ublication of the
views of a doubter was of itself a proof that he agreed, to some extent
at least, with them. This we must grant as a concession to his honesty
and common sense. And when assailed by Goetze and others for thus
attacking the faith of the church, he replied that, even if the
Fragmentists were right, Christianity was not thereby endangered.[31] He
rejected the letter, but reserved the spirit of the Scriptures. With
him, the letter is not the spirit and the Bible is not religion.
Consequently, objections against the letter, as well as against the
Bible, are not precisely objections against the spirit and religion. For
the Bible evidently contains more than belongs to religion, and it is a
mere supposition, that, in this additional matter which it contains, it
must be equally infallible. Moreover, religion existed before there was
a Bible. Christianity existed before evangelists and apostles had
written. However much, therefore, may depend upon those Scriptures, it
is not possible that the whole truth of the Christian religion should
depend upon them. Since there existed a period in which it was so far
spread, in which it had already taken hold of so many souls, and in
which, nevertheless, not one letter was written of that which has come
down to us, it must be possible also that everything which evangelists
and prophets have written might be lost again, and yet the religion
taught by them, stand. The Christian religion is not true because
Evangelists and apostles taught it; _but they taught it because it was
true_. It is from their internal truth that all written documents must
be explained, and all these written documents cannot give it internal
truth when it has none. The Christian religion is distinguished from the
religion of Christ; the latter, being a life immediately implanted and
maintained in our heart, manifests itself in love, and can neither stand
nor fall with the Gospel. The truths of religion have nothing to do with
the facts of history.

With such opinions as these, expressed in great clearness and
conciseness, who can fail to perceive that their tendency was to
overthrow the traditional faith of the church in large portions of the
Bible? Who is to be the judge of what is to be retained and what
rejected? Indeed, if Lessing be right, the entire Scripture record might
be abolished without doing violence to religion. The effect of his
writings was decidedly skeptical. His view of Christianity