Göttingen, Wednesday, July 7th
1869
My Dear Father,
I see that the end of my letter to Cha: was running into matters that are really for you, so I shall write a second letter to you more about scientific and theological matters.
First as to my sermon, I have done nothing at that for some time, but mean to return to it soon.[2]
Next as to what I have been doing. I have been working mainly at the doctrine of Sin — reading Müller because there is no doubt the examiner will have dipped into him — but I must say that the book is unsatisfactory. The obscurity is due not to depth but to want of clear thinking I believe, and the whole point of view is too Lutheran to be very satisfactory to me.
Ritschl tells me he never found patience to read Müller thro and I don’t wonder at it. He always recommends the old Dogmatik and last week lent me a book of Cocceius whom he admires greatly.[3] I had a long talk with him last week upon some points in his lectures and then about Scotch affairs &c. which I enjoyed very much & wish I had an opportunity of hearing his lectures on Dogmatik. Ritschl also lent me some other books — a volume of the Jahrbücher für Theologie containing an article on the Federal Theology[4] and a largish History of Protestant Dogmatik which he recommends as very learned tho’ “not sharp enough”. The author is a Professor Gass in Giessen.[5] Ritschl was on Baptism recently and I fancy you may like to hear his view on the point.
The Sects, says Ritschl, have certain tendencies that come out most full in the Baptists. A sect is quite a different conception of course when one looks at the contrast of Sect and Church in this light one sees why the Baptists for example are Lamblifters.[6] They do not believe in Christian influence and Christian education and thus their bodies cannot grow from generation to generation like the Catholic Church. They only exist as parasites on the Church by attracting again and again individual members. A union with the Sects is of course according to Ritschl quite impossible. In many respects one may wish them well and recognise that in the present state of things they may do useful work but their principle of excluding from the Church all who cannot profess to have undergone an empirical conversion puts them in necessary antagonism to the Church. In Germany at least the Sects always speak of the Church as Babylon. Any tendency towards Union with the Sects can clearly not be on the ground of open questions but must imply either that the Sects are giving up their position or more probably the Church is growing Sectarian.
Don’t you think by the way that at a period of revival very wary walking would be necessary to guard against Sectarian views entering the Church. I fancy that the two words Revival and Awakening indicate pretty well two different views of these movements. A Revival in the Church seems to be what we should aim at; but many people I remember objected to speak of a Revival & used the word Awakening (i.e. of course) in Individuals. Of course this last name is not wrong in itself but the tendency to prefer it is, I feel pretty sure, a mark of a Sectarian from a dissenting Church & is separated from the Church on the question of the relation in which the individual stands to the Community of Christians. The Sects namely treat the Church nearly as the Sum of Saved individuals. They demand that every church member should have an empirical certainty of his saved state by being able to point definitely to his conversion at a given time.
The Church on the other hand while not denying that such an empirically given conversion is possible does not demand that a man should have such experience. For the church recognises the fact that the Church is before the individual, that it is in the Church that God’s grace works and that the development of the individual Christian takes place in the Church and is conditioned by the Church, i.e. we recognise that a child may in the Church under a Christian education grow up a child of God without being able to point to a definite conversion at a given time[7] — nay we ought to look upon this as the regular course of the work of Grace in the children of Xtn parents. Ritschl in fact holds, so far as I can see, a doctrine which I think you hold too, that where a child is faithfully brought up under Xtn influences we may feel a confidence that God will begin a work of grace in his heart even before his personal consciousness begins. (The way in which the family influence shd be brought to bear on the child he has worked out in another connection but that I pass over.)[8]
And hence, says Ritschl, follows the justification of Infant Baptism, which has not indeed the express command of Christ and cannot be dogmatically proved because of course the Baptism of an infant does not correspond to the full dogmatic idea of a Sacrament. But ethically viewed, Infant Baptism is right because it just expresses, with special reference to this child, the notion that it is in the Church that God’s grace works and that even an infant is not to be shut out from the influence of this Grace.
That it is a duty in the strictest sense to baptise one’s children Ritschl does not hold but it is in the highest sense desirable, for if the child is not baptised as an infant when is he to be baptised? That would be a question for very nice casuistry & moreover apt to encourage hypocrisy.
I hope you will let me know what you think of this view of the subject. Of course I don’t mean to say that is new; but don’t you think it puts very well and clearly a difference that we often rather feel than are able to express with sharpness.
I saw the account of Norman McLeod’s[9] interview with Gladstone in a Scotsman sent me by Reid. It was very interesting indeed. I am not surprised to hear that McLeod is trying to get out of the Hobble; he was clearly far from easy under Gladstone’s cross-questioning.[10]
I fancy it will be Rainy who has put your name on the Sustentation Committee[11]. You will need in decency to attend occasionally and that is to my mind the great advantage of the arrangement. I don’t see why you shouldn’t do so, things are not so perfectly managed but that you might give many useful hints.
