Note 18 — Chapter XXVI · THE CONTRADICTION OF FAITH AND LOVE.

Thus if faith does not contradict Christianity, neither do those dispositions which result from faith, neither do the actions which result from those dispositions. Faith condemns, anathematises; all the actions, all the dispositions, which contradict love, humanity, reason, accord with faith. All the horrors of Christian religious history, which our believers aver not to be due to Christianity, have truly arisen out of Christianity, because they have arisen out of faith. This repudiation of them is indeed a necessary consequence of faith; for faith claims for itself only what is good, everything bad it casts on the shoulders of unbelief, or of misbelief, or of men in general. But this very denial of faith that it is itself to blame for the evil in Christianity, is a striking proof that it is really the originator of that evil, because it is a proof of the narrowness, partiality, and intolerance which render it well-disposed only to itself, to its own adherents, but ill-disposed, unjust towards others. According to faith, the good which Christians do, is not done by the man, but by the Christian, by faith; but the evil which Christians do, is not done by the Christian, but by the man. The evil which faith has wrought in Christendom thus corresponds to the nature of faith,—of faith as it is described in the oldest and most sacred records of Christianity, of the Bible. “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed,”18 ἀνάθεμα ἔστω, Gal. i. 9. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,” 2 Cor. iv. 14–17. “When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe,” 2 Thess. i. 7–10. “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” Heb. xi. 6. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life,” John iii. 16. “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is the spirit of antichrist,” 1 John iv. 2, 3. “Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son,” 1 John ii. 22. “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed, is partaker of his evil deeds,” 2 John ix. 11. Thus speaks the apostle of love. But the love which he celebrates is only the brotherly love of Christians. “God is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe,” 1 Tim. iv. 10. A fatal “specially!” “Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith,” Gal. vi. 10. An equally pregnant “especially!” “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself,”19 Titus iii. 10, 11. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him,”20 John iii. 36. “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were cast into the sea,” Mark ix. 42; Matt, xviii. 6. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned,” Mark xvi. 16. The distinction between faith as it is expressed in the Bible and faith as it has exhibited itself in later times, is only the distinction between the bud and the plant. In the bud I cannot so plainly see what is obvious in the matured plant; and yet the plant lay already in the bud. But that which is obvious, sophists of course will not condescend to recognise; they confine themselves to the distinction between explicit and implicit existence,—wilfully overlooking their essential identity.