iii. 17, receives its completion and rectification in the immediately

following v. 18: "He that believeth in him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

[215] Faith, it is true, is not "without good works," nay, according to Luther's declaration, it is as impossible to separate faith from works as to separate heat and light from fire. Nevertheless, and this is the main point, good works do not belong to the article of justification before God, i.e., men are justified and "saved without works, through faith alone." Faith is thus expressly distinguished from good works; faith alone avails before God, not good works; faith alone is the cause of salvation, not virtue; thus faith alone has substantial significance, virtue only accidental; i.e., faith alone has religious significance, divine authority--and not morality. It is well known that many have gone so far as to maintain that good works are not necessary, but are even "injurious, obstructive to salvation." Quite correctly.

[216] "Causa fidei ... exorbitantem et irregularem prorsus favorem habet et ab omni jure deviare, omnem captivare rationem, nec judiciis laicorum ratione corrupta utentium subjecta creditur. Etenim Causa fidei ad multa obligat, quæ alias sunt voluntaria, multa, imo infinita remittit, quæ alias præcepta; quæ alius valide gesta annullat, et contra quæ alias nulla et irrita, fiunt valida ... ex jure canonico."--J. H. Boehmeri (Jus Eccles. lib. v. tit. vii. § 32. See also § 44 et seq.).

[217] "Placetta de Fide, ii. Il ne faut pas chercher dans la nature des choses mêmes la veritable cause de l'inseparabilité de la foi et de la pieté. Il faut, si je ne me trompe, la chercher uniquement dans la volonté de Dieu.... Bene facit et nobiscum sentit, cum illam conjunctionem (i.e., of sanctity or virtue with faith) a benifica Dei voluntate et dispositione repetit; nec id novum est ejus inventum, sed cum antiquioribus Theologis nostris commune."--J. A. Ernesti. (Vindiciæ arbitrii divini. Opusc. theol. p. 297.) "Si quis dixerit ... qui fidem sine charitate habet, Christianum non esse, anathema sit."--Concil. Trid. (Sess. vi. de Justif. can. 28).

[218] See on this subject Luther, e.g., T. xiv. p. 286.

[219] "Therefore good works must follow faith, as an expression of thankfulness to God."--Apol. der Augs. Conf. art. 3. "How can I make a return to thee for thy deeds of love in works? yet it is something acceptable to thee, if I quench and tame the lusts of the flesh, that they may not anew inflame my heart with fresh sins." "If sin bestirs itself, I am not overcome; a glance at the cross of Jesus destroys its charms."--Gesangbuch der Evangel. Brüdergemeinen (Moravian Hymn-book).

[220] The only limitation which is not contradictory to the nature of love is the self-limitation of love by reason, intelligence. The love which despises the stringency, the law of the intelligence, is theoretically false and practically noxious.

[221] The Peripatetics also; who founded love, even that towards all men, not on a particular, religious, but a natural principle.

[222] Active love is and must of course always be particular and limited, i.e., directed to one's neighbour. But it is yet in its nature universal, since it loves man for man's sake, in the name of the race. Christian love, on the contrary, is in its nature exclusive.

[223] Including external nature; for as man belongs to the essence of Nature,--in opposition to common materialism; so Nature belongs to the essence of man,--in opposition to subjective idealism; which is also the secret of our "absolute" philosophy, at least in relation to Nature. Only by uniting man with Nature can we conquer the supranaturalistic egoism of Christianity.

[224] Yes, only as the free bond of love; for a marriage the bond of which is merely an external restriction, not the voluntary, contented self-restriction of love, in short, a marriage which is not spontaneously concluded, spontaneously willed, self-sufficing, is not a true marriage, and therefore not a truly moral marriage.

[225] "Because God does good through government, great men and creatures in general, people rush into error, lean on creatures and not on the Creator;--they do not look from the creature to the Creator. Hence it came that the heathens made gods of kings.... For they cannot and will not perceive that the work or the benefit comes from God, and not merely from the creature, though the latter is a means, through which God works, helps us, and gives to us."--Luther (T. iv. p. 237).

