from the laity, the distinguished scholar and statesman, M. Guizot. No one has taken a deeper interest in the present controversy from its inception to the present time than that venerable man. It had been supposed for some time that he was meditating a reply to Renan's Life of Jesus. We now have, as the latest fruit of his graceful and prolific pen, the first instalment of the Meditations upon the Christian Religion, a work which will prove not only a fitting answer to his countryman's attack on the Gospels, but will serve equally well as an antidote to the present skeptical tendencies of French theology.

According to M. Guizot, there is a great intellectual and social revolution now in progress. Its characteristics and tendencies are the scientific spirit, and the preponderance of the democratic principle and of political liberty. Christianity has submitted to tests and trials, and it must pass through those of the present day. It has surmounted all others, and so it will overcome this. Its essence and origin would not be divine if it did not adapt itself to all the different forms of human institutions. Christian people must not deceive themselves as to the nature of the present struggle, the perils which it threatens, and the legitimate arms with which to oppose infidelity. Skeptics attack the Christian religion with brutal fanaticism and dexterous learning. They appeal to sincere convictions, and the worst passions. Some contest Christianity as false, others reject it as too exacting and imposing excessive restraint.

Concerning the Church and its relations to the enemies of evangelical faith, M. Guizot asks, "Does it comprehend properly and carry on suitably the warfare in which it is engaged? Does it tend to reestablish a real peace, and active harmonious relations between itself and that general society in the midst of which it is living? In order to answer these inquiries, he defines the church. It is not one branch, but the whole body of Christ on earth. Therefore, when men deny the supernatural world, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the divinity of Jesus Christ, they really assail the whole body of Christians—Romanists, Protestants, or Greeks. They are virtually attempting to destroy the foundations of faith in all the belief of Christians, whatever their particular differences of religious opinion, or forms of ecclesiastical government. All Christian churches live by faith. No form of government, monarchical or republican, concentrated or diffused, suffices to maintain a church. There is no authority so strong, and no liberty so broad, as to be able in a religious society to dispense with the necessity of faith. What is it that unites in a church if it is not faith? Faith is the bond of souls. When the foundations of their common faith are attacked, the differences existing between Christian churches upon special questions, or the diversities of their organization or government, become secondary interests. It is from a common peril that they have to defend themselves, or they must be content to see dried up the common source from which they all derive sustenance and life.[120]"

In the Meditation already published, M. Guizot discusses the essence of Christianity, creation, revelation, inspiration of the Scriptures, God according to the Biblical account, and Jesus according to the Gospel narrative. In order to complete his work, the author designs to write three more parts. In the second, he will examine the authenticity of the Scriptures, the primary causes of the foundation of Christianity, the great religious crisis in the sixteenth century which divided the Church and Europe between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and finally those different anti-Christian crises which at different periods and in different countries have set in question and imperiled Christianity itself, but which dangers it has ever surmounted.

The third Meditation will be a survey of the present internal and external condition of the Christian religion. The regeneration of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches at the commencement of the nineteenth century will be exhibited. The author will then describe the impulse imparted by the Spiritualistic Philosophy, and the opposition it met with in Materialism, Pantheism, and Skepticism. He will conclude by exposing the fundamental error of these systems as the avowed and active enemies of Christianity. In the fourth series there will be a characterization of the future destiny of the Christian religion, and an indication of the course by which it is called upon to conquer completely the earth and then to sway it morally. M. Guizot, having spent his life in political excitement, now resolves to occupy his remaining years in aiding the cause of religion. "I have passed," says he, "thirty-five years of my life in struggling, on a bustling arena, for the establishment of political liberty, and the maintenance of order as established by law. I have learned, in the labors and trials of this struggle, the real worth of Christian faith and of Christian liberty. God permits me, in the repose of my retreat, to consecrate to their cause what remains to me of life and of strength. It is the most salutary favor and the greatest honor that I can receive from his goodness."

We may now ask, What is the fruit of the labors of MM. de Pressense, Guizot, and their heroic coadjutors? Is the spirit of French Protestantism against them, and are the majority of the clergy yielding to the insinuating arguments of the skeptical school? These questions are satisfactorily answered by the recent action of the French Protestant Conferences. The Conferences are not composed of members formally admitted, but of the pastors and elders who attend the spring anniversaries, and choose to participate in them. The General Conference includes all denominations of Protestants; the special, only the ministers of the Lutheran and Reformed churches who constitute together the National Protestant Church. Whatever action may be adopted by either body is a safe index of the sentiment pervading the entire mass of French Protestantism. In the General Conference which convened in Paris in the spring of 1863, there was a violent debate between the Rationalistic and Evangelical members. M. de Pressense presided. Pastor Bersier made a remarkable speech, in which he declared that true science, light, liberty, and progress are on the side of earnest faith in revelation, the atonement, and the other great doctrines of Christian truth. At the conclusion of the discussion, the following protest was carried by an overwhelming majority:

