Lectures on Calvinism (Stone Lectures)

by men, and is therefore subject to all manner of despotic ambitions.

But the light-side also, for a sinful humanity, without division in states, without law and government, and without ruling authority, would be a veritable hell on earth; or at least a repetition of that which existed in the earth, when (rod drowned the first degenerate race, in the deluge. Calvinism has therefore, by its deep conception of sin, laid bare the true root of state life, and has taught us two things. First — that we have gratefully to receive, from the hand of 'rod, the institution of the State with its magistrates, as a means of preservation, now indeed indispensable. And on the other hand also that, by virtue of our natural impulse, we must ever watch against the danger, which lurks in the power of the State, for our personal liberty.

But Calvinism has done more. Just as the depth of darkness is not apprehended, except by antithesis with the light; so also on this point, the depth of sin cannot be appreciated, unless every nation and people be placed before the face of God. In Politics also the people must not be the principal thing, so that God is only di'agged in, to help this people in the hour of its need: but on the contrary Cod, in His Majesty, must flame before the eyes of every nation, and all nations to gether are to be reckoned before Him as a drop of a bucket and as the small dust of the balances. From the ends of the earth God cites all nations and peoples before His high judgmentseat. For God created the nations. Thej' exist for Him. They are His own. And therefore all these nations, and in them all humanity, must exist for His glory and consequently after his ordinances. For in their wellbeing, when they walk after His ordinances, His divine wisdom must shine forth.

When therefore humanity falls apart through sin, in a multiplicity of separate peoples: and when sin, in the bosom of these nations, separates and tears apart, and reveals itself in all manner of shame and unrighteousness,— the glory of God demands that these horrors be bridled, that order return to this chaos and that a compulsory force, from without, assert itself to make human society a possibility.

This right is possessed, by God and by Him alone.

No man has the right to rule over another man, or it must be, and immediately becomes, the right of the strongest. As the tiger in the jungle rules over the defenceless antilope, so on the banks of the Nile a Pharaoh ruled over the progenitors of the fellaheen of Egypt.

Nor can a group of men, by contract, from their own right, compel you to obey a fellow-man. What binding force is there for me in the fact, that ages ago one of my progenitors made a "Contrat Social", with other men of that time 1 As man I stand, free and bold, over against the most powerful of my fellow-men.

I do not speak of the family, for here natural ties rule; but in the sphere of the State I do not yield or bow down to anyone, who is man, as I am.

Authority over men cannot arise from men. Just as little from a majority over against a minority, for history shows, almost on every page, that very often the minority was right. And thus to the first Calvinistic thesis that—*/// alone has necessitated the institution of governments—, this second and no less momentous thesis is added — that — all authority of governments on earth, originates from the Sovereignty of God alone.

When God says to me— obey —, then I humbly bow my head, without compromising in the least my personal dignity, as a man. For, in like proportion as you degrade yourself, by bowing low to a child of man, whose breath is in his nostrils; so, on the other hand do you raise yourself, if you submit to the authority of the Lord of heaven and earth.

Thus the word of Scripture stands: — "By Me kings reign — ", or as the apostle has elsewhere declared: — " The powers, that be, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth the ordinance of God".

The magistrate is an instrument of common grace, to thwart all license and outrage and to shield the good against the evil. But he is more. Besides all this he is instituted by God as Mis Servant, in order that he may preserve the glorious work of God, in the creation of humanity, from total destruction. Sin attacks God's handiwork, God's plan, God's justice, God's honor, as the Supreme Artificer and Builder. Thus God, ordaining the powers that be, in order that, through their instrumentality, He might maintain His justice against the strivings of sin, has given to the magistrate the terrible right of life and death. Therefore all the powers that be, whether in empires or in republics, in cities or in states, rule "by the //race of God.'' For the same reason justice bears a holy character. And from thej same motive every citizen is bound to obey; not only from dread of punishment, but for the sake of conscience.

Further Calvin has expressly stated that authority, as such, is in no way affected by the question, how a government is instituted and in what form it reveals itself.

It is well known that personally he preferred a republic, and that he cherished no predilection for a monarchy, as if this were the divine and ideal form of government.

This indeed would have been the case in a sinless state. For had sin not entered, God would have remained the sole king of all men, and this condition will return, in the glory to; come, when God once more will be all and in all.

God's own direct government is absolutely monarchical; no monotheist will deny it.

But Calvin considered a co-operation of many persons under mutual control i.e. a republic, desirable, now that a mechanical institution of government is necessitated b}T reason of sin.

Iii his system however, this could only amount to a gradual difference in practical excellency, but never to a fundamental difference, as regards the essence of authority.

He considers a monarchy and an aristocrac}', as well as a democracy, both possible and practicable forms of government; provided it be unchangeably maintained, that no one on earth can claim authority over his fellow-men, unless it be laid upon him "by the grace of God''; and therefore, the ultimate duty of obedience, is imposed upon us not by man, but by God Himself.

The question how those persons, who by divine authority are to be clothed with power, are indicated, can, accordiug to Calvin, not be answered alike for all peoples and for all time. And yet he does not hesitate to state, in an ideal sense, that the most desirable conditions there exist. where the people itself chooses its own magistrates.

Where such a condition exists he thinks that the people should gratefully recognize therein a favor of God, precisely as it has been expressed in the preamble of more than one of your constitutions: — "Grateful to almighty God that He gave us the power to choose our own magistrates.''

In his Commentary on Samuel, Calvin therefore admonishes such peoples-. — "And ye, o peoples, to whom God gave the liberty to choose your own magistrates, see to it, that ye do not forfeit this favor, by electing to the positions of highest honor, rascals and enemies of God.''

I ma}' add that the popular choice gains the day, as a matter of course, where no other rule exists, or where the existing rule falls away.

Wherever new States have been founded, except by conquest or force, the first government has always been founded by popular choice; and so also where the highest authority had fallen into disorder, either by want of a determination of the right of succession, or through the violence of revolution, it has always been the people who through their representatives, claimed the right to restore it.

But with equal decision, Calvin asserts that God has the sovereign power, in the way of His dispensing providence, to take from a people this most desirable condition, or never to bestow it at all, when a Nation is unfit for it, or, by its sin, has utterly forfeited the blessing.

The historic development of a people shows, as a matter of course, in what other ways authority is bestowed. This bestowal may flow from the right of inheritance, as in a hereditary monarchy. It may result from a hard-fought war, even as Pilate had power over Jesus, "given him from above." It may proceed from electors, as it did in the old German empire. It may rest with the States of the country, as was the case in the old Dutch republic. In a word it may assume a variety of forms, because there is an endless difference in the development of nations. A form of government like your own, could not exist one day in China. Even now, the people of Russia are unfit for any form of constitutional government. And among the Kaffers and Hottentots of Africa, even a government, such as exists in Russia, would be wholly inconceivable. All this is determined and appointed by God, through the hidden counsel of His providence. But in whatever way the highest authority ma}* be conveyed, that authority remains divine in its origin, and blessed is the man, who honors God's sovereignty therein. All this however, is no ilieocracy.

A theocracy was only found in Israel, because in Israel, God intervened immediately. For both by Urim and Thummim and by Prophecy; both by His saving miracles and by His chastising judgments, He held in His own hand the jurisdiction and the leadership of His people.

But the Calviuistic confession of the sovereignty of God, holds good for all the world, is true for all nations and is of force in all authority, which man exercises over man; even in the authorit}', which parents possess over their children. It is therefore a political faith, which may be summarily expressed in these three theses: —

1" God only — and never any creature — is possessed of sovereign rights, in the destiny of the nations, because God alone created them, maintains them by His Almighty power, and rules them, by His ordinances. 2° Sin has, in the realm of politics, broken down the direct government of God, and therefore the exercise of authority, for the purpose of government, has subsequently been invested in men, as a mechanical remedy. And 3° In whatever form this authority may reveal itself, man never possesses power over his fellow-man, in any other way than by an authority, which descends upon him from the majesty of God.

Directly opposed to this Calvinistic confession there are two other theories. That of the papular-sovereignty, as it has been anti-theistically proclaimed at Paris in 1789; aud that of state -sovereignty, as it has of late been developed by the historico-pantheistic school of Germany. Both these theories are at heart identical, but for the sake of clearness they demand a separate treatment.

What was it. that impelled and animated the spirits of men in the great French revolution? Indignation at abuses, which had crept in? A horror of a crowned despotism? A noble defense of the rights and liberties of the people? In part certainly, but in all this there is so little that is sinful, that even a Calvinist gratefully recognizes, in these three particulars, the divine judgment, which at that time was executed at Paris.

But the impelling force of the French Revolution did not lie in this hatred of abuses. When Edmund Burke compares the "glorious Revolution'' of 16SS, with the principle of the Revolution of 1789, he says —: " Our revolution and that of France are just the reverse ol each other, in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction." *

This same Edmund Burke, who so bitterly antagonized the French revolution, has manfully defended your own rebellion against England, as "arising from a principle of energy, showing itself in this good people the main cause of a free spirit, the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion.''