[226] "They who honour me, I will honour, and they who despise me shall be lightly esteemed."--1 Sam. ii. 30. "Jam se, o bone pater, vermis vilissimus et odio dignissimus sempiterno, tamen confidit amari, quoniam se sentit amare, imo quia se amari præsentit, non redamare confunditur.... Nemo itaque se amari diffidat, qui jam amat."--Bernardus ad Thomam (Epist. 107). A very fine and pregnant sentence. If I exist not for God, God exists not for me; if I do not love, I am not loved. The passive is the active certain of itself, the object is the subject certain of itself. To love is to be man, to be loved is to be God. I am loved, says God; I love, says man. It is not until later that this is reversed, that the passive transforms itself into the active, and conversely.

[227] "The Lord spake to Gideon: The people are too many that are with thee, that I should give Midian into their hands; Israel might glorify itself against me and say: My hand has delivered me,"--i.e., "Ne Israel sibi tribuat, quæ mihi debentur." Judges vii. 2. "Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man. But blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord."--Jer. xvii. 5. "God desires not our gold, body and possessions, but has given these to the emperor (that is, to the representative of the world, of the state), and to us through the emperor. But the heart, which is the greatest and best in man, he has reserved for himself;--this must be our offering to God--that we believe in him."--Luther (xvi. p. 505).

[228] Christian baptism also is obviously only a relic of the ancient Nature-worship, in which, as in the Persian, water was a means of religious purification. (S. Rhode: Die heilige Sage, &c., pp. 305, 426.) Here, however, water baptism had a much truer, and consequently a deeper meaning, than with the Christians, because it rested on the natural power and value of water. But indeed for these simple views of Nature which characterised the old religions, our speculative as well as theological supranaturalism has neither sense nor understanding. When therefore the Persians, the Hindoos, the Egyptians, the Hebrews, made physical purity a religious duty, they were herein far wiser than the Christian saints, who attested the supranaturalistic principle of their religion by physical impurity. Supranaturalism in theory becomes anti-naturalism in practice. Supranaturalism is only a euphemism for anti-naturalism.

[229] "Eating and drinking is the easiest of all work, for men like nothing better: yea, the most joyful work in the whole world is eating and drinking, as it is commonly said: Before eating no dancing, and, On a full stomach stands a merry head. In short, eating and drinking is a pleasant necessary work;--that is a doctrine soon learned and made popular. The same pleasant necessary work takes our blessed Lord Christ and says: 'I have prepared a joyful, sweet and pleasant meal, I will lay on you no hard heavy work ... I institute a supper,' &c."--Luther (xvi. 222).

[230] "Manifestum igitur est tantum religionis sanguini et affinitati, quantum ipsis Diis immortalibus tributum: quia inter ista tam sancta vincula non magis, quam in aliquo loco sacrato nudare se, nefas esse credebatur."--Valer. Max. (l. ii. c. i.)

[231] See the author's "Leibnitz."

[232] [Here follows in the original a distinction between Herz, or feeling directed towards real objects, and therefore practically sympathetic; and Gemüth, or feeling directed towards imaginary objects, and therefore practically unsympathetic, self-absorbed. But the verbal distinction is not adhered to in the ordinary use of the language, or, indeed, by Feuerbach himself; and the psychological distinction is sufficiently indicated in other parts of the present work. The passage is therefore omitted, as likely to confuse the reader.--Tr.]

[233] "Haereticus usu omnium jurium destitutus est, ut deportatus."--J. H. Boehmer (l. c. l. v. Tit. vii. § 223. See also Tit. vi.)

[234] Very many Christians rejected the punishment of death, but other criminal punishments of heretics, such as banishment, confiscation--punishments which deprive of life indirectly--they did not find in contradiction with their Christian faith. See on this subject J. H. Boehmer, Jus. Eccl. Protest. l. v. Tit. vii. e.g. §§ i. 155, 157, 162, 163.

[235] On this subject I refer to Lützelberger's work: "Die Kirchliche Tradition über den Apostel Johannes und seine Schriften in ihrer Grundlosigkeit nachgewiesen," and to Bruno Bauer's "Kritik der Evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker und des Johannes" (B. iii.).

[236] In another place Luther praises St. Bernard and Bonaventura because they laid so much stress on the manhood of Christ.

[237] It is true that in Catholicism also--in Christianity generally, God exists for man; but it was Protestantism which first drew from this relativity of God its true result--the absoluteness of man.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Essence of Christianity, by Ludwig Feuerbach