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 dis- tinct 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 state- ments 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
588 PART m. Ch. IX.— theories of the atonement.
in science, theology, and philosophy, whicli he diligently improved. After his death it was said, " When Oetinger died a whole acad- emy 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 him- self to the study of all previously received systems, extending his reseai'ches 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 Bohme, the great unlettered theosophist of the preceding century, to whom even Schelling and other of the leading modern philoso- phers 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 aHke 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 be- tween Christ and his people. "Ut ibi adsumta caro consistit eV Aoyw per participationem viroarda^ws, ita hie nostra subsistit in Christo per consortium gratiae et 6ua<: <l>v(Teo)s,^* etc.^ The second Adam having assumed humanity, says Oetinger, "Traxit carnem nostram in pleni- tudinem Deitatis," so that our race again becomes possessed of the divine nature in Him and in us ; i. e., " unione turn personali turn mystica."^ It is indeed plain, as Dorner says, that we find in Oetin- ger the ideas which are the foundation of the philosophy of the pres- ent age. The nature of God and the nature of man are so homoge- neous 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 Doraer, Person CkrUti, 1st edit. Stuttgart, 1839, pp. 305-322. 2 yjjrf. p. 317.