We may say the same of the rebellion of the Netherlands against Spain. All these revolutions left untouched the glory of God, nay they even proceeded from the acknowledgment of His majesty. Every one will admit this of our rebellion against Spain, under William the Silent. Nor has it even been doubted of the "glorious Revolution", which was crowned by the arrival of William III of Orange, and the overthrow of the Stuarts. It is equally true of your own Revolution. It is expressed, in so many words, in the Declaration of independence, by John Hancock, that the Americans asserted themselves by virtue — "of the law of nature and of nature's God"; that they acted— "as endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights"; that they appealed to — "the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intention"; f and that they sent forth their "declaration of Independence" — "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence". § In the "Articles of Confederation" it is confessed, in the preamble. — "that it hath pleased the great Governor of the world to incline the hearts of the legislators." §§ It is also declared in the preamble of the Constitution of many of the States: — "Grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty, which He has so long permitted us to enjoy and looking unto Him, for a blessing upon our endeavors." * God is there honored as "the Sovereign Ruler", f and the "Legislator of the Universe'' § and it is there specifically admitted that from God the people received "the right to choose their own form of government", ff In one of the meetings of the Convention, Franklin proposed, in a moment of supreme anxiety, that they should ask wisdom from God in prayer. If any one should still doubt whether or not, the American revolution was homogeneous with that of Paris, this doubt is fully set at rest, by the bitter fight, in 1793, between Jefferson and Washington. And so the judgment of the German historian Von Holtz remains intact: "Es ware Thorheit zu sagen dass die Rousseauschen Schriften einen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung in America ausgeiibt haben/'§§ ("Mere madness would it be to say that the American revolution borrowed its impelling energy from Rousseau and his writings.")

The French Revolution is in principle distinct from all these national revolutions, which were undertaken with praying lips and with trust in the help of God.

The French Revolution ignores God. It opposes God_ It refuses to recognize a deeper ground of political life than that which is found in nature, that is, in this instance, in man himself. Here the first article of the confession of the most absolute infidelity is — "ni Dieu ni maitre". The sovereign God is dethroned and man with his free will is placed on the vacant throne. It is the will of man, which determines things. All power, all authority proceeds from man. Thus one comes from the individual man to the many men; and in those many men conceived as the people, there is thus hidden the deepest fountain of all sovereignty. There is no question, as in your Constitution, of a sovereignty, derived from God, which He, under certain conditions implants in the people.

§§ Von Holtz, Verfassung and Democratie der VereenUjten Slaten run America. Dusseldorf. 1873 I p. 96.

Here an original sovereignty asserts itself, which everywhere and in all states, can only proceed from the people itself, having no deeper root than in the human will. A sovereignty of the people therefore, which is perfectly identical with atheism. And herein lies the self-abasement. In the sphere of Calvinism, as also in your Constitution, the knee is bowed to God, while over against man the head is proudly lifted up. But here, from the standpoint of the sovereignty of the people, the fist is defiantly doubled against God, while man grovels before his fellow-men, tinseling over this self-abasement by the ludicrous fiction that, thousands of years ago, men, of whom no one has any remembrance, concluded a political contract, or, as they called it, "Contrat Social". Now, do you ask for the result? Then, let History tell you how the rebellion of the Netherlands, the ''glorious Revolution" of England and your own rebellion against the British Crown have brought liberty to honor; and answer for yourself the question has the French Revolution resulted in anything else but the shackling of liberty, in the irons of State-omnipotence? Indeed no country in our 19th century, has made a sadder Statehistory than France.

No wonder that Scientific Germany has broken away from this fictitious sovereignty of the people, since the da}rs of De Savignv and Niebuhr. The Historical school, founded by these eminent men, has pilloried the aprioristic fiction of 17S9. Every historical connoisseur now ridicules it. But that which they recommended instead of it, bears no better stamp.

Now it was to be not the sovereignty of the people, but the Sovereignty of the State, a product of Germanic philosophical pantheism. Ideas are incarnated in the reality, and among these the idea of the State was the highest, the richest, the most perfect idea of the relation between man and man. Thus the State became a mystical conception. The State was considered as a mysterious being, with a hidden ego; with a State-consciousness, slowly developing; and with an ever more potent St&te-will, which by a slow process endeavored to reach the highest State-aim. The people was not understood as with Rousseau, to be the sum total of the individuals. It was correctly seen that a people is no aggregate, but an organic whole. This organism must of necessity have its organic members. Slowly these organs arrived at their historic development. By these organs, the will of the State operates, and everything must bow before this will. This sovereign State-will might reveal itself in a republic, in a monarchy, in a Caesar, in an Asiatic despot, in a tyrant as Philip of Spain, or in a dictator like Napoleon. All these were but forms, in which the one State-idea incorporated itself; the stages of development in a never ending process. But in whatever form this mystical being of the State revealed itself, the idea remained supreme; the State shortly asserted its sovereignty and for every member of the State, it remained the touchstone of wisdom to give way to this State-apotheosis.

Thus all transcendent right in God, to which the oppressed lifted up his face, falls away. There is no other right, but the immanent right, which is written down in the law. The law is right, not because its contents are in harmony with the eternal principles of right, but because it is law. If on the morrow it fixes the very opposite, this also must be right. And the fruit of this deadening theory is, as a matter of course, that the consciousness of right is blunted, that all fixedness of right departs from our minds and that all higher enthusiasm for right is extinguished. That which exists is good, because it exists; and it is no longer the will of God, of Him Who created us and knows us, but it becomes the ever-changing will of the State, which, having no one above itself, actually becomes God and has to decide how our life and our existence shall be.

And when you further consider that this mystical State expresses and enforces its will only through men — what further proof is demanded that this state-sovereignty even as popular sovereignty, does not outgrow the aliasing subjection of man to his fellow-man and never ascends to a duty of Submission, which finds its cogency in the conscience.

Therefore in opposition both to the atheistic popularsovereignty of the Encyclopaedians, and the pantheistic statesovereignty of German philosophers, I maintain the sovereignty of God, that divine sovereignty, which has been proclaimed by Calvinism as the source of all authority among men.

The Calvinist upholds the highest and best in our aspirations, by placing every man and every people before the face of our Father in heaven. He takes cognizance of the fact of sin, which erstwhile was juggled away and which now, in pessimistic extravagance, is accounted the essence of our being. It points to the difference between the natural concatination of our organic society and the mechanical tie, which the authority of the magistrate imposes. It makes it easy for us to obey authority, because, in all authority, it causes us to honor the demand of divine sovereignty. It lifts us from an obedience, born of dread of the strong arm, iuto an obedience for conscience sake. It teaches us to look upward from the existing law to the source of the eternal Right, in God, and it creates in us the indomitable courage, incessantly to protest against the unrighteousness of the law in the name of this highest Eight. And however powerfully the State may assert itself and oppress the free individual development, above that powerful State there is always glittering, before our soul's eye, as infinitely more powerful, the majesty of the King of Kings; whose righteous bar ever maintains the right of appeal for all the oppressed, and unto whom the prayer of the people ever ascends, to bless our nation and, in that nation, us and our house!

So much for the sovereignty of the state. We now come to sovereignly in the individual sphere of social life. ■

In a Calvinistic sense we understand hereby, that the family, the business, science, art and so forth are all social spheres, which do not owe their existence to the State, and which do not derive the law of their life from the superiority of the state, but obey a high authority within their own bosom, which rules, by the grace of God, just as the sovereignty of the State does.

This involves the antithesis between State and Society, but upon this condition, that we do not conceive this society as a conglomerate, but as analysed in its organic parts, to honor, in each of these parts, the independent character, which appertains to them.

In this independent character a special authority is of necessity involved. And though in the different departments of these spheres this authority may be graduated, finally it must assume the form of the highest authority in each particular sphere. And this highest authority we intentionally call — sovereignty in the individual sphere, in order that it may be sharply and decidedly expressed that these different developments of social life have nothing above themselves but God, and that the State cannot intrude here, and has nothing to command in their domain. As you feel at once, this is the deeply interesting question of our civil liberties.

It is here of the highest importance sharply to keep in mind the difference in grade between the organic life of society and the mechanical character of the government; — a difference, which has been repeatedly alluded to, but which now has to be more fully- considered.

Whatever among men originates directly from creation, is possessed of all the data for its development, in human nature as such.

You see this at once in the family and in the connection of blood relations and other ties. From the duality of man and woman marriage arises. From the original existence of one man and one woman monogamy comes forth. The children exist by reason of the innate power of reproduction. Naturally the children are connected as brothers and sisters. And when by and by these children, in their turn, marry again, as a matter of course all those connections originate from blood-relationship and other ties, which dominate the whole of family-life.

