alue judgments of
religion indicate only the subjective form of religious knowledge, as
the Ritschlians understand it. Faith, however, does not invent its own
contents. Historical facts, composing the revelation, actually exist,
quite independent of the use which the believer makes of them. No group
of thinkers have more truly sought to draw near to the person of the
historic Jesus. The historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, is the divine
revelation. That sums up this aspect of the Ritschlian position. Some
negative consequences of this position we have already noted. Let us
turn to its positive significance.

Herrmann is the one of the Ritschlians who has dealt with this matter
not only with great clearness, but also with deep Christian feeling in
his _Verkehr des Christen mit Gott_, 1886, and notably in his address,
_Der Begriff der Offenbarung_, 1887. If the motive of religion were an
intellectual curiosity, a verbal communication would suffice. As it is a
practical necessity, this must be met by actual impulse in life. That
passing out of the unhappiness of sin, into the peace and larger life
which is salvation, does indeed imply the movement of God's spirit on
our hearts, in conversion and thereafter. This is essentially mediated
to us through the Scriptures, especially through those of the New
Testament, because the New Testament contains the record of the
personality of Jesus. In that our personality is filled with the spirit
which breathes in him, our salvation is achieved. The image of Jesus
which we receive acts upon us as something indubitably real. It
vindicates itself as real, in that it takes hold upon our manhood. Of
course, this assumes that the Church has been right in accepting the
Gospels as historical. Herrmann candidly faces this question. Not every
word or deed, he says, which is recorded concerning Jesus, belongs to
this central and dynamic revelation of which we speak. We do not help
men to see Jesus in a saving way if, on the strength of accounts in the
New Testament, we insist concerning Jesus that he was born of a virgin,
that he raised the dead, that he himself rose from the dead. We should
not put these things before men with the declaration that they must
assent to them. We must not try to persuade ourselves that that which
acted upon the disciples as indubitably real must of necessity act
similarly upon us. We are to allow ourselves to be seized and uplifted
by that which, in our position,