401 religious encyclopedia nationalism

REFORMED LEAGUE FOR GERMANY (RE­FORMIERTER BLIND FLIER DEUTSCHLAND): An association, inspired in part by the Alliance of the Reformed Churches (q.v.), founded in Aug.,

488

1884, at Marburg on the occasion of a meeting of Reformed pastors and elders to celebrate the four­hundredth anniversary of Zwingli's birth. Mar­burg was chosen as the place because the Zurich Reformer had bin there at the celebrated colloquy of 1529 to endeavor to secure harmony with Luther in regard to eucharistic doctrine. The meeting of 1884 accordingly stood for the irenic principles of Zwingli, who had declared that he would rather be at one with Luther than with any one else, and, as a result, a program was drawn up to bring together the scattered members of the Reformed Church throughout Germany. The union was to be vol­untary in character, and was in no way intended to interfere with territorial divisions or with the vary­ing legal status of the Reformed Church bodies. It was made plain in the resolutions passed by the meeting that the league was not directed against the Lutheran Church nor against the union, where it existed, of both the Protestant communions, the intention being simply to strengthen the internal life of the two churches and to render each other all possible assistance, with express declaration of the equality of both communions and avoidance of all interference in internal administration. Provi­sion was also made for the financial support of needy congregations and for the organization of foundations to conserve Reformed principles. The movement has proved successful; its membership has increased each year; and it now extends over nearly the entire German Empire. Conventions are held biennially, while in the intervening year the moderator presides over less formal meetings in various Reformed communities. So far as the finances of the Reformierter Bund permit, institu­tions for clerical education have been founded, and a number of religious journals, especially weeklies, have been established. (F. H. BRANDEa.)

Bisuoaawrav: The " Proceedings " of the conventions have appeared in the ReJormierte Kirchenzeitung and in special issues at Elberfeld, while reports by G. D. Mathews have been given in the Quarterly Register of the Presbyte. clan Alliance.

REFORMED PRESBYTERIANS. For the vari­ous bodies bearing this name see PRESBYTERIANS, L, 5, IIL, 2, VIII., 5, 7, 11. Also see SCOTLAND.

REFORMED SYNOD OF THE SOUTH, AS­SOCIATE. See PRESBYTERIANS, VIII., 5.
REGALE (vat., "royal prerogative "): The alleged

right of the State to share in the administration of

the Church, especially to enjoy the incomes of a

diocese during a vacancy of the see and to appoint

to all benefices falling vacant in the bishopric dur­

ing this period, except to such as involve the cure

i of souls. The earliest allusions to the claim in Ger­

many date from the reigns of Henry V. (d. 1125)

and Conrad III. (d. 1152), and in 1166 Barbarossa

expressly set forth his claims to regalia both of

revenues and of service in regard to

In Germany. the archdiocese of Cologne, basing his

demand on custom as well as on ancient

imperial and royal law. It is evident, moreover, that,

at least toward the end of his reign, this emperor ex­

tended the term of the regalia to a year and a day

after the enthronement of a new diocesan. The

439

RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA geese (Hungarian) Church

Curia, on the other hand, sought to do away with the regalia and to make the incomes in question its own, the result being the system, which still in part exists, of annates (see TAxATION, ECCLEBIAsTICAL). It was not, however, until the pontificate of Inno­cent III. that the German monarchs surrendered their claims to the regalia, Philip of Swabia , in 1203, being the first to do so. His example was fol­lowed not only by his rival, Otto IV. (1209), but also by Frederick II. (1213, 1219), the latter em­phasizing his renunciation by the Wiirzburg privi­lege of 1216. Nevertheless, practise and profession did not harmonize, probably because the surrender of the regalia was construed to apply to the annates only. Accordingly, in 1238 a decision of a court of Frederick II. explicitly affirmed the imperial right to all incomes of a vacant see until the election of a new bishop, and similar prerogatives were implied by the sixth canon of the second council of Lyons (1274). It is clear that the regalia extended even to the smaller churches, and it is equally certain that the ultimate source of the system was the in­stitution of patronage (q.v.), for the patron who received certain fees and service from the incum­bent would naturally lay claim to the entire rev­enue during a vacancy. The custom had been in vogue long before it received the name of regalia in the twelfth century. Then, when the old principle of church control based on property rights had de­cayed, the claim of regalia was evolved from the earlier system as one of a number of usufructs, and it received its name as including all secular posses­sions and prerogatives granted as royal fiefs to bishoprics and abbeys after the concordat of Worms in 1122. The regalia no longer applied to the more humble churches, as had originally been the case, but to the imperial churches, probably because of their feudal relations since the rise of the house of Hohenstaufen. The name, but not the right in­volved, was later transferred to non royal churches. The theory of regalia, like the closely related con­cepts of the right of spoils (see SPOILS, RIGHT OF) and Investiture (q.v.), proceeded from the idea that the diocese, abbey, or parish was the property of the patron, i.e., the temporal lord. The regalia must have been extended to the imperial churches at an early period. The initial stages may be traced in the Carolingian period, when, during the vacancy of a see, there was a double system of ecclesiastical and royal administration; and the later develop­ment of the law of regalia in France conclusively proves that similar usage regarding sees and abbeys in West Franconia had been fully evolved before the decay of the Carolingians and the rise of the Capets, probably, therefore, in the course of the tenth century.