In all this there is nothing mechanical. The development is spontaneous, just as that of the stem and the branches of a plant. True, sin here also has exerted its disturbing influence and has distorted much which was intended for a blessing, into a curse. But this fatal efficiency of sin has been stopped by common grace. Free-love may try to dissolve, and the concubinate to desecrate, the holiest ties, as it pleases, but, for the vast majority of our race marriage remains the foundation of human society and the family retains its position, as the primordial sphere in sociology.

The same may be said of the other spheres of life.

Nature about us may have lost the glory of paradise, by reason of sin, and the earth may bear thorns and thistles, so that we can eat our bread only in the sweat of our brow; notwithstanding all this the chief aim of all human effort remains, what it was by virtue of our creation and before the fall, — namely dominion over nature. And this dominion caunot be acquired, except by the exercise of the ] lowers, which, by virtue of the ordinances of creation, are innate in nature itself. Accordingly all Science is only the application to the cosmos of the powers of investigation and thought, created within us; and Art is nothing but the natural productivity of the life of our imagination. When we admit therefore that sin, though arrested by common grace, has caused many modifications of these several expressions of life, which originated only after paradise was lost, and will disappear again, with the coming of the Kingdom of glory; — we still maintain that the fundamental character of these expressions' remains as it was originally. All together they form the life of creation, in accord with the ordinances of creation, and therefore are organically developed.

But the case is wholly different with the assertion of the powers of government. For though it be admitted that even without sin the need would have asserted itself of combining the many families, in a higher unity; this unity would have internally been bound up in the Kingship of God, which would have ruled regularly, directly and harmoniously in the hearts of all men, and which would externally have incorporated itself in a patriarchal hierarchy. Thus no States would have existed, but only one world-empire, with God as its King; exactly what is prophesied for the future which awaits us. when all sin shall have disappeared.

But it is exactly this, which sin has now eliminated from our human life. This unity does no longer exist. This government of God can no longer assert itself. This patriarchal hierarchy has been destroyed. A world-empire neither can nor may be established. For in this very desire consisted the contumacy of the building of Babel's tower. Thus peoples and nations originated. These peoples formed States. And over these States God appointed government. And thus, if I may be allowed the expression, it is not a natural head, which orgauically grew from the body of the people, but a mechanical head, which from without has been placed upon the trunk of the nation. A mere remedy therefore, for a wrong condition supervening. A stick placed by the plant to hold it up, since without it, by reason of its inherent weakness, it would fall to the ground.

The principal characteristic of government is the right of life. and death. According to the apostolic testimony this government bears the sword, and this sword has a threefold meaning. It is the sword of. justice, to mete out corporeal punishment to the criminal. It is the sword of war to defend the honor and the rights and the interests of the State against its enemies. And it is the sword of peace, to thwart at home all forcible rebellion.

Luther and his co-Reformers have correctly pointed out that the institution proper and the full investiture of the magistrate with power was only brought about after the flood, when God commanded that capital punishment should fall upon him who shed man's blood.

The right of taking life belongs only to Him, who can give life, i.e. to God; and therefore no one on earth is invested with this authority, except it be God-given. On this account, Roman law, which committed the jus vitae et necis to the father and to the slave-owner, stands intrinsically much lower, than the law of Moses, which knows no other capital punishment but that by the magistrate and at his command.

The highest duty of the government remains therefore unchangeably that of justice, and in the second place it has to care for the people as an unit, partly at home, in order that its unity may grow ever deeper and may not be disturbed, and partly abroad, lest the national existence suffer harm. The consequence of all this is that on the one hand, in a people, all sorts of organic phenomena of life arise, from its social spheres, and that, high above all these, the mechanical unifying force of the government is observable. From this arises all friction and clashing. For the government is always inclined, with its mechanical authority, to invade social life, to subject it and mechanically to arrange it. Thus does the State strive for Omnipotence.

But on the other hand social life always endeavors to shake off the authority of the government, just as this endeavor at the present time again culminates in socialdemocracy and in anarchism, both of which aim at nothing less but the total overthrow of the institution of authority. But leaving these two extremes alone, it will be admitted that all healthy life of people or state has ever been the historical consequence of the struggle between these two " powers. It was the socalled constitutional public law, which endeavored more firmly to regulate the mutual relation of these two. And in this struggle Calvinism was the first to take its stand. Just in proportion as it honored the authority of the magistrate, instituted by God, did it lift up that second sovereignty, which had been implanted by God in the social spheres, in accordance with the ordinances of creation.

It demanded for both independence in their own sphere and regulation of the relation between both, under the law. And by this stern demand, Calviuism may be said to have generated constitutional public law, from its own fundamental idea.

The testimony of history is unassailable that this constitutional public law has not flourished in Roman Catholic or in Lutheran States, but among the nations of a Calvinistic type.

The idea is here fundamental therefore that the sovereignty of God, in its descent upon men, separates itself into two spheres. On the one hand the sphere of State-authority and on the other hand the sphere of the authority of the Social circles. And in both these spheres the inherent authority is sovereign, that is to say, it has above itself nothing but God.

And yet we are not to forget that the nature of this sovereignty, in these two spheres, is not identical. In the sphere of State-authority it compels mechanical///, that is externally, with the strong arm. In the sphere of the authority of social life, on the contrary, it compels organically, that is to say by a moral and inherent force. And whilst both are thus opposed to each other, each having its own specific character, the family alone reveals an intermixture of the two. Good parents rule morally, but in extreme cases they also maintain discipline.

Now for the mechanically coercing authority of the government any further explanation is superfluous, not so for the organic social authority.

Nowhere is the dominating character of this organic social authority more plainly discernable than in the sphere of Science. In the introduction to an edition of the "Sententiae" of Lombard and of the "Summa Theologica" of Thomas Aquinas, the learned Thomist wTrote: — "The work of Lombard has ruled one hundred and fifty years and has produced Thomas, and after him the 'Summa' of Thomas has ruled all Europe (totam Europam rexit) during five full centuries and has generated all the subsequent Theologians".* Suppose we admit that this language is overbold, yet the idea, here expressed, is unquestionably correct. The dominion of men like Aristotle and Plato, Lombard and Thomas, Luther and Calvin, Kant and Hegel, extends, for each of them, over a field of man}' ages.

Genius is a sovereign power; it forms schools, it lays hold on the spirits of men, with irresistible might; and it exercises an immeasurable influence on the whole condition of human life. This sovereignty of genius is a gift of God, possessed only by His Grace. It is subject to no one and is responsible to Him alone Who has granted it this ascendency.

The same phenomenon is observable in the sphere of Art. Every master-artist is a king in the Palace of Art, not by the law of inheritance or by appointment, but only by the grace of God. And these maestros also impose authority, and are subject to no one, but rule over all and in the end receive from all the homage due to their artistic superiority.

And the same is to be said of the sovereign power of personality. There is no equality of persons. There are weak narrow minded persons, with no broader expanse of wings than a common sparrow; but there are also broad,

* Edition of Migne at Paris 1841. Tome I, proof 1.

imposing characters, with the wing-stroke of the eagle. Among the last you will find a few of royal grandeur and these rule in their own sphere, whether people draw back from them or antagonize them; usually waxing all the stronger, the more they are opposed. And this entire process is carried out in all the spheres of life. In the labor of the mechanic, in the shop, or on the exchange, in commerce, on the sea, in the held of benevolence and philanthropy. Everywhere one man is more powerful than the other, by his personality, by his talent and by circumstances. Dominion is exercised everywhere, but it is a dominion, which works organically; not by virtue of a State-investiture, but from life's sovereignty itself.

In relation herewith, and on entirely the same ground of organic superiority, there exists, side by side with this personal sovereignty, the sovereignty of the sphere. The university exercises scientific dominion; the Academy of fine arts is possessed of art-power; the guild exercised a technical dominion; the trades-union rules over labor; — and each of these spheres or corporations is conscious of the power of exclusive independent judgment and authoritative action, within its proper sphere of operation. Behind these organic spheres, with intellectual, aesthetical and technical sovereignty, the sphere of the family opens itself, with its right of marriage, domestic peace, education and possession; and in this sphere also the natural head is conscious of exercising an inherent authority, — not because the government allows it, but because God has imposed it. Paternal authority roots itself in the very life-blood and is proclaimed in the fifth Commandment.

And so also finally it may be remarked that the social life of cities and villages forms a sphere of existence, which arises from the very necessities of life, and which therefore must be autonomous.

In many different directions we see therefore that sovereignty in one's own sphere asserts itself — 1° in the personal sphere, by personal superiority; 2° in the corporative sphere of universities, guilds, associations, etc; 3o in the domestic sphere of the family and of married life; and 4° in communal autonomy.

In all these four spheres the government cannot impose its laws, but must reverence the innate law of life. God rules in these spheres, just as supremely and sovereignly as He exercises dominion in the sphere of the State, through the government.

Bound bjr its own mandate therefore the government may neither ignore nor modify nor disrupt the divine mandate, under which these spheres stand.

