nothing which deserves the name of faith;—for example, substituting for the distinctly characterized Son of God, held up by the Church, the vague negative definition of a Sinless Man, who can claim to be the Son of God in a sense applicable to no other being,—in a word, of a man, whom one may not trust oneself to call either a man or a God. But that it is merely indifference which makes a hiding-place for itself behind the Bible, is evident from the fact that even what stands in the Bible, if it contradicts the stand-point of the present day, is regarded as not obligatory, or is even denied; nay, actions which are essentially christian, which are the logical consequences of faith, such as the separation of believers from unbelievers, are now designated as unchristian.
The Church was perfectly justified in adjudging damnation to heretics and unbelievers,[1] for this condemnation is involved in the nature of faith. Faith at first appears to be only an unprejudiced separation of believers from unbelievers; but this separation is a highly critical distinction. The believer has God for him, the unbeliever, against him;—it is only as a possible believer that the unbeliever has God not against him;—and therein precisely lies the ground of the requirement that he should leave the ranks of unbelief. But that which has God against it is worthless, rejected, reprobate; for that which has God against it is itself against God. To believe, is synonymous with goodness; not to believe, with wickedness. Faith, narrow and prejudiced, refers all unbelief to the moral disposition. In its view the unbeliever is an enemy to Christ out of obduracy, out of wickedness.[2] Hence faith has fellowship with believers only; unbelievers it rejects. It is well-disposed towards believers, but ill-disposed towards unbelievers. In faith there lies a malignant principle.
It is owing to the egoism, the vanity, the self-complacency of Christians, that they can see the motes in the faith of non-christian nations, but cannot perceive the beam in their own. It is only in the mode in which faith embodies itself that Christians differ from the followers of other religions. The distinction is founded only on climate or on natural tempera-
