real Divine impersonation; in short, as Dorner says, regenerating theology.[1] Let him see with them side by side, almost hand in hand, the advanced Catholic theologians, pursuing the same studies, with nearly the same results.[2] And, does he ask more about the Roman Catholic Church, show him the temporal power a suppliant at every Court in Europe, but the spiritual power never so great in restraining the evil passions of men, in educating and curing souls. And, does he ask about Papal, clerical corruptions, tell him that their day is past; they are forgotten. Let him sit with us day by day and read the constantly surprising utterances of hopeful faith from the pulpit, from the press,"[3] from royal lips, from dying statesmen; and, overlooking the wide margin of lost ground yet to be recovered by the Church, will he not joyfully exclaim that he was right; that the judgment was coming, and is now passed; that the "spiritual winter" is over; that "the good and pleasant spring weather gains the upper hand, and the verdure breaks out from beneath the snow;"[4] that the Day-spring from on high is now again visiting His people?
So Hagenbach, in his History of the Church in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries:—
"Vehement storms, quite beyond human control, have broken through the badly kept enclosure, and have borne off
- ↑ "Regenerated German theology exercises, in the present century, a very powerful influence upon foreign Reformed Churches. Since about 1750, indeed, their own theological activity may be said, in many instances, to have stagnated; they have, therefore, been the more easily affected, though some decayed subsequently, by the movements of German theology."—Dr. Dorner: History of Protestant Theology, ii. 473.
- ↑ In the history of recent German Catholicism . . . we again find solid ground; for a more intimate reciprocity exists between the Protestants and Catholics in Germany than in France. German science is the beautiful bend, uniting those who adhere to different confessional standpoints. . . . Protestants and Catholics have been nourished as twin-brothers at the same breast of German philosophy, though each one has assimilated his nourishment differently. The Catholic and the Protestant theology of Germany have passed through the same stages of development."—Hagenbach: Op. cit. ii. 440.
- ↑ As we write, we read in a daily journal: "American publishers are unwilling to print essays or books of professed atheists."
- ↑ Bengel's words quoted by Hagenbach.