The sovereignty, by the grace of God. of the government is here set aside and limited, for God's sake, by another sovereignty, which is equally divine in origin. Neither the life of science or nor of art, nor of agriculture, nor of industry, nor of commerce; nor of navigation, nor of the family, nor of human relationship may be coerced to suit itself to the Grace of the government.

The State may never become an octopus, which stifles the whole of life.

It must occupy its own place, on its own root, among all the other trees of the forest, and thus it has to honour and maintain every form of life, which grows independently, in its own sacred autonomy.

Does this mean that the government has no right whatever of interference in these autonomous spheres of life? Not at all.

It possesses the threefold right and duty: 1° whenever different spheres clash, to compel mutual regard for the boundary-lines of each; 2° to defend individuals and the weak ones, in those spheres, against the abuse of power of the rest; and 3° to coerce all together to bear personal and financial burdens for the maintenance of the natural unity of the State.

But in this way exactby friction is created and thus the danger of a clash arises. The decision cannot, in these cases, unilaterally rest with the Government. The law here has to indicate the rights of each, and the rights of the citizens over their own parses must remain the invincible bulwark against the abuse of power on the part of the government.

And here exactly lies the starting-point for that cooperation of the sovereignty of the government, with the sovereignty in the social sphere, which finds its regulation in the Constitution.

According to the order of things, in his time, this became to Calvin the doctrine of the "magistratus inferiores".

Knighthood, the rights of the city, the rights of guilds and much more, led then to the self-assertion of social "States", with their own civil authority; now Calvin wished the law to be made by the cooperation of these with the High magistrates, and so by laws he caused the abuse of power on the part of the magistrates to be restricted.

Since that time these medieval relations, which in part arose from the feudal-system, have become totally antiquated.

These corporations or social orders are now no longer invested with ruling power, their place is taken by Parliament, or whatever name the general house of representatives may bear in different countries, and now it remains the duty of those Assemblies to maintain the popular rights and liberties of all and in the name of all, with and if need be against the government.

This united defense was preferred to individual resistance, both to simplify the construction and operation of State institutions and to accelerate their functions.

But in whatever way the form may be modified, it remains essentially the old Calvinistic plan, to assure to the people, in all its classes and orders, in all its circles and spheres, in all its corporations and independent institutions, a legal and orderly influence in the making of the laws and the course of government, in a healthy democratic sense.

The only difference of opinion is yet on the important question, whether we shall continue in the now prevailing solution of the special rights of those social spheres in the individual right of franchise; or whether it is desirable to place by its side a corporative right of franchise, which shall enable the different circles to make a separate defense.

At present a new tendency to organization reveals itself even in the spheres of commerce and industry and not less in that of labor, and even from France voices arise, which clamor for the juncture of the right of franchise with these organizations.

I for one, would welcome such a move, provided its application were not onesided, much less exclusive; but I may not linger over these side issues.

I set out in the main to show how Calvinism, — by the maintenance even in the social spheres of life, of a Godgiven right and sovereign authority — protests against State-omnipotence, against the horrible conception that no right exists above and beyond existing laws; and against the pride of absolutism, which recognizes no constitutional rights, except as the result of princely favor.

These three representations, which find so dangerous a nourishment in the ascendency of Pantheism, are death to our civil liberties. And Calvinism is to be praised for having built a dam across this absolutistic stream, not by appealing to popular force, nor to the hallucination of human greatness, but by deducing those rights and liberties of social life from the same source, from which the high authority of the government flows — even the absolute sovereignty of God. From this one source, in God, sovereignty in the individual sphere, in the family and in every social circle, is just as directly derived as the supremacy of State-authority. These two must therefore come to an understanding, and both have an equally sacred obligation to maintain their God-given sovereign authority and to make it subservient to the majesty of God.

A people, which abandons to State Supremacy the right of the family, or a University which abandons to it the rights of science, is just as guilty before God, as a nation which lays its hands upon the rights of the magistrates. And thus the struggle for liberty is not only declared permissible, but is made a duty for each individual in his own sphere. And this not as was done in the French Revolution, by setting God aside and by placing man on the throne of God's Omnipotence; but on the contrary, by causing all men. the magistrates included, to bow, in deepest humility before the majesty of God Almighty.

As third and last part of this lecture, the discussion remains of a question yet more difficult than the previous one, namely how we must conceive of the Sovereignty of the Church in the state.

I call this a difficult problem, not because I am in doubt as to the conclusions, or because I doubt your assent to these conclusions. For, as far as regards American life, all uncertainty in this respect is removed by what your Constitution at first declared— and has later been modified in your Confessions — concerning the liberty of worship and the separation of Church and State. And as far as 1 am personally concerned, more than a quarter of a century ago I wrote above my Weekly paper the motto — "A free Church in a free State." In a hard struggle this motto has ever been lifted on high by me and our churches also are about to reconsider the article in our Confession which touches on this matter.

The difficulty of the problem lies elsewhere. It lies in the pile and fagots of Servetus. It lies in the attitude of the Presbyterians toward the Independents. It lies in the restrictions of liberty of worship and in the "civil disabilities", under which for centuries even in the Netherlands, the Roman Catholics have suffered. The difficulty lies in the fact that an article of our old Calviuistic Confession of Faith entrusts to the government the task, "of defending against and of extirpating every form of idolatry and false religion and to protect the sacred service of the Church." The difficulty lies in the unanimous and uniform advice of Calvin and his epigones, who demanded intervention of the government in the matter of religion. And still more apparent is this difficulty from the undeniahle fact that it has frequently heen Baptists and Remonstrants who, for three successive centuries. have defended this system of a free church, against the Calvinists.

The accusation is therefore a natural one that, by choosing in favor of liberty of religion, we do not pick up the gauntlet for Calvinism, but that we directly oppose it.

In order to shield myself from this undesirable suspicion, I advance the rule — that a system is not known by what it has in common with other preceding systems; but that it is distinguished by that in which it differs from those preceding systems.

The duty of the government to extirpate every form of false religion and idolatry, dates from Constantine the Great, and was the reaction against the horrible persecutions which his pagan predecessors, on the imperial throne, had inflicted upon the sect of the Nazarene. Since that day this system has been defended by all Romish theologians and applied by all Christian princes. In the time of Luther and Calvin, it was a uuiversal conviction that that system was the true one. Every famous theologian of the period, Melanchton first of all, approved of the death by fire of Servetus; and the scaffold, which was erected at Leipzic for Krell, the thorough-Calvinists, was infinitely more reprehensible, when looked at from a protestant standpoint.

But whilst the Calvinists, in the age of the Reformation, yielded their victims, by tens of thousands, to the scaffold and the stake, (those of the Lutherans and Roman Catholics being hardly worth counting), history has been guilty of the great and far-reaching unfairness of ever casting in their teeth this one execution b}r fire of Servetus, as a crimen nefandum.

Notwithstanding all this I do net only lament that one stake, but I do unconditionally disapprove of it; yet not as if it were the expression of a special characteristic of Calvinism, but on the contrary as the fatal expression of a system, grey with age, which Calvinism found in existence, under which it had grown up, and from which it had not yet been able entirely to liberate itself.

If I desire to know what in this respect must follow from the specific principles of Calvinism, then the question must be put quite differently.

Then we must see and acknowledge that this system of bringing differences in religious matters under the criminal jurisdiction of the government, results directly from the conviction that the Church of Christ on earth can express itself only in one form and as one institution.

This one church alone was the Church of Christ, and everything, which differed from her, was looked upon as inimical to this one true church.

The government, therefore, was not called upon to judge, or to weigh, or to decide for itself. There was only one Church of Christ on earth, and it was the task of the Magistrate to protect that church from schisms, heresies and sects.

But break that one Church into fragments, admit that the Church of Christ can reveal itself in many forms, in different countries; nay even in the same country, in a multiplicity of institutions; and immediately everything, which was deduced from this unity of the visible church, drops out of sight.

If it cannot be denied that Calvinism itself has ruptured the unity of the church, and that in Calvinistic countries a rich variety of all manner of church-formations revealed itself, then it follows that we must not seek the true Calvinistic characteristic in what, for a time, it has retained of the old system, but rather in that, which, new and fresh, has sprung up from its own root.

Results have shown that, even after the lapse of three centuries, in all distinctive Roman Catholic countries, even in the South American Republics, the Roman Catholic church is and remains the State-church, precisely as does the Lutheran church in Lutheran countries. And the free church has exclusively flourished in those countries, which were touched by the breath of Calvinism, i. e., in Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Scotland and the United States of North America.

In Roman Catholic countries, the identification of the invisible and the visible church, under papal unity, is still maintained. In Lutheran countries, with the aid of "cuius regio eius religio", the Court-confession has been monstrously imposed on the people as the land-confession; there the Reformed were treated harshly, they were exiled and outraged, as enemies of Christ, and at Leipsic Krell has even been condemned to death. In the Calvinistic Netherlands, on the contrary, all those who were persecuted for religion's sake, found a harbor of refuge. There the Jews were hospitably received; there the Martinists were in honor; there the Mennonites flourished; and even the Remonstrants and Catholics were permitted the free exercise of their religion at home and in secluded churches. The Independents, driven from England, have found a resting place for the soles of their feet in the Calvinistic Netherlands; and from this same country the Mayflower sailed forth to transport the Pilgrim Fathers to their new fatherland.

