Progress and
Retrogression are out of the question."

Neander's motto, "Pectus est, quod theologum facit," unfolds his whole
theological system and life-career. The Germans call his creed
"Pectoralism," in view of the inner basis of his faith. With him,
religion amounts to nothing without Christ. Nor must Christ be the mere
subject of study; the soul and its manifold affections must embrace him.
The barrenness of Judaism is done away in him, and the emptiness of
Rationalistic criticism is successfully met by the fullness found in
Christianity. Sin is not merely hurtful and prejudicial, but it induces
guilt and danger. It can be pardoned only through the death and
mediation of Christ. The illustrations of devout service to be found in
the history of the church should serve as examples for succeeding times.
Neander spent much of the careful labor of his life in portraying
prominent characters; for it was his opinion that individuals sometimes
combine the features of their times, the virtues or the vices prevalent;
and that if these individualities be clearly defined the church is
furnished with valuable lessons for centuries. The work published when
but twenty-two years of age, _Julian the Apostate_, was the beginning of
a series of similar monographs designed to show the importance of the
individual in history, and to point out great crises in the religious
life of man. He subsequently produced works entitled _St. Bernard_,
_Gnosticism_, _St. Chrysostom_, _Tertullian_, _History of the Apostolic
Age_, _Life of Christ_, and _Memorials of Christian Life_. To these may
be added a few practical commentaries, essays, and a _History of
Doctrines_.

But the great achievement of Neander was his _General History of the
Christian Religion and Church_, embracing the period from the close of
the apostolic age to the Council of Basle in 1430. Christianity is, in
his conception, not simply a growth or development of man; it is a new
power, a creation of God, a divine gift to the world. Therefore the
history of the Church of Christ is the clear exhibition of the divine
strength of Christianity; it is a school of Christian experience, a
voice of warning and instruction for all who will hear it as it echoes
down through the grand march of centuries.[60] The history of the
church, far from being the scholar's theme alone, furnishes nutritious
food for the practical life of all the disciples of the Lord. If its
history be permitted to exe