Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/130

 in order to give validity to Judaism, even for a limited time, had necessarily to proceed upon the conception of an arbitrary God; and both parties being completely at one as to the truth of this theory, and not harbouring the slightest doubt regarding it, dispute only concerning the grounds upon which the Paulinean scheme is to be maintained. Thus peace and unity are no more to be thought of; nay, it were far from desirable that a peace should be concluded in favour of either side. Peace, however, would forthwith be the result, were mankind to throw aside this theory altogether, and return to Christianity in its original form as it exists in the Gospel of John. There no proof is recognised but the Inward Testimony,—the appeal to man’s own sense of Truth, and to his spiritual Nature. Who Jesus himself, in his mere personality, was or was not, is of importance only to the follower of Paul, who would make him the abrogator of an Old Covenant with God, and the mediator of a New one in the same name, for which business it was of essential importance that he should possess a significant descent. The true Christian knows no Covenant or Mediation with God, but only the Old, Eternal, and Unchangeable Relation, that in Him we live, and move, and have our being; and he asks not who has said this, but only what has been said;—even the book wherein this may be written is nothing to him as a proof, but only as a means of culture; he bears the proof in his own breast. This is my view of the matter, which does not seem to contain anything very dangerous, and does not overstep the limits of the freedom of philosophical inquiry into religious topics recognised among Protestants; and I have communicated it to you in order that you may test it by your own knowledge of Religion and its history, and may try whether by means of it, light, order, and connexion are introduced into the whole;—but I have no wish to invite the Theologian to a discussion of it. Educated myself in the schools of the Theologians, I am well acquainted with