"The Conference, considering that the faithful may be troubled by systems of the present day, attacking the very basis of Christianity and the Church; that these negations are produced in the name of science, and given as the definitive results of the elaboration of modern thought,—protests in the name of Christian faith, of Christian conscience, of Christian experience, of Christian science, against every doctrine which tends to overturn the existence of supernatural order, of the divine authority of the Scriptures, of the divinity of Jesus Christ, and all that touches the very essence of Christianity; such as it has been professed in all times, by all churches, marked with the seal of religious power and faithfulness. The Conference invites the faithful to beware of these systems of science, a thousand times contradicted by the incessant transformations of the human mind; and exhorts the different churches to make efforts and sacrifices to favor the development and progress of Christian science."

The Rationalists hoped that by spending a year in the industrious promulgation of their opinions, they would gain some official recognition or power in the ensuing Conference. Accordingly, when the General Conference of 1864 convened, they demanded the passage of a resolution by which ministers would be freed from all authority, and permitted to preach any doctrine, no doctrine, or a denial of all Christianity, as they might choose. The debate was very animated, and lasted three days. But the result was all that the most sanguine friends of orthodoxy could desire. The Conference adopted the following declaration, by a large majority:

"Whereas, For some years, pastors and professors of theology have expressed opinions which affect not only the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, but also the most elementary doctrines of Christianity; the Conferences declare that it is an abuse of power and a spiritual tyranny for a minister of Jesus Christ to take advantage of his position to propagate directly or indirectly, ideas contrary to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, such as the authority of the Bible, the divinity and redemption of Jesus Christ, which are contained in all the Protestant liturgies."

M. Guizot, who is an elder in the Reformed church, took a prominent part in the session of the special Conference in 1864. He introduced a declaration of principles, the character of which may be judged by the following extract: "We have full faith, 1st. In the supernatural power of God in the government of the world, and especially in the establishment of the Christian religion; 2d. In the divine and supernatural inspiration of the Holy Books, as well as in their sovereign authority in religious matters; 3d. In the eternal divinity and miraculous birth as well as in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, God-man, Saviour, and Redeemer of men. We are convinced that these articles of the Christian religion are also those of the Reformed church, which has plainly acknowledged them." "Gentlemen," said he, in support of his proposition, "I call your attention to one important fact. Look around you! The attacks against the bases of Christianity are seen everywhere, in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, England, and France. I fear nothing, provided aggression meets with resistance.... I have entire confidence in the cause of Christianity. But man is God's workman; it is by our faith and labor that the Christian religion must be defended. Gentlemen, we have before us a responsible position and great duties. We are the vanguard of all Christianity; we have behind us all the Christian communions. Let us show ourselves equal to this great task, and firmly resolve to accomplish it."

The debate resulted in the adoption of the declaration by a vote of one hundred and forty-one against twenty-three.

In addition to these proofs of the orthodoxy of French Protestantism, there is another of different character but of not less significance. We mean the successful working of the evangelizing agencies lately inaugurated in France. Forty years ago, A. Monod was in the midst of his small Sunday School in Paris. The government was in the hands of the Jesuits, and Protestantism had neither the political power nor spiritual disposition to labor for the conversion of Romanists. As M. Grandpierre has graphically said: "From 1810 to 1815 you could count on your five fingers those Protestant French pastors who preached faithfully and zealously the true principles of Christianity."

But improvement began, and between 1820 and 1830 several important religious societies were organized in Paris. The Methodist and Free Churches vied with the two National Protestant Churches in efforts for the conversion of the masses. In 1830, the Free Church possessed but one place of worship, but it now has a complete establishment for evangelizing purposes in almost every quartier of the great metropolis. In the same year there were but six Protestant pastors and five Churches; but in 1857 there were thirty-nine pastors and fifty-one sanctuaries. Including the whole of France, there are, under Protestant jurisdiction, about one thousand pastors, from fifteen to sixteen hundred churches, and from seventeen to eighteen hundred elementary schools. The official census previous to 1857 gives the total number of Protestants in Paris as thirteen thousand; and seven hundred and seventy thousand throughout the country. M. Grandpierre thinks these numbers are really double; for in Paris alone two pastors are omitted, and if they are left out what must be expected of the members under them? During 1862 twenty new Protestant Churches were opened and consecrated to the worship of God. Twenty-five years ago there was but one Protestant bookstore in Paris, and it was threatened from time to time with bankruptcy. Now there are four, all of which are in a flourishing condition. There is a Sunday School in nearly every Protestant Church of the Empire.