the righteousness which is infused is the righteousness of Christ; but instead of depreciating the human nature and making it only the channel for communicating the divine, he laid special stress on the humanity of Christ. The human nature of Christ was not a creature. It was formed out of the substance of God; and after its sojourn on earth, was even as to the body, rendered completely or perfectly divine, so that whatever can be predicated of God, can be predicated of the humanity of Christ. Nevertheless, the human nature was not so absorbed into the divinity, that Christ had but one nature. He continues God and man, but as man is God. And this divine human, or human divine nature, is communicated to us by faith. Faith itself is the first communication of the divine essence, the final result of which is the complete deification of man. The substance of God is not communicated to the race of men, so that God becomes thus identified with men in general. It is in the regenerated that this union of the divine and human natures is consummated. It cannot escape notice, that the views of this class of writers, so far as results are concerned, differ but little from those of the modern speculative theologians of Germany and their followers in England and America. The obvious objection, that if salvation depends on the union of the divine nature with ours, and if this union be due to the incarnation of Christ, those living before his advent in the flesh must be excluded from the benefits of his theanthropic nature, is very unsatisfactorily answered by the modern theologians referred to. Schwenkfeld had no hesitation. in cutting the knot. In a Sendbrief written in 1532, in which he treats of the difference between the Old and New Testament economies, he says, that under the former there was no saving faith, and no justification, and that all the patriarchs had therefore perished forever.

Schwenkfeld's followers were numerous enough to form a distinct sect, which continues to this day. Some religionists, both in Germany and in this country, are still called by his name. All the writers on the history of doctrine give the authorities for the statements concerning the doctrines of Osiander and Schwenkfeld derived from sources not generally accessible in this country

Oetinger.

The prominent representative of the mystical theory during the eighteenth century, was Friedrich Christopher Oetinger, a distinguished theologian of South Germany. He was born in 1702, and died in 1782. He enjoyed every advantage of culture

in science, theology, and philosophy, which he diligently improved. After his death it was said, "When Oetinger died a whole academy of science died." Very early in life, he says, he adopted and avowed the purpose, "to understand whatever he learnt." By this he meant that he would receive nothing on authority. All that the Scriptures teach as doctrine, must be sublimated into truths of the reason and received as such. He avowed it to be his purpose to furnish a philosophia sacra as a substitute for the systems of profane philosophy. For this purpose he devoted himself to the study of all previously received systems, extending his researches to the cabala of the Jews, and the mystical writers of the Church; to alchemy and to all departments of science within his reach. He professed special reverence for Jacob Böhme, the great unlettered theosophist of the preceding century, to whom even Schelling and other of the leading modern philosophers bow as to an acknowledged seer. Oetinger examined the several systems in vogue before or during his own period. Idealism and materialism, and realistic dualism were alike unsatisfactory. He assumed life to be the primordial principle. Life was the aggregate of all forces. These in God are united by a bond of necessity. In things out of God the union of these forces is not necessary; and hence evil may arise, and has, in fact, arisen. To remove this evil and bring all things back to God, the eternal Logos became man. He adopted the old Platonic idea, that in the Logos were the originales rerum antequam exstiterunt formae: omnia constiterunt in ipso archetypice sive actu. This plenitude of the Godhead dwells in Christ and renders his humanity divine. The union of the divine and human natures in Christ, secures the complete deification of his human nature. The hypostatical union of the two natures in Christ is the norm of the mystical union between Christ and his people. "Ut ibi adsumta caro consistit èv λóyw per participationem &ñоστáσews, ita hic nostra subsistit in Christo per consortium gratiæ et beías púσews," etc.1 The second Adam having assumed humanity, says Oetinger, "Traxit carnem nostram in plenitudinem Deitatis," so that our race again becomes possessed of the divine nature in Him and in us ; i. e., "unione tum personali tum mystica." It is indeed plain, as Dorner says, that we find in Oetinger the ideas which are the foundation of the philosophy of the present age. The nature of God and the nature of man are so homogeneous that they may be united and constitute one, which is divine human or human divine. We are saved not by the work of Christ 1 See Dorner, Person Christi, 1st edit. Stuttgart, 1839, pp. 305–322. 2 Ibid. p. 317.

"2

for us, but by his work in us.

The eternal Son is incarnate not

in the man Christ Jesus, but in the Church.

The Modern Views.

In the present period of the Church's history, this mystical theory of the person and work of Christ is probably more prevalent than ever before. The whole school of German speculative theologians, with their followers in England and America, are on this ground. Of these theologians there are, as remarked above, two classes, the pantheistic and the theistic. According to the former, the nature of man at first was an imperfect manifestation of the absolute Being, and in the development of the race this manifestation is rendered complete; but complete only as an eternal progress. According to the other, man has an existence and personality, in one sense, outside of God. Nevertheless God and man are substantially the same. This identity or sameness is shown perfectly in Christ, and through Him, is realized more and more perfectly in the Church as some teach, or, as others say, in the whole race.1

§ 6. Concluding Remarks.

