Page:Essence of Christianity (1854).djvu/272

 man is only natural love. Christian love is supernatural, glorified, sanctified love; therefore it loves only what is Christian. The maxim, “Love your enemies,” has reference only to personal enemies, not to public enemies, the enemies of God, the enemies of faith, unbelievers. He who loves the men whom Christ denies, does not believe Christ, denies his Lord and God. Faith abolishes the natural ties of humanity; to universal, natural unity, it substitutes a particular unity.

Let it not be objected to this, that it is said in the Bible, “Judge not, that ye be not judged;” and that thus, as faith leaves to God the judgment, so it leaves to him the sentence of condemnation. This and other similar sayings have authority only as the private law of Christians, not as their public law; belong only to ethics, not to dogmatics. It is an indication of indifference to faith, to introduce such sayings into the region of dogma. The distinction between the unbeliever and the man is a fruit of modern philanthropy. To faith, the man is merged in the believer; to it, the essential difference between man and the brute rests only on religious belief. Faith alone comprehends in itself all virtues which can make man pleasing to God; and God is the absolute measure, his pleasure the highest law: the believer is thus alone the legitimate, normal man, man as he ought to be, man as he is recognised by God. Wherever we find Christians making a distinction between the man and the believer, there the human mind has already severed itself from faith; there man has value in himself, independently of faith. Hence faith is true, unfeigned, only where the specific difference of faith operates in all its severity. If the edge of this difference is blunted, faith itself naturally becomes indifferent, effete. Faith is liberal only in things intrinsically indifferent. The liberalism of the apostle Paul presupposes the acceptance of the fundamental articles of faith. Where everything is made to depend on the fundamental articles of faith, there arises the distinction between essential and non-essential belief. In the sphere of the non-essential there is no law,—there you are free. But obviously it is only on condition of your leaving the rights of faith intact, that faith allows you freedom.

It is therefore an altogether false defence to say, that faith leaves judgment to God. It leaves to him only the moral judgment with respect to faith, only the judgment as to its