I have been following the Irish Church debates;[12] but hope that the House of Commons may pitch the Lord’s [sic] amendment overboard. The Times seems to be coming round to concurrent endowment however and it is rather a good weathercock.
The other interesting thing to me is the French Atlantic cable.[13] I suppose danger will be nearly over by this time.[14]
Thursday
I don’t think I have any special item to add today save only that I am quite well. We have had two very sultry & close days and do not reckon with perfect confidence on our run to the Harz tomorrow — of course without a clear sky one would get no good of the Brocken[15] , and the present heat is of a misty & cloudy nature.
With love to all
I am
Your affectionate son,
Wm Robertson Smith
P.S. Going off to Harz this (Thursday) evg so as to sleep quite close & get our walking in the morning.[16]
[1] CUL ADD 7449 C118 MS
[2] The preparation and presentation of a sermon was part of the final year assignments at New College.
[3] The brief article “Cocceius” in EB(9) vol. vi, though unattributed, is virtually certain to have been written by WRS in 1876 or 1877. Cocceius (Johannes Koch, 1603–1669) became professor of Hebrew at Bremen in 1629, then professor of theology successively at Franecker and Leyden. WRS describes him as “a profound Oriental scholar [whose] chief services were rendered in the department of Hebrew philology and exegesis”.
[4] Federal theology: the concept, originated by Cocceius, of a dual covenant between God and Man, the one of Works; the other of Grace.
[5] Gaß, Wilhelm (1813–1889): theologian and professor of systematic theology at Geissen and Heidelberg (succeeding R. Rothe); author of Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik (3 vols., 1854–67) and representative of a moderate liberalism.
[6] Lit. sheep rustlers. The whole presentation by Smith of Ritschl’s views on “Sects” is indicative of the Free Church’s sensitivity to being labelled a sect rather than as a church in its own right. Cf. B&C pp.112f. for Black’s account of this issue.
[7] Cf. the account given in the “Memorandum” on his son written by WPS ca. 1883 (CUL ADD 7476 M3): “Before he was twelve years old, he had several attacks of illness so severe that once and again his life was despaired of, but also in the course of these years we had the consolation of learning that a work of grace was wrought upon him … That the change wrought upon him was real, we had many satisfactory evidences — not the less satisfactory that there was no parade of piety, no sanctimoniousness, but a cheerful performance of daily duty, truthfulness in word and deed, and a conscientiousness which we could not help thinking was sometimes almost morbid”.
[8] WRS held to the Ritschlian view strongly: cf. his 1875 lecture, “The Place of Theology in the Work and Witness of the Church” (L&E, p.320: “It is supposed that a man is saved by believing that he is saved, by gaining, through some kind of empirical experience, a conviction that he has passed from death to life … In reality [such people] are a kind of Protestant mystics … [who] form these monotonous sects, whose one spiritual weapon is the ever repeated question, ‘Have you believed?’ and whose theology consists wholly of abusive polemic and millenarian dreams”.
[9] Macleod, Dr Norman (1812–1872): the immensely popular, liberal and influential Church of Scotland minister of the Barony Church, Glasgow (from 1851) and chaplain in Scotland to Queen Victoria from 1857. His editorship of Good Words from 1860 further increased his fame (DNB).
[10] Macleod lacked political acumen but, by virtue of being elected Moderator in 1869, headed a deputation to meet Gladstone in London to press for the abolition of Patronage. Cf. Macleod (1876, pp.303f.) where, in a passage from his Journal, he denied that the question of disestablishment was discussed, despite press speculation. Patronage in Scotland was finally abolished in 1874. See Carnegie Simpson (1909) ch. x, “Patronage and Establishment” for an admirable account of the complex issues and of Gladstone’s penetrating cross-questioning of the delegation as to their true motives.
[11] Following the Disruption in 1843, the Free Church, under Thomas Chalmers’ farsighted plans, set up a “Sustentation Fund” to provide for the ministerial stipends formerly paid for through church endowments.
[12] The reference is to the lengthy parliamentary battle to disestablish the Irish Church, culminating in The Irish Church Act of 1869. Gladstone, however, finally rejected the idea of concurrent endowment, whereby all three main Churches, Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian, would have received state funding. This was a concept certain to be attractive to the Free Church in Scotland.
[13] The telegraph cable being established by France in rivalry to that first laid by Britain in 1858 but greatly improved a decade later thanks largely to Tait’s friend, Sir William Thomson.
[14] Smith’s reference to “danger” here offers no clue to its nature.
[15] At over 1300 metres, the Brocken is the highest point in the Harz range and, as the legendary Blocksberg, is the dancing-place of witches on Walpurgis Night, the eve of May Day and equivalent to the Celtic Beltane: cf. Goethe’s Faust.
[16] The postscript is scribbled sideways at the head of the letter.