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    836 Life and Writings of Herder.

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    : Account Of Herder's Life And Writings.

    them discover in tl * e original record a tliousaa < l-fold moze thai * J W point out to him , ... . .. . .. Agreeably to these principles . Herder rejected , with great contempt , what he called the Socialist ! mode of interpreting the introductory verses of the first chapter of SL John ' s Gospe 3 9 according £ o which Xoyot ; means the gospel „ and tv & pxy refers to the commencement of the Christian

    dispensation . To these terms he ascribes a much loftier signiincation , derived from the established nomenclature of the Chaldsean philosophy ., The Infinite Being reveals himself to us under the relation of Aoyo ^ thought * Thought is the most incorporeal of all ideas—the best flitted , therefore , to express the invisible perfections of God . This Xoyog was with the Father from the beginning * and in Christ became tlhe image of his invisible wisdom . 66 Whoso has seen him , has seen the Father . He and the Father are one ,, " The whole scheme of the New Testament jests on this revelation . Without

    it , without the fundamental principle of the eternal Godhead of Jesus , every thing is obscure and incongruous . ' * * Our limits will not allow us to examine more in detail the religious views of Herder as exhibited in this work . Indeed , there is some difficulty in apprehending them , from the very vague and poetical style in which they

    are fre quently expressed * He distinctly admitted the miiacles of the New Testament , which he resolved into a direct exertion of Divine agency , operating in correspondence with an act of faitlb . He had some notion 9 not very clearly expressed s of an immediate dependence of the material on the spiritual world .

    " Every thing */ says he , " took place through the spirit : it was the constant , mnimterrupted , miracle of Jesus , to do the works of his Heavenly Father , and to destroy the works of tlie devil : had it been consistent with the Divine plans , he would at once have filled all things with bliss B and life , and healing "; bmt , as the prince of this world still ruled , he could only shed drops

    here and there from his sea of goodness upon the spots that were prepared to receive them . He gathered the firstlings of his flock to hiraself , glorified them with This own image , and left in their souls the seeds of everlasting truth ; this he calls his divine work ! the perpetual miracle , the greatest and the least understood . It is so still , and so will continue till the end of the world .

    Hie visible miracles flowed from this source alone »' t As we are speaking of Herder ' s religious opinions , we may here observe , that he appears , from his " Dialogues on Spinoza ' s S ystem , J to have inclined to the views of that philosopher , whom he considered to have been

    unjustly treated as an Atheist . He imagined that the hostility against Spinoza Iliad arisen from the misconception of his language , which be had borrowed from the Cartesian school ; that , properly understood , he would be found to exhibit the most profound and comprehensive ideas of an infinitely perfect Being , the sole cause and essence of all things ; and , that even where his doctrines , at first view , are most offensive to the common notions

    of mankind , as where he seems to deny the existence of final causes in the mind of God , he only meant to express the deepest conviction of the absolute perfection of the Divine attributes of wisdom and goodness , and to avoid any approach to that Anthropomorphism which too generally degraded all human conceptions of the Infinite Spirit . Herder was of opinion

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    836 Life And Writings Of Herder.

    836 Life and Writings of Herder .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1830, page 836, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02121830/page/36/