History of the Christian church (Volume 5) online

the kingdom of God. In this kingdom each one
knows he is dependent upon God, in the same degree
that he is conscious of moral freedom.

Freedom and dependence form an identical experi-
ence. This experience is a religious judgment. The
ethical judgment is, that men are free and responsible;
hence, religious judgments have an ethical reverse
side. In the religious functions, as faith in provi-
dence, humility, patience, prayer, man is active and
independent, for the soul is never passive. In mo-
ments of religious exaltation, as members of the whole,
we have the consciousness of dependence upon God.
On the other hand, the regular forms of human self-
judgment are thoughts of freedom, with the conscious-
ness of independence and responsibility.

The Divine acts — such as justification, regenera-
tion, the impartation of the Holy Spirit, the bestowal



5o6 History of the Christian Church.

of salvation — must be so taught that the correspond-
ing self-activities in which these acts are appropriated
by men will be evident, and may be analyzed.

Faith is a comprehensive whole, and is trust and
confidence in God. This must rest on the personal
convictions that God, Christ, his work, the Holy
Ghost, the Trinity, the Church, and all other great ob-
jects of the Christian faith, exist, and are active for us
for the purpose of our salvation. In the degree in
which our ccnfidence is placed upon these religious
objects we appropriate to ourselves their efficacious
grace. The revelation of Christ is the source of the
right and complete knowledge of God. Revelation
and faith are necessarily reciprocal conceptions.

Ritschl's teaching concerning Christ culminated in
the clear assertion of his Divinity; but that Divinity
is not asserted as a fact, but as a judgment
of value. In the section upon faith, moral
freedom was spoken of as impossible to establish by
logical process, but by experience it had impregnable
validity as a religious judgment. This limitation of
logical reason and extension of the evidence of experi-
ence as producing convictions, Ritschl now greatly
enlarged in scope. From the study of Kant he now
extended the range of these value judgments to all
expressions concerning God, including even his ex-
istence. Such, then, is the Divinity of Christ, his
pre-existence, and, with some, even his resurrection.

It is such a judi^ment when a man recognizes
Christ as the revealer of the love of God, and thus of
the especial being of God. In these value judgments
there is the highest subjective interests, the most
certain convictions of the true reality of their content,



Evangelical Church in Germany. 507

and, at the same time, the personal interests of the
believer in their reality. Thus value judgments are
subjective and personal. We are expressly told that
they are not opposed to judgments of fact or actual
existence, but only to the theoretic judgments of sci-
ence. But at the same time these judgments are only
personal, and never affirm actual existence. The
elasticity of the meaning of these value judgments
has been one secret of the great success of the
Ritschlian theology, as it is given a place of promi-
nence it never had in the earlier working out of his
system by Ritschl.

The doctrine of value judgments is made espe-
cially applicable to miracles. In Ritschl's first edition
he only alluded to them, and did not make them a
part of his teaching until 1883. They are its greatest
weakness as well.

Ritschl, in his conception of the work of Christ,
rejected the distinction of active and passive obedi-
ence. The whole work of Christ belonged ^^ ^ ^ ,

. 1 T-» ■Li. The Work oi

to his kingly office. As Royal Prophet, ^.j^j^.
Christ has power over the whole world.
This is shown in his independence of the world and
his perfect patience in suffering. He overcame the
world and broke its power. In the same person he
identified God and man. This is a paradox for the
reason, but truth for the religious judgment.

As Royal Priest, according to the Divine covenant,
the grace of the sacrifice of Christ has for its purpose
to bring men into communion with God. This was
wrought by his obedience in life and death. The
mission of Christ is to realize the kingdom of God ;
he is the revelation of God as love.



5o8 History of the Christian Church.

The founding (making possible) the forgiveness
of sins is the same identical act as the founding of the
Christian Church. As Royal Priest, Christ
' has ruled over the Church. The Church
of Christ is that greatness in which and through
which the kingdom of God shall come to reality ; it
is the chosen object of the love of God. The Church
and the preaching of the work of God are the neces-
sary presupposition and mediation for all subjective
Christianity. In this sense, the acquisition of Chris-
tian salvation is possible only in and through the
Church. In the difference of age, sex, temperament,
types of Christian confession, there is an inexhausti-
ble range of kinds of religious estimates of Christ.