I do not build therefore on subterfuge, but 1 appeal to clear historical facts. And here I repeat— the deep lying characteristic of Calvinism must be sought, not in what it has adopted from the past, but in what it has newly created.

It is remarkable, in this connection, that, from the very beginning, our Calvinistic Theologians and jurists have defended liberty of conscience against the Inquisition. Rome perceived very clearly how liberty of conscience must loosen the foundations of the unity of the church and therefore she antagonized it. But on the other hand it must be admitted that Calvinism, by praising aloud liberty of conscience, has in principle abandoned every absolute characteristic of the visible church.

As soon as in the bosom of one and the same people the conscience of one half witnessed against that of the other half, the breach had been accomplished and placards were no longer of any avail.

As early as 1649 it was declared that persecution, for faith's sake, was— "a spiritual murder, an assassination of the soul, a rage against God himself, the most horrible of sins".

And it is evident that Calvin himself wrote down the premises of the correct conclusion, by his acknowledgment that against atheists even the Catholics are our allies; by his open recognition of the Lutheran Church; and still more emphatically by his pertinent declaration: "Scimus tres esse errorum gradus, et quibus dam fatemur dandam esse veniam, aliis modicam castigationem sufricere, ut tantum manifesta impietas capitali supplitio plectatur. * That is to say: "There exists a threefold departure from the Christian truth; a slight one, which had better be left alone; a moderate one, which must be restored by a moderate chastisement; and only manifest godlessness must be capitally punished". I admit that this is still a harsh decision, but yet a decision in which in principle the visible unity is discarded; and where that unity is broken, there liberty will dawn as a matter of course. With Rome the system of persecution issued from the identification of the visible with the invisible church, and from this dangerous line Calvin departed, but what he persevered in defending was the identification of our Confession of the Truth with the absolute Truth itself, and it only wanted fuller experience to realize that this proposition, true as it must ever remain in our personal conviction, may never be imposed by force upon other people.

So much for the facts. Now let us put the theory itself to the test and look successively at the duty of the magistrate in things spiritual: 1". towards God. 2°. towards the Church, and 3". towards individuals. As regards the first point, the magistrates are and remain— "God's servants." They have to recognize God as supreme ruler, from whom they derive their power. They have to serve God, by ruling the people according to His ordinances. They have to restrain blasphemy, where it directly assumes the character of an affront to the divine majesty. And God's supremacy is to be recognized, by confessing His name in the Constitution, by maintaining the Sabbath, by proclaiming days of prayer and thanksgiving, and by invoking His divine blessing.

Therefore in order that they may govern, according to His holy ordinances, every magistrate is in duty bound to investigate the rights of God, both in the natural life and His Word. Not to subject himself to the decision of any church, but in order that he himself may catch the light which he needs for the knowledge of the divine will. And as regards blasphemy, the right of the magistrates to restrain it rests in the God-consciousness innate in every man; and the duty to exercise this right flows from the fact that God is the supreme and sovereign Ruler over every State and over every Nation. But for this very reason the fact of blasphemy is only then to be deemed established, when the intention is apparent contumaciously to affront this majesty of God as supreme Ruler of the State. What is then punished is not the religious offense, nor the impious sentiment, but the attack upon the foundation of public law, upon which both the State and its government are resting.

Meanwhile there is in this respect a noteworthy difference between States which are absolutely governed b}r a monarch, and States which are governed constitutionally; or in a republic, in a still wider range, by an extensive assembly.

In the absolute monarch the consciousness and the personal will are one and thus this one person is called to rule his people after his own personal conception of the ordinances of God. When on the contrary the consciousness and the will of many cooperate, this unity is lost and the subjective conception of the ordinances of God, by these many, can only be indirectly applied. But whether you are dealing with the will of a single individual, or with the will of many men, in a decision arrived at by a vote, the principal thing remains that the government has to judge and to decide independently. Not as an appendix to the Church, nor as its pupil. The sphere of State stands itself under the majesty of the Lord. In that sphere therefore an independent responsibility to God is to be maintained. The ecclesiastical estate is not sacred; and that of the State outside of it is not profane. But both Church and State must, each in their own sphere, obey God and serve His honor. And to that end in either sphere God's Word must rule, but in the sphere of the State only through the conscience of the persons invested with authority. The first thing of course is and remains that all nations shall be governed in a Christian way; that is to say in accordance withj the principle which, for all statecraft, flow from the Christ. But this can never be realized except through the subjective convictions of those in authority, according to their personal views of the demands of that Christian principle, as regards the public service.

Of an entirely different nature is the second question, what ought to be the relation between the government and the visible Church. If it had been the will of God to maintain the formal unity of this visible Church, this question would have to be answered quite differently from what is now the case. That this unity was originally sought is natural. Unity of religion has great value for the life of a people and not a little charm. And only narrowmindedness can feel itself offended, by the rage of despair, wherewith Koine, in the 16th century, fought for the maintenance of that unity. It can also be easily understood that this unity was originally established. The lower a people stands in the scale of development, the less difference of opinion is revealed. We see therefore that nearly all nations begin with unity of religion. But it is equally natural that this unity is split up. where the individual life, in the process of development, gains in strength, and where multiformity asserts itself, as the undeniable demand of a richer development of life. And thus we are confronted with the fact that the visible church has been split up, and that in no country whatever the absolute unity of the visible church can be any longer maintained.

What then is the duty of the government? Must it — for the question may be reduced to this, — must it now form an individual judgment, as to which of those many churches is the true one? And must it maintain this one over against the others? Or is it the duty of the government to suspend its own judgment and to consider the multiform complex of all these denominations, as the totality of the manifestation of the Church of Christ on earth?

From a Calvinistic standpoint we must decide in favor of the latter suggestion. Not from a false idea of neutrality, nor as if Calvinism could ever be indifferent to what is true and what false, but because the government lacks the data of judgment and because every magisterial judgment here infringes the sovereignty of the Church. For otherwise, if the government be an absolute monarchy, you get the "cuius regio eius religio" of the Lutheran princes, which has ever been combated, from the side of Calvinism. Or if the government rests with a plurality of persons, the Church which yesterday wTas counted the false one, is to-day considered the true one, according to the decision of the vote; and thus all continuity of state-administration and church position is lost.

Hence it is that the Calvinists have always struggled so proudly and courageously lor the liberty, that is to say for the sovereignty, of the Church, within her own sphere, in distinction from the Lutheran theologians. In Christ, they contended, the Church has her own king. Her position in the State is not assigned her by the permission of the Government, but jure divino. She has her own organisation. She possesses her own office-bearers, and in a similar way she has her own gifts to distinguish truth from the lie. It is therefore her privilege, and not that of the State, to determine her own characteristics as the true Church and to proclaim her own confession, as the confession of the truth.

If in this position she is opposed by other churches, she will fight against these her spiritual battle, with spiritual and social weapons; but she denies and contests the right of every one whomsoever, and therefore also of the government, to pose as a power above these different institutions and to render a decision between her and her sisterchurches. The government bears the sword which wounds; not the sword of the Spirit, which decides in spiritual questions. And for this reason the Calvinists have ever resisted the idea to assign to the government a pal rut pofeslas. To be sure a father regulates in his family the religion of that family. But when the government was organized, the family was not set aside, but it remained, and the government received only a limited task, which is defined by the sovereignty in the individual sphere and not least of all by the sovereignty of Christ in His Church. Only let us guard here against exaggerated Puritism and let us not refuse, in Europe at least, to reckon with the effects of historical conditions. It is an entirely different matter whether one puts up a new building, on a free lot, or whether one must restore a house, which is standing.

But this can in no regard break the fundamental rule that the government must honor the complex of Christian churches, as the multiform manifestation of the Church of Christ on earth. • That it has to respect the liberty i. e. the sovereignty of the Church of Christ in the individual sphere of these churches. That those churches flourish most richly, when the government allows them to live from their own strength on the voluntary principle. And that therefore neither the Caesaropapy of the Czar of Russia; nor the subjection of the State to the Church, taught by Rome; nor the "Cuius regio eius religio" of the Lutheran jurists; nor the irreligious neutral standpoint of the French revolution; but that only the system of a free Church, in a free State, may be honored from a Calvinistic standpoint.

A standpoint, which demands two things; in the first place — that the government shall give ear to the churches as the interested parties, in everything pertaining to religion; and in the second place — that the government, in her civic sphere, shall keep her own way and shall not tolerate that a religious fraction, — say in the matter of monogamy or in any other point of civil law. — should antagonize the statute of the State.

The sovereignty of the State and the sovereignty of the Church exist side by side and they mutually limit each other.

Of an entirely different nature, on the contrary, is the last question, to which I referred, namely the duty of the government, as regards the sovereignty of tin- individual person.

