be admitted as true which reason does not authenticate.^ The other class strove after fellowship with God. Both assumed that wliat Miinscher and Gieseler call the physical union of the divine and human natures, was the normal and ultimate state of man. Whether this identity of the two was effected by a perfect devel- opment of God in man and nature ; or by the elevation of the human until it is lost in the divine, the result is the same. Man is deified. And therein is his salvation. And so far as Christ was recognized as a Saviour at all, it was as the bond of union between the two, or the channel through which the divine flows into the human. The incarnation itself, the union of the divine and human natures, was the great saving act. Christ redeems us by what He is, not by what He does. The race, say some, the consummated Church, say others, is the God-man, or God manifest in the flesh. Almost all this class of waiters held that the incarnation would have been necessary, had man never sinned. The necessity arises out of the nature of God and his relation to the world, and out of the nature and destiny of man.
Mystical Theory at the Time of the Reformation.
At the time of the Reformation the same mode of apprehending and presenting Christianity was adopted. While the Reformers held to the great objective truths of the Bible, to a historical Christ, to the reality and necessity of his obedience and satisfaction as something done for us and in our place, i. e., to an objective re- demption and justification, a class of writers soon appeared who insisted on what they called the Christ within us, and merged the objective work of Christ into a subjective operation in the souls of his people ; or at least subordinated the former entirely to the latter. A work, entitled "Die Deutsche Tlieologie " (German Theology), was published during the lifetime of Luther, which contained a great amount of important truth, and to which the illustrious reformer acknowledged himself greatly indebted. In that book, howevei% the mystical element was carried to a danger- ous extreme. While the historical facts respecting Christ and his redeeming work were allowed to remain, little stress was laid upon them. The real value of the blessings received from Christ, was the change effected in the soul itself; and that change was not referred to the work of the Holy Spirit, so much as to the union of the divine nature with our nature, in virtue of the incarnation. The book teaches that if it were possible for a man to be as pure
1 Be Divisione Naturae, i. 56, 66, 69.
583 PART III. Ca. IX. - THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT.
and obedient as Christ, he would become, through grace, what Christ was by nature. Through this obedience he would become one with God. Christ is not merely objective, isolated in his majesty, but we are all called that God should be incarnate in us, or that we should become God.
Osiander.
Osiander and Schwenkfeld, two contemporaries of Luther, were both advocates, although in different forms, of the same theory. Men are saved by the substantial union of the divine nature with the nature of man. According to Osiander justification is not by the imputation, but by the infusion of righteousness. And the righteousness infused is not the righteousness of Christ wrought out here on earth. What Christ did centuries ago cannot make us righteous. What we receive is his divine nature. This is the specific doctrine for which Osiander was denounced in the Form of Concord. Man, according to him, was originally created not after the image of God as such, nor of the Son as such, but of the Son as He was to become man. Manhood was eternally included in the idea and nature of the Son of God. His incarnation was, therefore, due to his nature, and not to the accident of man's sin- ning. The idea of the incarnation is eternal, and in reference to it the whole universe was created and all things consist. Christ's human nature is only the vehicle for conveying to us his divine nature. In the vine, he says, there are two natures, the one is the nature of the wood, which it retains, even if it should be withered up ; the other is "plane occulta, fructifera et vinifera natura," And as the clusters of grapes could not have the vinous nature, unless they were wood of the wood of the vine ; so neither can we partake of the divine nature of Christ, unless we, by faith and baptism, are so incorporated with Him, as to be flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. But the human nature of Christ, without the divine (si sine Deo esset), would be of no avail.^
Schwenkfeld.
While Osiander makes the divine nature of Christ as communi- cated to us our righteousness and life, and regards his humanity as only the means of communication, Schwenkfeld exalts tlie human into the divine, and regards this divine human nature as the source of life tons. He agreed with Osiander in making justification sub- jectivt', l)v tlie infusion of riohteousness ; and also in teaching that
' De Unico Med. Jes. Chiisto et Jiistif. Fid. ConJ'essio, Konigsberg, 1551, by count, pp. U4, 145.