Ritschl was thorougly opposed to all evangelistic
or revival efforts for Christian conversions. He re-
jected the possibility of a conscious conver-
^**^Faith*" *** ^^^^ ^^ childhood or before mature age.
Faith he defined as the perfect and clear
expression for the subjective conviction of the
truth of Christ's religion. When he said this could
only be expected in mature age, he went against all
that we know of the normal psychology of religious
experience.

Ritschl defines the Holy Spirit as the knowledge
which God has of himself, and at the same time it is
imparted to the Christian Church through
^spiHt!^ the perfected revelation of God. For the
Church has the same knowledge of God
and his counsels toward men in the world which ac-
cords with the self-knowledge of God. He farther
says that the Holy Spirit is the power of God which
makes the Church capable of appropriating his reve-



Evangelical Church in Germany. 509

lation as Father through his Son. This is true, but a
most inadequate representation of the work of the
Holy Spirit.

Ritschl repudiated all witness of the Holy Spirit
to the believer's acceptance in Christ, as he did all
sense of the personal presence of God, and all that
is called mysticism in communion with God; for
Ritschl's religion was of the intellect.

Assurance, he taught, comes as the confidence of
a child in a loving father. Farther, he said, in words
which make assurance the effect of works
wrought after grace is given : " There is no
other way to convince one's self of reconciliation
with God through Christ but that which one experi-
ences in active trust and confidence in God's provi-
dence, in patient surrender to the sufferings God
ordains as the means of testing and cleansing, in the
humble awaiting of the unfolding of his direction of
our fate, in the courage of independence of human
judgments, especially so far as they rule religion ;
finall}^ in daily prayer for the forgiveness of sins
under the conditions that man, through the use of
reconciliation, preserves his place in the Church of
God."

In regard to eschatology, Ritschl taught only that
eternal life is experienced here, and that there is no
fear of death to those reconciled to God.

There is much that is suggestive and of enduring
value, even in this brief survey. The assertions of the
personality of God, the makinsr of Christ,

,. ^ ' , ^^ ,. . Summary.

as revealmg God, the center of religious

and theological thinking; the assertions of the great

Christian truth as the Divinity of Christ, even under



5IO History of the Christian Church.

the guise of value judgments, as indispensable to the
Christian faith ; the affirmation of the freedom of the
will, and of the reality of reconciliation with God;
the necessary value ascribed to the Church, as well as
his own trust in God, — these are of unquestioned
worth, and lead to a better Christendom than quanti-
ties of religious speculation without discernible basis,
especially in Germany.

On the other hand, Ritschl's limitation of his
thought to the world, as against speculation and mys-
ticism, went to the length of leaving the
mass of mankind, those beyond the bounds
of Christendom, entirely out of consideration, and
without any opinion or judgment as to their fate.
His position in regard to the beginning of Christian
life and the conversion of children, has been alluded
to. In his rejection of mysticism he repudiated an
element of power which belongs to Christ's Gospel
and to all Christian leadership. Granted that there is
much extravagance and much to criticise in manifes-
tations of mysticism, especially in Germany, neverthe-
less it was an essential element in the experience and
leadership of Bernard of Clairvaux, of Francis of
Assisi, of Martin I^uther, and of John Wesley. St.
John's doctrine of assurance is certainly far different
from that of Albrecht Ritschl. Ritschl's conception
of sin and repentance is also defective.

Ritschl's theology, with its elastic value judg-
ments, is well adapted to an age of transition, and has
met a real need ; but it is far from the ultimate the-
ology, or even that which must prevail in the twen-
tieth century. This theology is that of criticism, and
serves well that end ; but the theology of the Church



Evangelical Church in Germany. 5 1 1

which is to conquer the semi-heathenism of Christen-
dom, and the entire heathenism outside of it, must
have truths and convictions to proclaim that have
more than subjective validity.

The school of Ritschl, at the end of the century,
counted Kaftan and Hermann as its theologians, and
with them gather Harnack, Loofs, Schiirer, and a
crowd of scholars of which any land might be proud.
The accomplishment of these men in research has
been of great value. But in Germany the great
enemy to Christianity is materialistic socialism. The
Socialists form a great political party, and their jour-
nals are edited and their party managed with ac-
knowledged ability. Often editorial expressions in
their periodicals upon current events are more in har-
mony with the teachings of Christ than those of their
opponents. Yet the great mass of the party utterly
reject the Christian faith, and are adherents of the
materialistic doctrines of Carl Vogt and Biichner,
which occupy a standpoint overcome by the educated
classes. Who shall call these artisan populations to
Christ? We fear, not the men of the school of Al-
brecht Ritschl. Who shall train the Churches of
Germany to take their part in the evangelization of
the world?