In the second part of this lecture I have already indicated that the developed man also possesses an individual sphere of life, with sovereignty in his own circle.

Here I do not refer to the family, for this is a social bond between several individuals. I have reference to that, which is thus expressed by Prof. Weitbrecht: „Ist doch vennoge seines gewissens jeder ein Konig, ein Souverain, der fiber jede Verautwortung erhaben is." *) ("Every man stands a king in his conscience, a sovereign in his own person, exempt from all responsibility.") Or that, which Held has formulated in this way:,,In gewisser Beziehung wird jeder Mensch supremus oder Souverain sein, denn jeder Mensch muss erne Sphiire haben, und hat sie audi wirklich, in welcher er der Oberste ist." f) (In some respect every man is a sovereign, for everybody must have and has, a sphere of life of his own, in which he has no one above him, but God alone.) I do not point to this to overestimate the importance of conscience, for whosoever wishes to liberate conscience, where God and His Word are concerned, I meet as an opponent not as an ally. This however does not prevent my maintaining the sovereignty of conscience, as the palladium of all personal liberty, in this sense — that conscience is never subject to man but always and ever to God Almighty.

This need of the personal liberty of conscience however, does not immediately assert itself. It does not express itself with emphasis in the child, but only in the mature man; and in the same way it mostly slumbers among undeveloped peoples and is irresistible only among highly developed nations. A man of ripe and rich development will rather become a voluntary exile, will rather suffer imprisonment, nay even sacrifice life itself, than tolerate constraint in the forum of his conscience. And the deeply rooted repugnance against the Inquisition, which for three long centuries would not be assuaged, grew up from the conviction that its practices violated and assaulted human life in man. This imposes on the government a twofold obligation. In the first place that it must cause this liberty of conscience to be respected by the Church; and in the second place that it must give way itself to the sovereign conscience.

As regards the first, the sovereignty of the Church finds its natural limitation in the sovereignty of the free personality. Sovereign within her own domain, she has no power over those who live outside of that sphere. And wherever, in violation of this principle, transgression of power may occur, the government has to respect the claims on protection of every citizen. The Church may not be forced to tolerate as a member one whom she feels obliged to expel from her circle; but on the other hand no citizen of the State must be compelled to remain in a church which his conscience forces him to leave.

Meantime what the government in this respect demands of the churches, it must practise itself, by allowing to each and every citizen liberty of conscience, as the primordial and inalienable right of all men.

It has cost an heroic struggle to wrest this greatest of all human liberties from the grasp of despotism, and streams of human blood have been poured out before the object was attained. But for this very reason every son of the Reformation tramples upon the honor of the fathers, who does not assiduously and without retrenching, defend this palladium of our liberties. In order that it may be able to rule men, the government must respect this deepest ethical power of our human existence. A nation, consisting of citizens whose consciences are bruised, is itself broken in its national strength.

And even if I am forced to admit that our fathers, in theory, had not the courage of the conclusions which follow from this liberty of conscience, for the liberty of speech and the liberty of worship; even if I am well aware that the}' made a desperate effort to hinder the spread of literature which they disliked, by censure and refusal of publication;— all this does not set aside the fact that the free expression of thought, by the spoken and printed word, has first achieved its victory in the Calvinistic Netherlands. Whosoever was elsewhere straightened could first enjoy the liberty of ideas and the liberty of the press, on Calvinistic ground. And thus the logical development of what was enshrined in the liberty of conscience, as well as that liberty itself, first blessed the world from the side of Calvinism.

For it is true that, in Roman lands, spiritual and political despotism have been finally vanquished by the French Revolution, and that in so far we have gratefully to acknowledge that this revolution also began by promoting the cause of liberty. But whosoever learns from history that the guillotine, all over France, for years and years could not rest from the execution of those who were of a different mind; whosoever remembers how cruelly and wantonly the Roman Catholic clergy were murdered, because they refused to violate their conscience by an unholy oath; or whosoever, like myself, by a sad experience, knows the spiritual tyranny, which liberalism and conservatism on the European Continent has applied, and is still applying, to those who have chosen different paths,— is forced to appreciate that liberty in Calvinism and liberty in the French Revolution are two different things.

In the French revolution a liberty of conscience, which emancipates men from God; in Calvinism a liberty of conscience, which enables every man to serve God, according to dictates of his own heart.

In my fourth lecture allow me to draw your attention to the nexus between Calvinism and Science. Not, of course in order to exhaust in one lecture such a weighty subject. Four points of it only I submit to your thoughtful consideration; first, that Calvinism fostered and could not but foster love for science; secondly, that it restored to science its domain: thirdly, that it delivered science from unnatural bonds; and fourthly in what manner it sought and found a solution for the unavoidable scientific conflict.

First of all then: There is found hidden in Calvinism an impulse, an inclination, an incentive, to scientific investigation. It is a fact, that science has been fostered by it, and its principle demands the scientific spirit. One glorious page from the history of Calvinism may suffice to prove the fact, before we enter more fully upon the discussion of the incentive to scientific investigation found in Calvinism as such. The page from the history of Calvinism, or let us rather say of mankind, matchless in its beauty, to which I refer, is the raising of the siege of Leyden, more than three hundred years ago, which event is yet celebrated annually on the third of October: the city was invested at that time, and threatened with massacre and plundered by the Spanish veteran troops under Don Louis de Requezens. In 1573 the future of Europe hinged upon the question, — whether Spain or the Netherlands would be victorious, and the doom of the latter country certainly would have been sealed, if, after Harlem, Leyden also had fallen into the hands of the Spaniard. The siege of Leyden was in fact a struggle between Alva and Prince William about the future course of the history of the world; and the result of the raising of the siege of Leyden was, that in the end Alva had to withdraw, and that William the Silent was enabled to unfurl the banner of libert}r over Europe. Leyden entered the lists against the best troops of what was looked upon at that time as the finest ariny of the world, with hardly any regular soldiers within its bulwarks; defended almost exclusively by its own citizens. As early as October 1573 the siege of the hard pressed fortress was begun, but in March '74 it was temporarily broken up, in order that the Spaniards might meet in deadly conflict the troops of the Prince of Orange on the Mookerheide, which battle resulted in a complete rout of the Dutch and the death of two brothers of the Prince. Soon however, the Spaniards, elate with their victory, returned to the walls of Le}*den, pressing, for nearly six months, in their iron grasp the almost defenceless city, scantily supplied as it was with regulars and victuals. Three months after the commencement of thesiege, the supply of bread became exhausted. A fearful famine began to rage. The apparently doomed citizens managed to live on dogs and rats; and this black famine was soon followed by the black death or the plague, which carried off a third part of the inhabitants. The Spaniard offered peace and pardon to the dying people, but Leyden, remembering the bad faith of the enemy in the treatment of Narden and Harlem, answered boldly and with pride: If it is necessary, we are ready to consume our left arm, and to defend with our right arm our wives, our liberty and our religion against thee, o tyrant. And even if it were our destiny, to perish, we will rather with oar own hand set fire to the city and perish in the flames with our wives and children, than be crushed by thy treachery and violence. Thus they persevered. They patiently waited for the coming of the Prince of Orauge, to raise the siege, and the prince waited for God. The dikes of the province of Holland had been cut through; the country surrounding Leyden was flooded, and a fleet lay ready to hasten to Leyden's aid, but the wind drove the water back, preventing the fleet from passing the shallow pools. God tried his people sorely. At last however, on the first of October, the wind turned towards the West, and, forcing the waters upward, enabled the fleet to reach the City. Then the Spaniards tied in haste to escape the rising tide. On the 3rd of October the fleet entered the port of Leyden, and, the siege being raised, Holland was saved. The population, all but starved to death, could scarcely drag themselves along, yet all to a man, limped as well as they could to the house of prayer. All fell on their knees and gave thanks to God. But when they tried to utter their gratitude in psalms of praise, they were almost voiceless, for there was no strength left in them, and the tones of their song died awa^y in grateful sobbing and weeping.

Behold what I called a glorious page in the history of liberty, written in blood, and if you now ask me, what has this to do with science, see here the answer: In recognition of such patriotic courage, the States of Holland did not present Leyden with a handful of knightly orders, or gold, or honor, but with a School of the Sciences, — the XJniversit}' of Leyden, renowned through the whole world. The German is surpassed by none in pride of his scientific glory, and yet no less a man than Niebuhr, has testified, "that the Senate chamber of Le3rden's University is the most memorable hall of science." The ablest scholars were induced to fill the amply endowed chairs. Scaliger was conveyed from France in a man-of-war. Salmasius came to Leyden under convoy of a whole squadron. Why should I sive vou the long list of names of the princes of science, of the giants in learning, who have filled Leyden with the lustre of their renown, or tell you how this love for science, going forth from Leyden, permeated the whole nation? You know the Lipsius, the Hemsterhuis, the Boerhaves. Yrou know that in Holland were invented the telescope, the microscope and the thermometer; and thus empirical science, worthy of its name, was made possible. It is an undeniable fact, that the Calvinists in the Netherlands had love for science and fostered it. But the most evident, the most convincing proof is doubtless found in the establishment of Leydens University. To receive as the highest reward a University of the Sciences in a moment, when, in a fearful struggle, the course of the history of the world was turned by such heroism is only conceivable among a people, in whose very life-principle love for science is involved.

