To be near unto God - pagina 158

to train the will, to develop it, to apply it to deeds, and with this strongly trained human will to maintain ourselves in the face of the Universal-will. Hence everything that is, and everything that is called history, and life itself is reduced to one power, and the only thing that is supremely high and holy is our personal will. That the philosophic school which oracled like this is diametrically opposed to all religion, and more especially to the Christian religion, needs no demonstration. But it is noteworthy that the Christian religion in the Christian church, simulis

mighty

taneously revealed an allied tendency, which likewise put the will in the foreground, and at length subordinated every other utterance of the Christian faith to it. We mean that religious tendency which interprets the confession with ever greater liberality, which allows feeling and sentiment ever less opportunity of being heard, and shows ever more the need and inclination to exhibit Christianity solely and alone in works and display of

power, that is to say, in utterances of the will. This idea and inclination was not born nor taken from this philosophic school, but owed its rise to an universal phenomenon, which shows itself The healthful Reformation in in human life. the ecclesiastical world was followed first by the barren period of dogmatics in the 17th century, and after that by the period of emotional religion in the 18th century. As neither the one nor the other proved satisfactory, and as it became evident that between these two, Christianity was losing

strength,

it

naturally

came to pass that

with the depreciation of subtle credal statements, and an increasing distaste for weak emotionalism, 150

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