Denmark and the Lutheran Church furnished
three men of remarkable power and influ- ^^^^^^^
ence, whose careers ended in this period.

Soren Kirkegraad (1813-1855) was the most pro-
found philosophical writer that Scandinavia has pro-
duced, and wrote in a style whose charm ^^^^^^^^^
was equal to the power of his thought.
He was never strong in body, but was rich, and re-



512 History of the Christian Church.

mained unmarried. His greatest work, " Either — Or,"
appeared in 1843. He published thirty volumes, and
left unpublished as many more. He taught that
Christianity is a life ; he was a thorough individualist.
He left a lasting impress on the thought and litera-
ture of his native land.

Nicholas Frederick Severin Grundtvig (i 785-1872)

was a poet, a scholar, and renowned as an orator and

leader in the Christian Church. In his

Orundtvig. . . . ^ r. i i- i

university years, 1 805-1 808, he studied
Shakespeare, Schiller, and Fichte, as well became the
nephew of Steffens. He was greatly attracted while
a tutor, after his graduation, by the old Norse Sagas.
In 1808 he published his "Songs of the Bdda" and
"Northern Mythology;" the year following, "The
Decline of Heroic I^ife in the North." He served as
his father's vicar, 1811-1813; the next year he had a
controversy with the Danish scientist, Oersted. In
18 13-1815 he preached in Copenhagen, and then ac-
cepted the pastorate of the Church of the Redeemer
at Christianshaven. There he translated Beowulf,
Saxo Grammaticus, and Sturlesson's "Saga." In
1825 he left the State Church. The king sent him to
England to study.

Grundtvig had some peculiar personal opinions.
He held that the Apostles' Creed was orally, word for
word, delivered by Christ to his disciples; this, and
the baptismal formula, made men Christians. Indeed,
he struck the Ten Commandments from his Catechism,
and declared that the preaching of repentance is not
necessary for the children of light. He was an ardent
nationalist. As an orator he was unexcelled, and un-



Evangelical Church in Denmark. 513

til extreme age preserved his impressive bearing and
the fiery glance of his eye.

He, after having been so long without its pale,
was bishop in the Danish Church from 1863 until his
death.

Hans Lars Martensen (1808- 1884) has been called
by many Germans the greatest Evangelical theologian
of the century. His " Christian Dog-
matics," published in 1849, was translated
into most European languages, even into Greek. It
is said to have had as wide an influence on Evangelical
thought as any volume of the century. Though de-
pendent upon Confessional Lutheranism and the
Hegelian philosophy, for profundity of thought, com-
prehensiveness of grasp, lucidity, beauty, and concise-
ness of expression, it has not been approached in the
theological writings of the century. It is the one
work of genius in theology after Schleiermacher.

Martensen studied in the University of Copen-
hagen. In 1832 he visited Berlin, Munich, Vienna,
and Paris. He studied especially the philosophy of
the Middle Ages. In 1837 he taught Moral Philoso-
phy in his Alma Mater. In 1840 he lectured on
Speculative Dogmatics. In 1845 he was appointed
court preacher, and in 1854 primate of Denmark, the
See which he retained until his death. In 187 1
he published "Christian Ethics;" in 1879, "Jacob
Boehme;" and in 1883, his "Autobiography." He
was a warm friend of Dorner. The friendship of these
men stands in strong contrast with the isolation of
Ritschl. As a prelate he resisted Grundtvig, and was
a High Tory in literature, politics, and philosophy.



514 History of the Christian Church.

The Reformed Church on the Continent had little
with which to match his magnificent display of
scholarship and literary productions.

Johannes Heinrich August Ebrard (1818-1888),
however, in literary activity was no equal match for
any of them. He was born at Erlangen,
where he took his degree. He began teach-
ing there in 1841, and was at Zurich, 1 844-1 847, when
he returned to Erlangen. There he taught until he
was made Consistorial Councilor at Speyer, 1853-1861.
Resigning there, he returned to Erlangen. After
1875 he was pastor of the French Church there. In
1842 he published his "Scientific Criticism of the
Gospel History;" i845-i846,the '' Dogmaand History
of the Lord's Supper;" 1 85 1, " Christian Dogmatics;"
" History of the Christian Church and Dogma," four
volumes, 1865-1866. Many of his works appeared in
English, as his edition of Ohlshausen's "Commen-
tary." He visited twice the United States. Though
belonging to the Reformed Church, he rejected from
his heart the doctrine of predestination.

