the limits of the Union. The principal task of the General Synod of 1846 consisted in carrying through this well-meditated plan; but the ordination formula, which the mediating school produced-a wretched child of theology-was, by itself, rendered impracticable. And in this offspring the character of the mother herself came clearly out; it was seen that the mediating theology was strong in criticising, weak in producing, incapable of existing without the antagonistic principles which it imagined it had overcome, and itself not holding the consensus on which it built the Union.

At a time when this theology still claimed to be the victor, a school appeared which, in opposition to the prevailing science, and contemptuously looking down upon the coryphaei of this science, held that to love Christ was of greater value than all science. The most eloquent representative of this school was Tholuck. De Wette had made his doubter find reconciliation and consecration in a reanimated theology of feeling. To this Weihe (consecration) Tholuck opposed "Die Wahre Weihe," the true consecration of the new life proceeding from faith in the Saviour. This new life, which calls itself regeneration, indifferent to the "pilgrim's dress of the Confession," not restricted as to doctrine by the faith of the Church, has a Pietistic character. Solitary in the present, it is in expectation of a victorious future. "Dearly beloved," says the patriarch of this new life to the consecrated one, "take that which I am now to tell you as the legacy of an old man who is soon to part from the world, and who, before his departure, is anxious to deposit within the breast of many a young theologian who is called to stand in so great a time, that which the experience of a long life, and the extensive acquaintance with many thousands in different countries and ranks, have taught him. I there

fore tell to you, as one who will, perhaps, soon be in some University as one of the instruments of the great days which are in store for us: the work of the Spirit of God is, in these days, greater than you, than most people think. Yes; a great resurrection morning is dawning; hundreds of youths are being awakened everywhere by the Spirit of God. Everywhere the converted ones enter into closer connections. Even science will become an handmaid and friend of the Crucified One. The authorities, also, although as yet partly hostile to this great change, from fear that it might produce political consequences, favour it in many places; and where they do not, the power of light becomes so much the more manifest. Many enlightened ministers even now already proclaim the gospel in its power; and many, as yet concealed, will come forth. I see the morning; but the day mine eye will no more behold here, but from a higher place." This theology is beyond the stand-point of mediation, for it draws from the new life in Christ; and this life is its own evidence. But the endeavour to connect itself with everything induces it to enter with versatility and elasticity upon all the interests of science and life. For this business of spiritual exchange, an exposition of Scripture is suited, which, in an expert and skilful manner, changes the text into spirit and life, although not always into that which has produced the text.-Between Schleiermacher and Tholuck stands Neander, whose school Tholuck has never denied. Neander himself has professed the theology of the Christian Consciousness. "By this term is designated the power of the Christian faith in the subjective life of the single individual, in the congregation, and in the Church generally, a power independent, and ruling according to its own law,—that which according to the word of our Lord, must first form the leaven for every

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other historical development of mankind."1 clearly viewed, the Christian consciousness is only the form which Christianity has obtained in the heart. Pectus est quod facit theologum, is Neander's watchword. With this principle, he knew himself to be in opposition to all the tendencies which were urging to objectivity in religion, whether they were philosophical or orthodox, or in general, formed in conformity with the Church. " I shall never cease to protest against the one-sided intellectualism, that fanaticism of understanding, which is spreading more and more, and which threatens to change man into an intelligent, over-wise beast. But, at the same time, I must protest against that tendency which would put a stop to the process of development of theology, which, in impatient haste, would anticipate its aim and goal, although with an enthusiasm for that which is raised above the change of the days,—an enthusiasm which commands all respect, and in which the hackneyed newspaper categories of Progress and Retrogression' are out of the question. ."2 From his Christian consciousness Neander saw, in the past history of the kingdom of God, a new and variegated life; and it was his talent and his delight to follow the individual forms and expressions of it in different ages. But both were wanting to him when the life of the Church condensed itself into objective forms. But that which, by means of his psychological Pragmatism, he could, to some extent, still be reconciled to, and sympathize with, in the history of the Church, he at last rejected with increasing bitterness, when it met him in life. The contradiction of the intolerance of tolerance, of the fanaticisin of gentleness with which people forebore, in this noble

1 Abhandlungen, S. 240.

2 Preface to the 4th Edition of the History of the Planting of the Apostolic Church, p. xiii.

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man, could not by any means be overlooked in the poor followers who afterwards represented this stand-point. Tholuck and Neander, raised above the theology of mediation by the energy of the Christian life, in which their theology rested, yet paid it their tribute in the subjectivity of their stand-point, and in the concessions which they made to modern science. From that Hengstenberg kept himself free, who, from the very outset, most emphatically pointed to the firm prophetical word, to the objective rule of faith and life. While the mediating theology had given over to modern science, the old theory of inspiration, and, in history, admitted contradictions, even myths, in doctrine, subjective elements, and in the canon, spurious elements;-Hengstenberg took upon himself, with great ingenuity, the vindication of the most assailed writings and portions of the Old Testament,— pointed at and proved the supernatural christological contents in the prophetical books which had been naturalized by Illuminism,—developed, with ingenuity and intelligence, the meaning of the history and forms of the Old Testament dispensation,-and, with the anti-critical sword of the understanding in the one hand, and the building stones of the experience of the Church in the other, expounded the Old Testament books. The sum and substance of the divine word he found in the symbolical books of the two Confessions, which he found agreeing in all essential points. With this conviction he joined the Union, although he belonged by birth to the Reformed Church, and had derived his theological education chiefly from Calvin. He looked down, as from a certain height, upon the Lutherans of Silesia struggling for the exclusively Lutheran Confession. Such was his standpoint. Never has Hengstenberg been afraid of the stigma of orthodoxy; and it was never the way of this high

principled manly theologian to coquet with the winds. of the time. As long as he struggled with the narrowminded men of Illuminism, his position was indeed much assailed, but internally strong; but when he opposed the Lutheran movements, this man of the Church, standing as he did on the ground of the Union, seemed to be without a Church. However, the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, edited by him, without doubt the ablest and most influential ecclesiastical periodical of the present, shows a progress from the undeveloped evangelical to the ecclesiastical, with a tact which seizes wonderfully upon the signs of the time. While, at first, it was connected with positive tendencies of very different characters, the Halle controversy (1830), in consequence of which Neander and others withdrew from it, gave it a more distinct turn, until, in 1840, the preface, which demonstrated that Pietism was untenable, declared the internal separation from a party which, at first, had chiefly supported this organ. Even from the Union, Hengstenberg more and more alienated himself. While in 1844 he had still declared that the Union could exist only if both of the Churches would relax in their Confessions, he declared in 1848 for Confederation as distinct from Union; and when this distinction soon became illusory, he declared for the necessity of a separate organization of both the Churches within the general framework of the National Church. And thus Hengstenberg has been raised by God to be, in a time of transition, a pioneer of the Church.

A tendency, endowed with growing strength, found its expression in the theology of the new life. Everywhere in the congregations which, upon the whole, and generally, were under the sway of Rationalism and worldly-mindedness, small crowds of faithful men were collecting, upon