Immortality. The Speculative Rationalists attach less importance to individual immortality than their predecessors conceded. We might infer this, however, from the Hegelian point of view adopted by the former. They profess adherence to Schleiermacher's dictum: "In the midst of the finite to be one with the infinite, and to be eternal every moment." But they adhere to the doctrine of "eternal life," by which term they mean an existence commencing and terminating with faith. It is a life of such value that it should be called "eternal" life, although it ends with our last breath in this world. It consists in the attainment of the end of our existence and of conquest over sin. Thus, they reduce the eternal life of which the gospel speaks to a mere method and duration of stay in this world. This life, with them, exhausts life; the kingdom of God has not an eternal, but a present and temporal existence; there is, therefore, no new heaven and new earth.
Sin. The fall of man did not take place. It is an absurd superstition. Since the world is but a limited and imperfect representation of God, sin came into it immediately upon its origin. We err when we look at sin apart from a correct conception of the world. Sin has its seat in the natural weakness of man, for he is a temporal being, and in process of necessary development from impure naturalness to reason and freedom. It is the condition in which man finds himself before arriving at an idea of what he is or will be. If it be asked, "Why is sin in the world?" the rejoinder is made, "Why is not man, in the outset of his existence, what he is destined to be, and why must he stand in need of development?" Sin, in the beginning, was natural imperfection, but it never becomes a work of the will until man is developed. It is the melancholy result of an awakened consciousness. But, after man is once aroused to self-consciousness and begins his actual, sinful life, he never becomes a lost sinner.
Faith. The gospel is not a compendium of principles. Its only value consists in its description of the moral and religious character of Christ, and every one must derive from it such opinions as seem most plausible and reasonable. But they err who excogitate from it those severe dogmas which express only dreams of the imagination and wishes of the religious spirit. Faith in the gospel is not a condition of salvation. For faith is the inner relation of the spiritual man to God, not the acceptance of fixed traditions. It is such a feeling, emotion, and relation as can exist independently of doctrine. Objective truth is not the measure of faith, and the salvation of man is not conditioned by his theoretical opinions. The human spirit in man is the agent of regeneration. Therefore, man, and not God, is the author of human regeneration. Justification by faith is produced by seeking God's favor, but Christ has nothing at all to do with the matter.
We cannot as yet foresee the complete result of the efforts of the New Speculative Rationalism to propagate itself. German Switzerland will be influenced by Germany, and because of the thorough improvement already inaugurated in the latter country no general resurrection of skepticism need be feared. The evangelical professors at Basle are eagerly watching every new movement, and we believe they have sufficient strength to meet every emergency. Christianity is aggressive. Sometimes it is obliged to halt and give battle. The carnage may last long, and the on-looking world may, in its ignorance, decide too speedily that the day is lost. But the victory of error is only temporary. The ark in Dagon's house was still the ark of God. Since good men are a perpetual power to a people, we may reasonably hope that the Swiss reformers will continue to animate the citizens of all the French and German cantons. May the pulpits and theological chairs of Switzerland ever be filled with men who can say what Zwinglius uttered one New Year's Day as his first words to the assembled multitude in the cathedral of Zürich: "To Christ, to Christ will I lead you,—to the source of salvation. His word is the only food I wish to furnish to your hearts and lives!"
FOOTNOTES:
[121] Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte d. 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, vol. II., p. 416.
[122] Alexander, Switzerland and the Swiss Churches, p. 194.
[123] Kurtz, Church History, vol. ii., p. 334.
[124] Farrar, Critical History of Free Thought, p. 444.
[125] L'Opinion Nationale, 1863.