In reviewing these several theories concerning the method of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, it is important to remark,

1. That it is not to be inferred because certain writers are quoted as setting forth one particular theory, that they recognized the truth of no other view of the work of Christ. This remark is especially applicable to the patristic period. While some of the fathers speak at times of Christ's saving the world as a teacher, and others of them himself as a ransom to Satan, and that He say gave others again that He brings men back to the image of God, this does not prove that they ignored the fact that he was a sin offering, making expiation for the guilt of the world. It is characteristic of the early period of the Church, before special doctrines had become matters of controversy, that the people and the theologians retain the common language and representations of the Bible; while the latter, especially, dwell sometimes disproportionately on one mode of Scriptural representation, and sometimes disproportionately on another. The fathers constantly speak of Christ as a priest, as a sacrifice, and as a ransom. They ascribe our salvation to his blood and to his cross. The ideas of expiation and propitia

1 On these views see above the chapters on the Person and Work of Christ.

tion were wrought into all the services of the early Church. These Scriptural ideas sustained the life of the people of God entirely independently of the speculations of philosophical theologians.

2. The second remark which the preceding survey suggests is, that the theories antagonistic to the common Church doctrine are purely philosophical. Origen assumed that in man there are the three constituent principles: body, soul, and spirit; and that in analogy therewith, there are three senses of Scripture, - the historical, the moral, and the spiritual. The first is the plain meaning of the words which suggests itself to any ordinary, intelligent reader; the second is the allegorical application of the historical sense for moral instruction. For example, what Moses commands about not muzzling an ox which treads out the corn, may be understood as teaching the general principle that labour should be rewarded, and, therefore, may be applied as it is by the Apostle, to enforce the duty of supporting ministers of the Gospel. The third or spiritual sense, is the general philosophical truth, which is assumed to underlie the doctrines of the Scriptures; of which truths the Scriptural doctrines are only the temporary forms. Thus Origen made the Bible teach Platonism. The object of most of the early apologists, was to show that Christianity had a philosophy as well as heathenism; and that the philosophy of the former is identical with the philosophy of the latter so far as that of the latter can prove itself to be true. The trouble was, and always has been, that whatever philosophy was assumed to be true, the doctrines of Scripture were made to conform to it or were sublimated into it. The historical and moral senses of Scripture constitute the object of faith; the spiritual sense is the object of gnosis or knowledge. The former is very well in its place and for the people; but the latter is something of a higher order to which only the philosophically cultivated can attain. That the mystical theory of the person and work of Christ, especially, is the product of philosophical speculation is obvious - (1.) From the express avowals of its most distinguished advocates. (2.) From the nature of the theory itself, which reveals itself as a philosophy, i. e., as a speculative doctrine concerning the nature of being, the nature of God, the nature of man, and of the relation of God to the world, etc. (3.) From the fact that it has changed with the varying systems of philosophy. So long as Platonism was in vogue, the spiritual sense of Scripture was assumed to be Platonism; that system discarded, the schoolmen adopted the philosophy of Aristotle, and then the Bible taught the doctrines of

Peripateticism. Those of them who followed Scotus Erigena found Pantheism in the Scriptures. When the philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolf dominated the schools, that philosophy determined the form of all Scriptural doctrine. And since the rise of the new speculative philosophy all that the Scriptures teach is cast in its forms of thought. No man can be so blind as not to see that all that is peculiar in what the modern theology teaches of the person and work of Christ, is nothing more nor less than the application of modern speculative philosophy to the doctrines of the Bible. This, indeed, is generally admitted and avowed. This being the case, all these speculations are without authority. They form no part of the truth as it is revealed as the object of faith. We are bound to understand the Scriptures in their plain historical sense; and to admit no philosophy to explain or modify that sense, except the philosophy of the Bible itself; that is, those facts and principles concerning the nature of God, the nature of man, of the world, and of the relation between God and the world, which are either asserted or plainly assumed in the Scriptures. To depart from this principle is to give up the Bible as a rule of faith; and to substitute for it the teachings of philosophy. That form of Rationalism which consists in giving a philosophical explanation of the truths of revelation, or in resolving them into truths of the reason, is just as certain in the end to teach for doctrines the speculations of men, as the most avowed skepticism.

After all, apart from the Bible, the best antidote to all these false theories of the person and work of Christ, is such a book as Doctor Schaff's "Christ in Song."1 The hymns contained in that volume are of all ages and from all churches. They set forth Christ as truly God, as truly man, as one person, as the expiation for our sins, as our intercessor, saviour, and king, as the supreme object of love, as the ultimate ground of confidence, as the allsufficient portion of the soul. We want no better theology and no better religion than are set forth in these hymns. They were indited by the Holy Spirit in the sense that the thoughts and feelings which they express, are due to his operations on the hearts of his people.

1 Christ in Song. Hymns of Immanuel: selected from all Ages, with Notes, by Philip Schaff, D. D. New York, Anson D. F. Randolph and Co, 1869.