tion of the original act of creation, and by saying that it was only for a moment, and that all thenceforth was natural.
Schwarz, himself a great admirer, although not a disciple of Schleiermacher, characterizes this " mediating theology " as an utter failure. It is neither one thing nor the other. It is neither true to its speculative principles, nor true to Christianity. It virtually rejects the Church system, yet endeavours to save Chris- tianity by adopting at least its phraseology. Schwarz says it is a system of " phrases ; " which endeavours to heal the wounds of orthodoxy by words which seem to mean much, but which may be made to mean much or little as the reader pleases. It speaks con- stantly of Christianity as a life, as the life of God, as developing itself organically and naturally, not by supernatural assistance, but by an inward life-power, as in other cases of organic development. It assumes to rise to the conception of the whole world as an or- ganism, in which God is one of the factors ; the world and God differing not in substance or life, but simply in functions. It con- cedes to " speculation " that the fundamental truth of philosophy and of Christianity is the oneness of God and man. Man is God living in a certain form, or state of development. While " the mediating theology " concedes all this, it nevertheless admits of a miraculous or supernatural beginning of the world and of the per- son of Christ, and thus gives up its whole philosophical system. At least the members of one wing of Schleiermacher's school are thus inconsistent ; those of the other are more true to their princi- ples.
As Christian theology is simply the exhibition and illustration of the facts and truths of the Bible in their due relations and pro- portions, it has nothing to do with these speculations. The " me- diating theology " does not pretend to be founded on the Bible. It does not, at least in Germany, profess allegiance to the Church doctrine. It avowedly gives up Christianity as a doctrine to save it as a life. It is founded on " speculation " and not upon author- ity, whether of the Scriptures or of the Church. It affords there- fore no other and no firmer foundation for our faith and hope, than any other philosophical system ; and that, as all history proves, is a foundation of quick-sand, shifting and sinking from month to month and even from day to day. Schleiermacher has been dead little more than thirty years, and already there are eight or ten different classes of his general disciples who differ from each other almost as much as from the doctrines of the Reformation. Twesten and UUmann, Liebner and Thoraasius, Lange and Alexander
454 PAKT m. Ch. m. — the person of CHRIST.
Schweizer, are wide apart, each having his own philosopliical solvent of the doctrines of the Bible, and each producing a different re- siduum.
The simple, sublime, and saving Christology of the Bible and of the Church universal is : " That the eternal Son of God be- came man by taking to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct na- tures and one person forever."