§ 6.
In religion man has in view himself alone, or, in regarding himself as the object of God, as the end of the divine activity, he is an object to himself, his own end and aim. The mystery of the incarnation is the mystery of the love of God to man, and the mystery of the love of God to man is the love of man to himself. God suffers—suffers for me—this is the highest self-enjoyment, the highest self-certainty of human feeling. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son.”—[John iii. 16]. “If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”—[Rom. viii. 31, 32]. “God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”—[Rom. v. 8]. “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”—[Gal. ii. 20]. See also [Titus iii. 4]; [Heb. ii. 11]. “Credimus in unum Deum patrem ... et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum filium Dei ... Deum ex Deo ... qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit et incarnatus et homo factus est passus.”—Fides Nicaenae Synodi. “Servator ... ex praeexcellenti in homines charitate non despexit carnis humanae imbecillitatem, sed ea indutus ad communem venit hominum salutem.”—Clemens Alex. (Stromata, l. vii. ed. Wirceb. 1779). “Christianos autem haec universa docent, providentiam esse, maxime vero divinissimum et propter excellentiam amoris erga homines incredibilissimum providentiae opus, dei incarnatio, quae propter nos facta est.”—Gregorii Nysseni (Philosophiae, l. viii. de Provid. c. i. 1512. B. Rhenanus. Jo. Cono interp.) “Venit siquidem universitatis creator et Dominus: venit ad homines, venit propter homines, venit homo.”—Divus Bernardus Clarev. (de Adventu Domini, Basil, 1552). “Videte, Fratres, quantum se humiliavit propter homines Deus.... Unde non se ipse homo despiciat, propter quem utique ista subire dignatus est Deus.”—Augustinus (Sermones ad pop. S. 371, c. 3). “O homo propter quem Deus factus est homo, aliquid magnum te credere debes.” (S. 380, c. 2). “Quis de se desperet pro quo tam humilis esse voluit Filius Dei?” Id. (de Agone Chr. c. 11). “Quis potest odire hominem cujus naturam et similitudinem videt in humanitate Dei? Revera qui odit illum, odit Deum.”—(Manuale, c. 26. Among the spurious writings of Augustine.) “Plus nos amat Deus quam filium pater.... Propter nos filio non pepercit. Et quid plus addo? et hoc filio justo et hoc filio unigenito et hoc filio Deo. Et quid dici amplius potest? et hoc pro nobis, i.e. pro malis, etc.”—Salvianus (de gubernatione Dei. Rittershusius, 1611, pp. 126, 127). “Quid enim mentes nostras tantum erigit et ab immortalitatis desperatione liberat, quam quod tanti nos fecit Deus, ut Dei filius ... dignatus nostrum inire consortium mala nostra moriendo perferret.”—Petrus Lomb. (lib. iii. dist. 20, c. 1). “Attamen si illa quae miseriam nescit, misericordia non praecessisset, ad hanc cujus mater est miseria, non accessisset.”—D. Bernardus (Tract. de XII. gradibus hum. et sup.) “Ecce omnia tua sunt, quae habeo et unde tibi servio. Verum tamen vice versa tu magis mihi servis, quam ego tibi. Ecce coelum et terra quae in ministerium hominis creasti, praesto sunt et faciunt quotidie quaecunque mandasti. Et hoc parum est: quin etiam Angelos in ministerium hominis ordinasti. Transcendit autem omnia, quia tu ipse homini servire dignatus es et te ipsum daturum ei promisisti.”—Thomas à Kempis (de Imit. l. iii. c. 10). “Ego omnipotens et altissimus, qui cuncta creavi ex nihilo me homini propter te humiliter subjeci.... Pepercit tibi oculus meus, quia pretiosa fuit anima tua in conspectu meo” (ibid. c. 13). “Fili ego descendi de coelo pro salute tua, suscepi tuas miserias, non necessitate, sed charitate trahente” (ibid. c. 18). “Si consilium rei tantae spectamus, quod totum pertinet, ut s. litterae demonstrant. ad salutem generis humani, quid potest esse dignius Deo, quam illa tanta hujus salutis cura, et ut ita dicamus, tantus in ea re sumptus?... Itaque Jesus Christus ipse cum omnibus Apostolis ... in hoc mysterio Filii Dei ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθέντος angelis hominibusque patefactam esse dicunt magnitudinem sapientis bonitatis divinae.”