And now I approach the principle itself. For it is not enough to be acquainted with the fact, I must also show you why it is that Calvinism cannot but foster love for science. And do not think it strange, when I point to the Calvinistic dogma of predestination as the strongest motive in those clays for the cultivation of science in a higher sense. But in order to prevent a possible misunderstanding let me first explain what the term "science" means.

I speak of human science as a whole, not of what is called among you "sciences", or as the French express it "sciences exactes". Especially do I deny, that mere empiricism in itself ever is perfect science. Even the minutest microscopic, the farthest reaching telescopic investigation is nothing hut perception with strengthened eyes; this is transformed into science, when you discover in the specific phenomena, perceived by empiricism, the universal law, and thereby reach the thought, which governs the whole constellation of phenomena. In this wise the special sciences originate; but even in them the human mind cannot acquiesce. The subject-matter of the several sciences must be grouped under one head and brought under the sway of one principle by means of theory or hypothesis, and finally philosophy, as the queen of sciences, conies forth from her tent to weave all the different results into one organic whole. It is true, I know, that Dubois Raymond's winged word lgnorabimm has been used by many, to make it seem impossible that our thirst for science in the highest sense will ever be quenched, and that Agnosticism, drawing a curtain across the background and over the abysses of life, is satisfied with a study of the phenomena of the several sciences; but some time ago already, the human mind began to revenge itself on this spiritual vandalism. The question about the origin, interconnection and destiny of everything that exists, cannot be suppressed; and the veni, rid/, vici, wherewith the theory of evolution with full speed, occupied the ground in all the circles, inimical to the Word of God, and especially among our naturalists, is a convincing proof, how much we need unity of view.

How, now, can we prove that love for science in that higher sense, which aims at unity in our cognizance of the entire cosmos, is effectually secured by means of our Calvinistic belief in God's fore-ordination? If you want to understand this you have to go back from predestination to God's decree. This is not a matter of choice; on the contrary, it must be done. Belief in predestination is nothing but the penetration of God's decree into our own personal life; or, if you prefer it, the personal heroism to apply the sovereignty of God's decreeing will to our own existence. It means that we are not satisfied with a mere profession of words, but that we are willing to stand by our confession, in regard both to this life and the life to come. It is a proof of honesty, unmovable firmness and solidity in our expressions concerning the unity of God's Will, and the certainty of his operations. It is a deed of high courage, because it brings you under the suspicion of high-niindedness. But if you now proceed to the decree of God, what else does this dogma mean, than the certainty that the existence and course of all things, i. e. of the entire cosmos, instead of being a plaything of caprice and chance, obeys law and order, and that there exists a firm will which carries out its designs both in nature and in history. Now do you not agree with me, that this forces upon our mind the indissoluble conception of one allcomprehensive unity; and the acceptance of one principle by which everything is governed. It forces upon us the recognition of something that is general, hidden and yet expressed in that which is special. Yea, it forces upon us the confession, that there must be stability and regularity ruling over everything. Thus you recognize that the cosmos, instead of being a heap of stones, loosely thrown togethei*, on the contrary presents to our mind a monumental building erected in a severely consistent style. Do you abandon this point of view, then it is uncertain at any moment, what is to happen, which course things may take, what every morning and evening may have in store for you, your family, your country, the world at large. Man's capricious will is then the principal concern. Every man may then choose and act every moment in a certain way, but it is also possible that he may do just the reverse. If this were so, you could count upon nothing. There is no interconnection, no development, no continuity; a chronicle, but no history. And now tell me, what becomes of science under such conditions 1 You may yet speak of the study of nature, but the study of human life has been made ambiguous and uncertain. Nothing but bare facts may then be historically ascertained, interconnection and plan have no longer a place in history. History dies away.

I do not for a moment propose to enter just now into a discussion about man's free will. We have no time for it. But it is a fact that the more thorough development of science in our age has almost unanimously decided in favor of Calvinism with regard to the antithesis between the unity and stability of God's decree, which Calvinism professes, and the superficiality and looseness, which the Arminians preferred. The systems of the great philosophers are, almost to one, in favor of unity and stability. Buckle's History of the civilization of England has succeeded in proving the firm order of things in human life with astonishing, almost mathematical demonstrative force. Lombroso, and following him the entire school of determinists among the criminalists, place themselves on record in this respect as moving on Calviuistic lines. And the latest hypothesis, that the laws of heredity and variation, which control the whole organization of nature, admit of no exception in the domain of human life, has already been accepted as "the common creed" by all evolutionists. Though I abstain at present from any criticism either of these philosophical systems or of these naturalistic hypotheses, so much at least is very clearly demonstrated by them, that the entire development of science in our age presupposes a cosmos, which does not fall a prey to the freaks of chance, but exists and develops from one principle, according to a firm order, aiming at one fixed plan. This is a claim, which is, as it clearly appears, diametrically opposed to Arminianism, and in complete harmony with Calvinistic belief, that there is one will in God, the cause of all existing things, subjecting them to his ordinances and directing them towards a preestablished plan. Calvinists have never thought that the idea of the cosmos lay in God's foreordination as an aggregate of loosely conjoined decrees, but they have always maintained, that the whole formed one organic programme of the entire creation and the entire history. We have always felt the need to speak of natural laws, with this proviso however, that they were not considered as laws, wmich nature imposes upon us, but as laws imposed upon nature by God. And as a Calvinist looks upon God's decree as the foundation and origin of the natural laws, in the same maimer also he finds in it the firm foundation and the origin of the moral and spiritual laws; both these, the natural as well as the moral laws, forming together one high order, which exists according to God's command, and wherein God's counsel will be accomplished in the consummation of His eternal, all-embracing plan.

Faith in such an unity, stability and order of things, personally, as predestination, cosmically, as the counsel of God's decree, could not but awaken as with a loud voice, and vigorously foster love for science. Without a deep conviction of this unity, this stability and this order, science is unable to go beyond mere conjectures, and only when there is faith in the organic dependence of the Universe, will there be also a possibility for science to ascend from the empirical investigation of the special phenomena to the general, and from the general to the law which rules over it, and from that law to the principle, which is dominant over all. The data, which are absolutely indispensable for all higher science, are at hand only under this supposition. Remember the fact, that in those days, when Calvinism cleared for itself a path in life, tottering semi-pelagianism had blunted this conviction of unity, stability and order, to such an extent, that even Thomas Aquinas lost a great deal of his influence, while Scotists, mystics and epicureans vied with one another in their endeavors to deprive the human mind of its steady course. And who is there who does not peixeive, what entirely new impulse to undertake scientific investigations had to grow out of the newly born Calvinism, which with one powerful grasp brought order out of chaos, putting under discipline so dangerous a spiritual licentiousness making an end to that halting between two or more opinions, and showing us instead of rising and falling mists, the picture of a powerfully rushing mountain stream, taking its course through a well regulated bed towards an ocean which waits to receive it. Calvinism has gone through many fierce struggles on account of its clinging to the counsel of God's decree. Again and again it seemed to be near the brink of destruction. Calvinism has been reviled and slandered on account of it, and when it refused to exclude even our sinful actions from God's plan, because without it the programme of the order of the world would again be rent to pieces, our opponents did not shrink from accusing us of making God the author of sin. They knew not Avhat the}' did. Through evil report and good report Calvinism has firmly maintained its place. It has not allowed itself to be deprived by scoff and scorn of the firm conviction, that our entire life must be under the sway of unity, solidity and order, established by God himself. This accounts for its need of unity of insight, firmness of knowledge, order in its world view, fostered among us, even in the wide circles of the common people, and this manifest need is the reason, that a thirst for knowledge was quickened, which in those days was nowhere satisfied in a more abundant measure than in Calvinistic countries. This explains, why it is, that in the writings of those days you meet with such a determination, such an energy of thought, such a comprehensive view of life. I even venture to say, that in the memoirs of noble women of that century, and in the correspondence of the uulettered, an unity of wto rid - and lifeview is manifest, which impressed a scientific stamp on their wdiole existence. Intimately connected with this is also the fact that they never favored the so-called primacy of the will. They demanded, in their practical life, the bridle of a clear consciousness, and in this consciousness the leadership could not be entrusted to humor or whim, to fancy or chance, but only to the majesty of the highest principle, wherein they found the explanation of their existence and to which their whole life was consecrated.

