Note 6 — Chapter XIX · THE ESSENTIAL STANDPOINT OF RELIGION.

“Dum sumus in hoc corpore, peregrinamur ab eo qui summe est.”—Bernard. Epist. 18 (ed. Basle, 1552). “As long as we live, we are in the midst of death.”—Luther (Th. i. p. 331). The idea of the future life is therefore nothing else than the idea of true, perfected religion, freed from the limits and obstructions of this life,—the future life, as has been already said, nothing but the true opinion and disposition, the open heart, of religion. Here we believe—there we behold; i.e., there there is nothing besides God, and thus nothing between God and the soul; but only for this reason, that there ought to be nothing between them, because the immediate union of God and the soul is the true opinion and desire of religion. “We have as yet so to do with God as with one hidden from us, and it is not possible that in this life we should hold communion with him face to face. All creatures are now nothing else than vain masks, under which God conceals himself, and by which he deals with us.”—Luther (Th. xi. p. 70). “If thou wert only free from the images of created things, thou mightest have God without intermission.”—Tauler (l. c. p. 313). ↑