—J. A. Ernesti (Dignit. et verit. inc. Filii Dei asserta. Opusc. Theol. Lipsiae, 1773, pp. 404, 405. How feeble, how spiritless compared with the expressions of the ancient faith!) “Propter me Christus suscepit meas infirmitates, mei corporis subiit passiones, pro me peccatum h. e. pro omni homine, pro me maledictum factus est, etc. Ille flevit, ne tu homo diu fleres. Ille injurias passus est, ne tu injuriam tuam doleres.”—Ambrosius (de fide ad Gratianum, l. ii. c. 4). “God is not against us men. For if God had been against us and hostile to us, he would not assuredly have taken the poor wretched human nature on himself.” “How highly our Lord God has honoured us, that he has caused his own Son to become man! How could he have made himself nearer to us?”—Luther (Th. xvi. pp. 533, 574). “It is to be remarked that he (Stephen) is said to have seen not God himself but the man Christ, whose nature is the dearest and likest and most consoling to man, for a man would rather see a man than an angel or any other creature, especially in trouble.”—Id. (Th. xiii. p. 170). “It is not thy kingly rule which draws hearts to thee, O wonderful heart!—but thy having become a man in the fulness of time, and thy walk upon the earth, full of weariness.” “Though thou guidest the sceptre of the starry realm, thou art still our brother; flesh and blood never disowns itself.” “The most powerful charm that melts my heart is that my Lord died on the cross for me.” “That it is which moves me; I love thee for thy love, that thou, the creator, the supreme prince, becamest the Lamb of God for me.” “Thanks be to thee, dear Lamb of God, with thousands of sinners’ tears; thou didst die for me on the cross and didst seek me with yearning.” “Thy blood it is which has made me give myself up to thee, else I had never thought of thee through my whole life.” “If thou hadst not laid hold upon me, I should never have gone to seek thee.” “O how sweetly the soul feeds on the passion of Jesus! Shame and joy are stirred, O thou son of God and of man, when in spirit we see thee so willingly go to death on the cross for us, and each thinks: for me.” “The Father takes us under his care, the Son washes us with his blood, the Holy Spirit is always labouring that he may guide and teach us.” “Ah! King, great at all times, but never greater than in the blood-stained robe of the martyr.” “My friend is to me and I to him as the Cherubim over the mercy-seat: we look at each other continually. He seeks repose in my heart, and I ever hasten towards his: he wishes to be in my soul, and I in the wound in his side.” These quotations are taken from the Moravian hymn-book (Gesangbuch der Evangelischen Brüdergemeine. Gnadau, 1824). We see clearly enough from the examples above given, that the deepest mystery of the Christian religion resolves itself into the mystery of human self-love, but that religious self-love is distinguished from natural in this, that it changes the active into the passive. It is true that the more profound, mystical religious sentiment abhors such naked, undisguised egoism as is exhibited in the Herrnhut hymns; it does not in God expressly have reference to itself; it rather forgets, denies itself, demands an unselfish, disinterested love of God, contemplates God in relation to God, not to itself. “Causa diligendi Deum, Deus est. Modus sine modo diligere.... Qui Domino confitetur, non quoniam sibi bonus est, sed quoniam bonus est, hic vere diligit Deum propter Deum et non propter seipsum. Te enim quodammodo perdere, tanquam qui non sis et omnino non sentire te ipsum et a temetipso exinaniri et pene annullari, coelestis est conversationis, non humanae affectionis” (thus the ideal of love, which, however, is first realised in heaven).—Bernhardus, Tract. de dilig. Deo (ad Haymericum). But this free, unselfish love is only the culmination of religious enthusiasm, in which the subject is merged in the object. As soon as the distinction presents itself—and it necessarily does so—so soon does the subject have reference to itself as the object of God. And even apart from this: the religious subject denies its ego, its personality, only because it has the enjoyment of blissful personality in God—God per se the realised salvation of the soul, God the highest self-contentment, the highest rapture of human feeling. Hence the saying: “Qui Deum non diligit, seipsum non diligit.”