It is true, there are a few Scripture passages word child or son, or some term expressive of th tion is used, where the reference is not directly Christ Jesus. Leaving out of consideration now "sons of God" in Genesis and in Job, where t such use is obvious, there are the passages where Adam is called the son of God; Malachi 2 we not all one father? Hath not one God created 11:52. “And not for that nation only, but that H gather together in one the children of God that w abroad;" Eph. 3: 15, “Of whom the whole famil and earth is named." But such cases are exceeding in not a single instance does the question turn on t of sonship. It is either the idea of origin simply, of common dependence, or the typical fatherhood o is set forth; and in this way we often, even now, us sons and children in a figurative sense. The usus the Scriptures as a whole with great consistency ma expresses the view which we have been trying to en

Man was, therefore, not created a child of God sense of the word and after the fall, through the red Christ Jesus, was adopted again and brought back t tion which he at first occupied. He was created to of God, to come into the full fruition of sonship by of moral and religious development by which he w into the life of God, and the life of God into him. means life communion, and this cannot be created, realized by a concrete life-process.

I cannot close more fitly than in the words of I "Man was to find his perfection in sharing the li Eternal Son; the Eternal Son was to reveal His own p and achieve ours by sharing the life of man. I supp the consummate union between man and the Son of G not have been possible apart from the consummat effected in the incarnation between the Son of God a Even if we had not sinned, I suppose that He would ha

The Relation of Humanity to Divinity.

449

'God gave

to us, in order that we might come to Him,. unto us eternal life and this life is in His Son. It is a gift to the world, as Christ is the propitiation for the sin of the world. But it is a free, ethical, spiritual life that is given: and such a life must be actually lived, if a man is to possess it. It cannot be passed into a man like a stream of electric force-the man himself remaining passive. No sovereign act of the divine power can effectively give it, apart from a free consent to receive it. What we call the potency of life, its germ, may be conferred by a divine act; but if the life is to be more than a potency, more than a germ, we must live it. God Himself cannot make thought actually ours, except as we ourselves think; nor penitence for sin, except as we ourselves are penitent; nor love except as we ourselves love."

II.

THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFOR

BY PHILIP SCHAFF, DD. LL.D.,

Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Seminary,

A paper prepared for the Ninth General Conference of the E ance, held in Florence, April, 1891.*

RENAISSANCE and Reformation are significant wo kindred, yet distinct movements of history: the on Middle Age, the other opens the modern Age. B simply past events, but living forces which control o tion, and have not yet finished their mission. Renais formation, Reaction, Revolution, Reconstruction, thes links in the chain of modern history.

The Renaissance was a revival of classical culture formation a revival of primitive Christianity. The f an intellectual and aesthetic movement, the latter a religious movement. The Renaissance drew its inspira the poets and philosophers of ancient Greece and R Reformation, from the Apostles and Evangelists. Th sance aimed at the development of the natural man; formation at the renewal of the spiritual man. The sance looked down upon earth, the Reformation look heaven. The Renaissance is the work of Italy, the tion is the work of Germany and Switzerland. The

*This is the full text of the original. In the absence of the Italian translation by the Rev. Giov. Luzzi, was read before the Confe published in pamphlet form under the title I Rinascimento e la Firenze, 1891 (Piazza del Duomo, 27), 29 pp. Extracts from it ap many newspapers of Europe and America. The whole proceedings Conference will shortly be published by the British Branch of the in London.

sance prepared the way for the Reformation and furnished the necessary intellectual equipment for it. Erasmus and Reuchlin, Melanchthon and Zwingli are the connecting links of the two movements. Without the Renaissance there could have been no Reformation, and the Renaissance is incomplete without a Reformation. For man is a unit, and his intellectual culture and moral character must be developed and perfected in harmony.

I. THE RENAISSANCE.

The Renaissance was born in Florence, the City of Flowers and the Flower of Cities, "the brightest star in star-bright Italy." From Florence it passed to Rome, and from Rome it spread all over Italy and beyond the Alps. Cosimo de Medici and Lorenzo the Magnificent were the chief among the Mæcenases of literature and art. Pope Nicholas V. and several of his successors, down to Leo X. followed their example. Florence gave birth to a brilliant galaxy of poets, statesmen, historians, scientists, architects, sculptors and painters, and yields to no city in the world, except Rome, in wealth of historic reminiscences and treasures of art.

The Renaissance began with Dante, the greatest son of Florence and the greatest Italian poet. His power extends over the civilized world and is growing with the advancing years. A poor exile, he could not eat his own bread, nor ascend or descend his own stairs, but how large is the number of those whom he has fed and taught to descend the steps of his Inferno and to ascend the mountain of his Purgatorio! His Divina Commedia, conceived in 1300-a year noted for the first papal jubilee is a mirror of the moral universe viewed from the standpoint of eternity, a cathedral of immortal spirits, a glorification of the Christian religion and a judgment on the corruptions of the secularized Church and papacy of his age. It is at once autobiographical, national and cosmopolitan, a song of the Middle Ages, and of all ages, a spiritual biography of man as a lost sinner, a helpful penitent, and a glorified saint.

It is a pilgrimage of the soul from the dark for tion, through the depths of despair, up the terr: cation, to the realms of bliss. The pilgrimage under the guilance of natural reason (Virgil), an elation (Beatrice). Dante was and still is a prop tyranny and injustice, avarice and pride in high a of Church and State, without fear or favor, and the eternal issues of man's actions. He stands o tion between the middle ages and modern times. monopoly of the clergy for learning, and of the La as the organ of scholarship. He proved that a laym philosopher and theologian, as well as a statesma and that the lingua toscana may give expression to thoughts and emotions, as well as the language of Cicero. He proved that one may be a good Catholi and yet call for a thorough Reformation. If he h the fifteenth century he would have sympathized w arola; in the sixteenth he would have gone half-way ther and Calvin; in the nineteenth he would advocat of Italy and the separation of religion and politics, and State, on the basis of equal freedom and indepe both in their different spheres. Such is the power an of his

"sacred poem

To which both heaven and earth have set their hands Petrarca and Boccaccio are far below Dante for genius and extent of influence, but they share with honor of being the fathers of Italian literature and the p of liberal learning. Petrarca, "the poet of love," was enthusiast for classical literature, and the pioneer of hu in the technical sense of the term. He spared no pa money for the recovery of old manuscripts from the dust vents. He was the first collector of private libraries of cal authors, and he studied these as a means for intellect æsthetical culture. Cicero and St. Augustin were his saints.

His friend Boccaccio followed his example in the sear