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 PART II.

THE FALSE OR THEOLOGICAL ESSENCE OF RELIGION.

CHAPTER XIX. THE ESSENTIAL STAND-POINT OF RELIGION.

essential stand-point of religion is the practical or subjective. The end of religion is the welfare, the salvation, the ultimate felicity of man; the relation of man to God is nothing else than his relation to his own spiritual good; God is the realized salvation of the soul, or the unlimited power of effecting the salvation, the bliss of man. The Christian religion is especially distinguished from other religions in this,—that no other has given equal prominence to the salvation of man. But this salvation is not temporal, earthly prosperity and well-being. On the contrary, the most genuine Christians have declared that earthly good draws man away from God, whereas adversity, suffering, afflictions lead him back to God, and hence are alone suited to Christians. Why? because in trouble man is only practically or subjectively disposed; in trouble he has recourse only to the one thing needful; in trouble God is felt to be a want of man. Pleasure, joy, expands man; trouble, suffering, contracts and concentrates him;—in suffering man denies the reality of the world; the things that charm the imagination of the artist and the intellect of the thinker lose their attraction for him, their power over him; he is absorbed in himself, in his own soul.