Frederick Louis Godet (18 12-1900) won a large
reading public in English-speaking countries. Born
at Neufchatel, Switzerland, he studied at
Bonn and Berlin. From 1838 to 1844 he
was preceptor to the Crown Prince of Prussia. From
1845 to 1851 he supplied different churches in his na-
tive Canton. In 1866 he became pastor in Neuf-
chatel. There he also served as Professor of Exeget-
ical and Critical Theology, 1 850-1 887, when his son
took his place.

His Commentaries on St. John, 1863-1865; St.



Evangelical Church IN France. 515

lyuke, 1871; Romans, 1879-1880; Corinthians, 1886;
and his Old and New Testament Studies, 1 873-1 874,
two volumes, have had a wide circulation, and have
deserved it for their learning, acuteness and good
sense.

Edmund Dehault de Pressense (i 824-1 891) at-
tained reputation as a preacher, a writer, and a states-
man. After studying in Paris, he was two
years in Lausanne with Vinet, and then
two more in Berlin. He was pastor of the Free
Evangelical Congregation, 1 846-1 870, which was in-
dependent of the State. In 1 871-1876 he served as
deputy in the National Assembly; in 1883 he was
elected senator for life. He wrote largely in an easy
style, and most of his works were translated into
English. The chief of them are "The Redeemer,"
1854, a volume of sermons; ''Jesus Christ: His Life
and Work," 1866; " The First Three Centuries of the
Christian Church," 1858-1878; these were in reply to
M. Renan. "The Church and the French Revolu-
tion," a valuable work, appeared in 1864, and a " Study
of Origins," in 1882.

In speaking of Kuenen, something
was said of the condition of the Re- '^*' Houand'! '"
formed Church in Holland.

In these years there were two able leaders of the
Evangelical cause. The eldest of these was John
Jacob Van Oosterzee (181 7-1888). He was
educated at Utrecht, and pastor at Eemnes, qq^^^^^.^,
1841-1843; Alkmaar, 1843-1844; and Rot-
terdam, 1844-1862. He was then called to a profess-
orship in the University of Utrecht, 1 862-1 882. He



5x6 History of the Christian Church,

was learned, eloquent, and pious. Most of his publi-
cations have appeared in English; among them are
''Christian Dogmatics," 1872; " Practical Theology,"
1878. In Lange's Commentary he wrote on Luke,
the Pastoral Epistles, and Philemon. In 1872 ap-
peared in English his ''Theology of the New Testa-
ment." There were published ten volumes of his
sermons.

Abraham Kuyper, born in 1837, is the other Evan-
gelical leader in Holland. He was educated at Ley-
den -under Scholten and Kuenen. He
knew from personal experience the lack of
vitality and spiritual power in their teachings, and he
represents the strongest reaction against them. This
came from his finding, studying, and winning a prize
for an edition of the works of John a Lasco, the
Polish Reformer of the sixteenth century. From that
time he has been a sturdy Calvinist. As pastor at
Beest and Utrecht he stood by the side of Groen as
leader of the Old Reform party in the State Church
from 1869. On Groen's death in 1876, he succeeded
to the leadership of the party. He became editor of
the Standard in 1870, and later founded the Herald.
Since 1874 he has been Deputy in the National Legis-
lature. In 1878 he founded a Union to support free
Christian schools. It has an income of $50,000 a
year. In 1880 he founded a free university, inde-
pendent of the State. Preachers who followed him
were excluded from the National Synod; but in 1885
one hundred and fifty Churches followed the example
of Amsterdam in welcoming these preachers as their
pastors. They have their independent organization.



Evangelical Church ln Holland. 517

but there is no formal breach with the State Church.
These Churches, under the lead of Kuyper, have en-
tered into an alliance with the Roman Catholics. Their
point of contact is religious instruction in the schools
of the land. The opening of the new century saw
this leader of the Calvinistic reaction against the
naturalism and Free Reli,e;ion of Scholten and Kuenen
the Prime Minister of Holland.



Chapter VII.

THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND.