In France the institution of regalia, with its ex­tension to a year after the enthronement of a new bishop, is mentioned by Bernard of

In France Clairvaux in 1143 and by Louis VII.

and in 1147. Subsequent allusions are fre 

England. quent, although all dioceses were not

subject to the law of regalia, nor were

the regalia the exclusive prerogative of the king.

From Normandy the law of regalia was extended

to England, where it was expressly declared by

William II. in 1089, together with the right of spoils. This date serves to confirm the theory that, the law of regalia was evolved during the period of private ownership of churches, and that it was not called into being by the termination of the investi­ture controversy or the recognition of the regalia as a fief. It long existed in England, with tempo­rary limitations and abrogations, as is shown, for example, by the twelfth chapter of the Constitu­tions of Clarendon (1164). In France, until the union of the great fiefs with the crown, the right of regalia was possessed by the dukes of Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, and others, as well as by the counts of Champagne, and, for a time, of Anjou. The entire situation during the rule of the Capets seems to indicate that it was inherited from the Carolingians. On the other hand, the ecclesias­tical provinces of Bordeaux, Auch, Narbonne, Arles, Aux, Embrun, and Vienne were exempt. The right of regalia. in France was administered by royal stewards and normally was restricted to the tem­poral emoluments of the see, while the rights of the deceased bishop's legatees were scrupulously rec­ognized. At the same time the French kings held strenuously to the spiritual regalia, i.e., the appoint­ment, during the vacancy of a see, to any benefice not involving pastoral care. This phase of the re­galia is traceable to the feudal relation between the bishop and his clergy beginning with the ninth cen­tury; and it likewise gave the king the opportunity to put into office clergy devoted to his interests, and ultimately, through canons of this type, to in­fluence episcopal elections. All this, however, gave rise to grave disputes, tried at first in the king's court, and after the thirteenth century before the parliament of Paris. The spiritual regalia, more­over, brought the kings of France into conflict with the papal claims to the general right of making ecclesiastical appointments. Boniface VIII. (q.v.), by his bull Auaculta ills (Dec. 5, 1301), vainly en­deavored to compel Philip the Fair to modify his claims of regalia, and in 1375 Gregory XI. unre­servedly admitted the royal rights of regalia.

The law of regalia received marked extension and intensification in France in the sixteenth cen­tury, when the power of the monarchy became ab­solute. The regalia, now construed by the jurists of the parliament of Paris to mean " royal laws " instead of " royal prerogatives," were made to in­clude the entire kingdom. The clergy protested, but though, by his edict of Dec., 1606, Henry IV. restored the regalia to their traditional limits, the parliament refused compliance. A similar ordi­nance by Louis XIII., in 1629, was equally ineffec­tual, and finally the edict of Louis XIV., dated Feb. 10, 1673, bound the clergy to submit to the univer­sal extension of the law. In two breves (Sept. 21, 1678, and Dec. 27, 1679) Innocent XI. required the French king to abrogate his edict, but the clergy of France, including such Jansenists as Antoine Arnauld (q.v.), and moved by a variety of motives, not the least of which was Gallicanism, were on the royal side, their attitude being voiced by the famous " General Assembly of the Clergy of France " at Paris in 1681 82 (see GALLICANISM, § 2). In an edict of Jan., 1682, the king repeated his claims on

Resaleenerattan THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG "0

the regalia with due consideration for the require­ments of canon law, but Innocent XI. (breve of Apr. 2, 1682) and Alexander VIII. (constitution Inter multiplicee, Jan. 31, 1691) both condemned the measures adopted by the General Assembly, and on Sept. 14, 1693, the king and his clergy formally surrendered to Innocent XII., the decree of Mar. 22, 1682, being formally revoked. Nevertheless, there was little practical alteration in the royal atti­tude toward the regalia, and the laws in question were actually abrogated only by the confiscation of the property of the Church at the French Revolu­tion. The regalia were, however, revived for a brief time by Napoleon in his decree of Nov. 6, 1813 (arts. 33 34, 45), and from 1880 until the separa­tion of Church and State in France, which went into effect Jan. 1, 1906, the Third Republic again applied the law with increased exactions.

(ULRICH STUTZ.)

