Christians can say, and always have said, with an intelligent and cordial faith, that God purchased the Church with his blood. ' It was because the person who died was possessed of an Eternal Spirit that his blood cleanses from all sin.
2. The arguments from Scripture in support of the theory are for the most part founded on the neglect of the principle so often referred to, that anything can be predicated of the person of Christ that can be predicated either of his human or of his divine nature. That the one person is said to be born and to suifer and die, no more proves that the Logos as such was born and suffered and died, than saying of a man that he is sick or wounded proves that his soul is diseased or injured. The same remark, of course, applies to the exaltation and dominion of the risen Redeemer. It is the one person who is the object of the worship of all created intelli- gences, and to whom their obedience is due ; but this does not prove that Christ's human nature is possessed of divine attributes. Indeed, according to the modem doctrine of Kenosis, He has no human nature, as already proved.
3. The theory in question is inconsistent with the clear doctrine both of revealed and natural religion concerning the nature of God. He is a Spirit infinite, eternal, and immutable. Any theory, there- fore, which assumes that God lays aside his omnipotence, omnis- cience, and omnipresence, and becomes as feeble, ignorant, and circumscribed as an infant, contradicts the first principle of all religion, and, if it be pardonable to say so, shocks the common sense of men.
4. Instead of removing any difficulties attending the doctrine of the incarnation, it greatly increases them. According to Dorner's view we are called upon to believe that a human soul receives gradually increasing measures of the divine fulness, until at last it becomes infinite. This is equivalent to saying that it ceases to exist. It is only on the assumption that Dorner, when he says that the essential nature of God is love, and that the communication of the Godhead is the communication of the fulness of the divine love, means that God is purely ethical, an attribute, but not a substance, that we can attach any definite meaning to his doctrine. Accord- •ng to Ebrard we are required to believe that the one divine and infinite substance of the Logos was finite and infinite ; conscious and unconscious ; omnipresent, and confined within narrow limits in space ; and that it was active in the exercise of omnipotence, and as feeble as an infant at one and the same time. According to the more common view of the subject, we are called upon to believe
440 PART III. Ch. m. — the person of CHRIST.
that the infinite God, in the person of his Son, can become ignorant and feeble, and then omniscient and ahnighty ; that He can cease to be God, and then again become God. Gess says that God is not omnipotent unless He has power over Himself, power, that is, to cease to be God. If this be true of the Son it must be true of the Father and of the Spirit ; that is, it must be true that the Triune Jehovah can annihilate Himself. And, then, what follows ?
5. This doctrine destroys the humanity of Christ. He is not and never was a man. He never had a human soul or a human heart. It was the substance of the Logos invested with a human body that was born of the Vii'gin, and not a human soul. A being without a human soul is not a man. The Saviour which this theory offers us is the Infinite God with a spiritual body. In thus exalting the humanity of Christ to infinitude it is dissipated and lost.
Schleiermaeher .
The prevalent Christology among a numerous and distinguished class of modern theologians, though not professedly pantheistic, is nevertheless founded on the assumption of the essential oneness of God and man. This class includes the school of Schleiermaeher in all its modifications not only in Germany, but also in England and America. Schleiermaeher is regarded as the most interesting as well as the most influential theologian of modern times. He was not and could not be self-consistent, as he attempted the reconcilia- tion of contradictory doctrines. There are three things in his ante- cedents and circumstances necessary to be considered, in order to any just appreciation of the man or of his system. First, he passed the early part of his life among the Moravians, and imbibed some- thing of their spirit, and especially of their reverence for Christ, who to the Moravians is almost the exclusive object of worship. This reverence for Christ, Schleiermaeher retained all his life. In one of the discourses pronounced on the occasion of his death, it was said, " He gave up everything that he might save Christ." His philosophy, his historical criticism, everything, he was willing to make bend to the great aim of preserving to himself that cherished object of reverence and love.^ Secondly, his academic culture led
1 When in Berlin the writer often attended Schleiermacher's church. The hymns to De sung were printed on slips of paper and distributed at the doors. They were always evan- gelical and spiritual in an eminent degree, filled with praise and gratitude to our Redeemer. Tholuck said that Schleiermaeher, when sitting in the evening with his family, would often say, "Hush, children; let us sing a hymn of praise to Christ." Can we doubt that he is singing those praises now? To whomsoever Christ is God, St. John assures v», Christ is a Saviour.