The last lialf of the nineteenth century saw the
growing power and influence of Great Britain as it
witnessed the increasing social amelioration of her
artisans and lower classes. The last twenty years, it
is true, saw the rise of new and successful trade rivals
in the United States and Germany, so that she could
no longer hold undisputed her unique position of com-
mand in manufacture and commerce ; but the years
under review beheld the consolidation and immense
increase of her power in India, Burmah, and Afghan-
istan. At the same time came into her possession the
keys of Africa and the East in the occupation of the
Nile Valley from Alexandria to Khartoum, and her
control of the Suez Canal. Besides these, she had
founded and saw grow, in prosperity and power, three
great empires in Australia and New Zealand, in Canada,
and South Africa. The turn of the centuries saw her
overcome her chief foe in South Africa, and remove
the bitterest grievance of her rule in the solution of
the land question in Ireland. In repairing two capi-
tal mistakes of her policy, she has been hardly less
successful. The Crimean war was a blunder; but
Britain has had the good fortune to see Germany take
her place in supporting the Turkish Empire as a

518



Evangelical Church in Great Britain. 519

buffer State against Russia. Her support of the South
in the Civil War in the United States was a great
blunder ; but it was repaired by the Treaty of Wash-
ington in 1 87 1, and by friendly conduct during the
Spanish-American War.

In the United States, Great Britain has a trade
rival whose resources and use of them she must re-
spect and heed ; but she also has the friendly support
of one of the greatest of the world powers, one having
the same language, literature, political traditions, and
ideas. These two in alliance would fear no other
combination of the nations. The rise of Germany as
a check against plans of French aggression, which
made uneasy the first seventy years of the century,
and as a defense against Russian preponderance, has
greatly strengthened the position of Great Britain.

In all that gives rule to nations ; in prestige, in
power, no other century ever saw Great Britain in the
position of advantage which she occupied at the sun-
rising of the twentieth after Christ. It may be truly
said that this position is not undeserved. Serious are
the blots of Turkish support, the Chinese Opium
War, the fall of Khartoum, and the desertion of Ar-
menia. But English statesmen have had the ability
to learn. The improved condition of England's popu-
lation, the content of her self-governing colonies, and
her government of her dependencies, in spite of the
Indian Mutiny and the Boer War, are to her immense
credit. After all deductions are made, she has given
India and Egypt the best rule they have had in a
thousand years. Her administrative rule among de-
pendent races has been the ablest and most just the
nineteenth century knew.



520 History of the Christian Church.

Of the statesmen under whom this prosperity came,
Palmerston, Disraeli, and Lord Derby were professed
Christians and members of the Church of England,
but thorough men of the world ; Gladstone, Lord John
Russell, and Lord Salisbury, like Lord Shaftesbury,
were not only members of the National Church, but
personally religious and earnest in their Christian
faith. The latter may be said of Cobden and Bright,
who were typical English Liberals, hating slavery and
absolutism, and believing in popular government, pop-
ular education, and free trade.

In literature, the last fifty years of the reign of
Victoria did not fail of splendid examples. They saw
the culmination of the renown of Tennyson and
Browning as they took their place among the bards of
all time. This was true of the princes among Eng-
lish essayists, Macaulay and Carlyle, and their succes-
sors, Ruskin and Matthew Arnold. Two clergymen
were little beneath them in command of the grace and
beauty of the mother tongue, John H. Newman and
James Martineau. Goldwin Smith and Frederick
Harrison wrote English of singular purity and power.

It was the great age of the English novel, and
Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot were its mas-
ters. At a distance followed Charles Kingsley, Charles
Reade, Anthony Trollope, and Sir Walter Besant.
In history. Freeman, Froude, Green, and Gardiner
kept up the goodly succession ; while science had able
exponents in Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall. In
philosophic thought the men of distinction were John
S. Mill, Sir William Hamilton, Thomas H. Green,
Adam Sedgwick, and Edward Caird.

In education this was England's progressive era.



Evangelical Church in Great Britain 521

In 1850 an Educational Commission was appointed to
revise the statutes and work of the universities of
Oxford and Cambridge ; Arthur, later Dean,

T, i. J • English

Stanley was its secretary. It reported in Education.
1858; the mediaeval statutes were abol-
ished, the professorships were increased, the Fellow-
ships were almost all thrown open to merit, and the
income of the scholarships was augmented, while their
number was increased. Religious tests were greatly