his dwelling in the hearts of believers. The forms of this new theology are very diversified. They are all perhaps compre- hended under three classes : first, those which are avowedly pan- theistic, although claiming to be Christian ; secondly, those which are Theistic but do not admit the doctrine of the Trinity ; and thirdly, those which endeavour to bring theology as a philoso- phy into the forms of Christian doctrine. In all, however, the anthropology, christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology advo- cated, are so changed as to render it impossible to retain in their exhibition the terms and formulas with which the Church from the beginning has been familiar. Regeneration, justification, and sanctification are almost antiquated terms ; and what remains of the truths those terms were used to express, is merged into the one idea of the development of a new divine life in the soul. As to anthropology, these modern speculative, or as they often call themselves, and are called by others, mystic, theologians teach, (1.) That there is no dualism in man between soul and body. There is but one life. The body is the soul projecting itself ex- ternally. Without a body there is no soul. (2.) That there is no real dualism between God and man. The identity between God and man is the last result of modern speculation ; and it is the fundamental idea of Christianity.
Soul and Body one.
As to the former of these points, Schleiermacher1 says, "There are not a spiritual and a corporeal world, a corporeal and spirit- ual existence of man. Such representations lead to nothing but the dead mechanism of a preestablished harmony. Body and spirit are actual only in and with each other, so that corporeal and spiritual action can only be relatively distinguished." The late President Rauch2 says, " A dualism which admits of two principles for one being, offers many difficulties, and the greatest is, that it cannot tell how the principles can be united in a third. A river may originate in two fountains, but a science cannot, and much less individual life." "It would be wrong to say that man consists of two essentially different substances, of earth and the soul; but he is soul only, and cannot be anything else. This soul, however, unfolds itself externally in the life of the body, and internally in the life of the mind." So Olshausen3 teaches that the soul has no subsistence but in the body. Dr. J. W. Nevin 4
* DicUektik, sect. 290-295 ; Works, Berlin, 1839, 3d div. vol. iv. part 2, pp. 245-255. 2 Psychology, New York, 1840, pp. 169, 173. * Commentary, 1 Co* xv. 20.
« Mystical Presence, edit. Philadelphia, 1846, p. 171.
20 PART IH. Ch. XV. — REGENERATION.
says, " We have no right to think of the body in any way as a form of existence of and by itself, into which the soul as another form of such existence is thrust in a mechanical way. Both form one life. The soul to be complete, to develop itself at all as a soul, must externalize itself, throw itself out in space ; and this externalization is the body."
G-od and Man one.
As to the second point, or the oneness of God and man, as the soul externalizes itself in the body, " dividing itself only that its unity may become thus the more free and intensely complete," J so God externalizes Himself in the world. Schleiermacher says, it is in vain to attempt to conceive of God as existing either before or out of the world. They may be distinguished in thought, but are only " zwei Werthe fur dieselbe Forderung, two values of the same postulate." According to this philosophy, it is just as true, " No world, no God," as " No body, no soul." " The world,2 in its lower view, is not simply the outward theatre or stage on which man is to act his part as a candidate for heaven. In the midst of all its different forms of existence, it is pervaded through- out with the power of a single life, which comes ultimately to its full sense and force only in the human person." The world, therefore, is pervaded by "the power of a single life ;" the highest form of that life (on earth) is man. What is that life ? What is that pervading principle which reveals itself in such manifold forms of existence, nnd culminates in man? It is, of course, God. Man, therefore, as Schleiermacher says, is " the existence- form " of God on earth.3 Ullmann4 says that the German mys- tics in the Middle Ages taught " the oneness of Deity and hu- manity." The results reached by the mystics under the guidance of feeling, he says, modern philosophy has reached by specula- tion. This doctrine of the essential oneness of God and man, the speculative theologians adopt as the fundamental idea of Chris- tianity. To work out that idea in a manner compatible with Theism and the Gospel, is the problem which those theologians have attempted to solve. These attempts have resulted, in some cases, in avowed Christian Pantheism, as it is called; in others,
1 Mystical Presence, edit. Philadelphia, 1846, p. 172.
* Mercersbury Revieio, 1850, vol. ii. p. 550.
* Dorner's Christologie, 1st edit., Stuttgart, 1839, p. 488.
■ " Charakter des Christenthums," Studien und Kritiken, 1845, erstes Heft, p. 59. See also a translation of this article at the beginning of The MvsticaJ, Presence, by J. W. NeTui, D.D., Philadelphia, 1846.
''.
2.] ITS NATURE. 2t
in forms of doctrine so nearly pantheistic as to be hardly distin- guished from Pantheism itself ; and in all, in a radical modifica- tion, not only of the theology of the Church as expressed in her received standards, but also of the Scriptural form of Christian doctrines, if not of their essence. This is seen to be true in the anthropology of this system, which destroys the essential differ- ence between the creator and his creatures, between God and man.
The christology of this modern theology has already been pre- sented in its essential features. There is no dualism in Christ as between soul and body. The two are one life. Neither is there any dualism between divinity and humanity in Him. The divine and human in his person are one life. In being the ideal or per- fect man, He is the true God. The deification which humanity reached in Christ, is not a supernatural act on the part of God ; it is reached by a process of natural development in his people, i. e., the Church.
Soteriology of these Philosophers. The soteriology of this system is simple. The soul projects itself in the body. They are one life, but the body may be too much for the soul. The development of this one life in its two- fold form, inward and outward, may not be symmetrical. So humanity as a generic life, a form of the life of God, as projected externally in the world from Adam onward, has not developed itself aright. If left unaided it would not reach the goal, or un- fold itself as divine. A new start, therefore, must be given to it, a new commencement made. This is done by a supernatural intervention resulting in the production of the person of Christ. In Him divinity assumes the fashion of a man, — the existence- form of man, — God becomes man, and man is God. This renewed entrance, so to speak, of God into the world, this special form of divine-human life, is Christianity, which is constantly declared to be " a life," " the life of Christ," " a new theanthropic life." Men become Christians by being partakers of this life. They become partakers of this life by union with the Church and re- ception of the sacraments. The incarnation of God is continued in the Church ; and this new principle of " divine-human life " descends from Christ to the members of his Church, as naturally and as much by a process of organic development, as humanity, derived from Adam, unfolded itself in his descendants. Christ, therefore, saves us, not so much by what He did, as by what He is.
22 PART IU. Ch. XV. - REGENERATION.
He made no satisfaction to the divine justice ; no expiation for sin ; no fulfilling of the law. There is, therefore, really no justifi- cation, no real pardon even, in the ordinary sense of the word. There is a healing of the soul, and with that healing the removal of the evils incident to disease. Those who become partakers of this new principle of life, which is truly human and truly divine, become one with Christ. All the merit, righteousness, excellence, and power, inherent in this " divine-human life " of course be- long to those who partake of that life. This righteousness, ex- cellence, etc., are our own. They are subjective in us, and form our character, just as the nature derived from Adam was ours, with all its corruptions and infirmities.