I now leave my first point, that Calvinism fostered love for science, in order to proceed to the second, that Calvinism restored to science its domain. I mean to say that cosmical science originated in the Graeco-Roman world; that in the middle ages the cosmos vanished behind the horizon to draw the attention of all to the distant sights of future life, and that it was Calvinism which, without losing sight of the spiritual, led to a rehabilitation of the cosmic sciences. If we were forced to choose between the beautiful cosmic taste of Greece with its blindness for things eternal, and the middle ages with their blindness for cosmical things, but with their mystic love for Christ, then certainly every child of God on his death-bed would tender the palm to Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas rather than to Heraclitus and Aristotle. The pilgrim, who wanders through the world without concerning himself about its preservation and destiny, presents to us a more ideal figure than the Greek worldling, who sought religion in the worship of Venus, or Bacchus, and who flattered himself in heroworship, debased his honour as a man in the veneration of prostitutes, and at last sank lower than the brutes in pederasty. Let it be quite understood therefore that 1 do not in an}r way over-rate the classical world, to the detraction of the heavenly lustre which sparkled through all the mists of the middle ages. But notwithstanding all this I assert and maintain, that the one Aristotle knew more of the cosmos than all the churchfathers, taken together; that under the dominion of Islam, better cosmic science flourished than in the cathedral- and monastic-schools of Europe; that the recovery of the writings of Aristotle was the first incentive to renewed, though rather deficient cosmic study, and that Calvinism alone, by means of its dominating principle, which constantly urges us to go back from the Cross to creation, and no less by means of its doctrine of common grace, threw open again to science the vast field of the cosmos, now illumined by the Sun of righteousness, of whom the Scriptures testify, that in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Let us pause then to consider first that general principle of Calvinism and afterwards the dogma of common grace.

All agree that the Christian religion is substantially soteriological. "What must I do to be saved?*' remains throughout all the ages the question of the anxious inquirer, to which above all else an answer must be given. This question is unintelligble for those who refuse to view time in the light of eternity, and who are accustomed to think of this earth without organic and moral connection with the life to come. But of course, wherever two elements appear, as in this case the sinner and the saint, the temporal and the eternal, the terrestrial and the heavenly life, there is always danger of losing sight of their interconnection and of falsifying both by error or onesidedness. Christendom, it must be confessed, did not escape this error. A dualistic conception of regeneration was the cause of the rupture between the life of nature and the life of grace. It has, on account of its too intense contemplation of heavenly things, neglected to give its attention to the world of God's creation. It has, on account of its exclusive love of things eternal, been backward in the fulfilment of its temporal duties. It has neglected the care of the body, because it cared too exclusively for the soul. And this one-sided, inharmonious conception in the course of time has led more than one sect to a mystic worshipping of Christ alone, to the exclusion of God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Christ was conceived exclusively as the Savior, and his cosmological significance was lost out of sight.

This dualism, however, is by no means countenanced by the Holy Scriptures. When John is describing the Saviour, he first tells us that Christ is the eternal Word by whom all things are made, and who is the life of men. Paul also testifies that all things were created by Christ and consist by him;" and further, that the object of the work of redemption is not limited to the salvation of individual sinners, but extends itself to the redemption of the world, and to the organic reunion of all things in heaven and on earth under Christ as their original head. Christ himself does not speak only of the regeneration of the heart, but also of creation as a whole. The whole creation groaneth waiting for the bursting forth of the glory of the children of God. And when John on Patmos listened to the hymns of the Cherubim and the Redeemed, ah honor, praise and thanks are given to Cod, " Who has created the heaven and the earth!' The Apocalypse returns to the startingpoint of Gen. I, 1.: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." In keeping with this, the final outcome of the future, foreshadowed in the H. Scriptures, is not the merely spiritual existence of saved souls, but the restoration of the entire cosmos, when God will lie all in all under the renewed heaven on the renewed earth. Now this wide, comprehensive, cosmical meaning of the gospel has been apprehended by Calvin, apprehended not as a result of a dialectic process, but of the deep impression of God's majesty, which had moulded his personal life.

Certainly our salvation is of substantial weight, but it cannot be compared with the much greater weight of the glory of our God, Who has revealed His majesty in His wondrous creation. This creation is his handiwork, and being marred by sin, the way was opened, it is true for a still more glorious revelation in its restoration, yet restoration is and ever will be the salvation of that wdiich was first created, the theodicy of the original handiwork of our God. The mediatorship of Christ is and ever will be the burden of the grand hymn of the tongues of men and the voices of angels, but even this mediatorship has for its final end the glory of the Father; and however grand the splendor of Christ's kingdom may be, He will at last surrender it to God and the Father. He is still our advocate with the Father, but the hour is coining, when his prayer for us will cease, because we shall know, in that clay, that the Father loves us. Thereby of course Calvinism puts an end once and for all to contempt for the world, neglect of temporal and under-valuation of cosmical things. Cosmical life has regained its worth not at the expense of things eternal, but by virtue of its capacity as God's handiwork and as a revelation of God's attributes.

Two facts may suffice to impress you with the truth of this. During the terrible plague, which once devastated Milan, Cardinal Borromeo's heroic love shone brightly in the courage he manifested in his ministrations to the dying; but during the plague, which in the 1 6th century tormented Geneva, Calvin acted better and more wisety, for he not only cared incessantly for the spiritual needs of the sick, but at the same time introduced hitherto unsurpassed hygienic measures, whereby the ravages of the plague were arrested. The second fact, to which I draw your attention, is not less remarkable. The Calvinistic preacher Peter Plancino of Amsterdam was an eloquent sermonizer, a pastor unrivalled in his consecration to his work, foremost in the ecclesiastical struggle of his days, but at the same time he was the oracle of shipowners and sea-captains on account of his extensive geographical knowledge. The investigation of the lines of longitude and latitude of the terrestrial globe formed in his estimation one whole with the investigation of the length and breadth of the love of Christ. He saw himself placed before two works of God, the one in creation, the other in Christ, and in both he adored that majesty of Almighty God, which transported his soul into ecstacy. In this light it is deserving of notice that our Belgic Confession speaks of two means, whereby we know God, viz. the Scriptures and Nature And still more remarkable it is, that Calvin, instead of simply treating Nature as an accessorial item, as so many Theologians were inclined to do, was accustomed to compare the Scriptures to a pair of spectacles, enabling us to decipher again the divine Thoughts, written by God's Hand in the book of Nature, which had become obliterated in consequence of sin. Thus vanished, every dread possibility, that he, who occupied himself with nature, were wasting his capacities in pursuit of vain and idle things. It was perceived, on the contrary that, for God's sake, our attention may not be withdrawn from the life of nature and creation; the study of the body regained its place of honor beside the study of the soul; and the social organization of mankind on earth was again looked upon as being as well worthy an object of human science as the congregation of the perfect saints in heaven. This also explains the close relation existing between Calvinism and Humanism. In as far as Humanism endeavored to substitute life in this world for the eternal, every Oalvinist opposed the Humanist. But in as much as the Humanist contented himself with a plea for a proper acknowledgment of secular life, the Calvinist was his ally.

Now I proceed to consider the dogma of common grace, that natural outcome of the general principle, just presented to you, but in its special application to sin, understood as corruption of our nature. Sin places before us a riddle, which in itself is insoluble. If you view sin as a deadly poison, as enmity against God, as leading to everlasting condemnation, and if you represent a sinner as being "wholly incapable of doing any good, and prone to all evil,'' and on this account salvable only, if God by regeneration changes his heart, then it seems as if of necessity all unbelievers and unregenerate persons ought to be wicked and repulsive men. But this is far from being our experience in actual life. On the contrary the unbelieving world excels in many things. Precious treasures have come down to us from the old heathen civilization. In Plato you find pages which you devour. Cicero fascinates you and bears you along by his noble tone and stirs up in you holy sentiments. And if you counsel your own surroundings, that which is reported to 3rou, and that which you derive from the studies aud literary productions of professed infidels, how much there is which attracts you, with which you sympathize and which you admire. It is not exclusively the spark of genius or the splendor of talent, which excites your pleasure in the words and actions of unbelievers, but it is often their beauty of character, their zeal, their devotion, their love, their candor, their faithfulness and their sense of honesty. Yea, we may not pass it over in silence, not unfrequently you entertain the desire, that certain believers might have more of this attractiveness, and who among us has not himself been put to the blush occasionally b}T being confronted with what is called the virtues of the heathen? It is thus a fact, that your dogma of total depravity by sin does not always tally with your experieuce in life. Yet, if you now run to the opposite direction and proceed from these experimental facts, you must not forget, that your entire Christian confession falls to the ground, for then you look upon human nature as good and incorrupt; the criminal villains have to be pitied as ethically-insane; regeneration is entirely superfluous in order to live honorably; and your imagination of higher grace seems to be nothing else than playing with a medicine, which often proves entirely ineffectual. True, some people save themselves from this awkward position by speaking of the virtues of unbelievers as "splendid vices", and. on the other hand, by charging the sins of believers to old Adam, yet you feel, yourselves, that this is a subterfuge, which lacks earnestness. Rome tried to find a better way of escape in the well known doctrine of the pura naturalia, Romanists