BIBLIOQRAP87: Documents are quoted in Reich, Docu­ments, pp. 303 307, 379 sqq., and in Thatcher and McNeal. Documents, nos. 83, 103. On the general subject and for Germany consult: E. Friedberg, De finium inter occiesiam et civitatem repundorum judicio, pp. 220 sqq., Leipeic, 1861; J. Berchtold, Die Entwicklung der Landeshoheit, pp. 65 sqq., 128 eqq., Munich, 1863; P. Scheffer Boiehoxst, Kaisers Friedrichs 1. letzter Streit mit der Kurio, pp. 189 sqq., Berlin, 1866; G. Waits, Deutsche Verfassunpape­schichte, vol. viii., Kiel, 1877; C. Frey, Die Schickoale des koniplichen Gutes in Deutschland unter den letzten Staujen, pp. 241 sqq., Berlin, 1881; C. W. Nitaseh, Geschichde des deutschen Volkes, ii. 255 259, 3 vols., Altenburg, 1883­1885; H. Geffcken, Die %mre and das niedere deutsche %irchengut unter Kaiser Friedrich 11. (1810 bis 1,260), pp. 120 sqq., Jena, 1890; G. Blondel, Ltude our la politique de l'empereur Frddiric 11. en Allemapne, pp. 243 eqq.. Paris, 1892; H. Krabbo, Die Besetzunp der deutachen Bia­ttimer unter der Repiensag Raiser Friedrichs II., Berlin, 1901; and the works on the German law by E. Friedberg, Leipsic, 1903, and R. Schr6der, ib. 1902.

For France consult: C. Grin, Recherches historiques our 1'assemblle du clergi de 168,2, Paris, 1869; idem, Louis XIV. et Is saint si4pe, 2 vols., ib. 1894; J. T. Loyson, L'AssemblMe du clerph de 1688, Paris, 1870; G. Phillips, Das Repalienrecht in Frankreich, Halle, 1873; E. Michaud, Louis XIV. et Innocent XI., 4 vols., Paris, 1883; F. H. Reusoh, Der Index der verbotenen B4cher, ii. 560 sqq., Bonn, 1885; A. Luehaire, Histoire des institutions monarchiques do la France aous les premiers Capitiens, ii. 59 aqq., Paris, 1891; idem, Manuel des institutions frangaises, passim, ib. 1898; Imbart de la Tour, Lee Elections 6piaeopales dans 1'6glise de France du 9. au 1,1°. silcle, pp. 127 eqq.,453 sqq., Paris, 1891; L. Mention, Documents relatifs nut rappores do dergi avec royaut&, 188e 1706, Paris, 1893; P. Viollet, $istoire des institutions politwues et administrativea de la France, if. 158, 345 sqq., Paris, 1898; Ranks, Popes, ii. 417 427.

For England consult: F. Makower, Die Verjassunp der Birche von England, pp. 326 sqq., Berlin, 1894; H. BBhm­er,, %irche and Staat in England and in der Normandie im 11. and 1.e. Jahrhundert, Leipsic, 1899.
REGENERATION.

Definition and Implications (§ 1). Biblical Doctrine (¢ 2). In the Early and Medieval Churches (1 3). In the Reformation (¢ 4). Pietism (¢ 5). In Modern Theology (§ 6). The Doctrine Presented (1 7).

Regeneration means the entrance into the Chris­tian state of salvation as a new beginning of life, involving also the abandonment of the former mode of existence as well as the far reaching conse­quences of the course entered upon. In connection with the Christian doctrine of Atonement and

Redemption (qq.v.) the idea of regeneration con­

tains the following factors: (1) The state of salva­

tion is unconditionally the work of

i. Defini  God; (2) this state signifies such a

tion and rupture with the past that the claims

Implica  of sin, the law, and the world no

tions. longer have validity; (3) it is the crea­

tion of a new type of life, determined by

God, which needs to be developed and matured, but

does not require anything else by which it may

receive its character as a state of salvation; (4) it

opens to the new personality the path of a growth

and an activity, the tendency and goal of which are

determined by the beginning set by God. The

effort to assign to regeneration a coordinate place

among the more specific concepts in the scheme of

salvation, such as conversion, justification, and

sanctification, has always led to unstable results.

Either the term threatened to absorb the others,

or it was limited in a way not consistent with

the comprehensive range of the Biblical view.

An exact equivalent of regeneration is found in the New Testament only in a few passages. The Greek word palingenesia, which corresponds most directly, is used only in Titus iii. 5,

s. Biblical where it refers to the individual re 

Doctrine. newal of life, which there is connected

with baptism; and in Matt. xix. 28,

where it refers to the eschatological renewal of the

world.. In I Pet. i. 3 the resurrection of Christ is

mentined as the act that effects regeneration; in

i. 23 the living and eternal Word of God appears as

the productive seed. But indirectly the thought

of a renewal of life by faith in Christ lies at the

basis of a number of passages in the New Testa­

ment. In the Old Testament it is prepared by the

prophecy of a conversion of Israel to be wrought

by God (Jer. xxxi. 18, 33 sqq.; Isa. Ix. 21). It is

described as the gift of another heart and of a new

spirit (Ezek. xi. 19 sqq., xxxvi. 25 sqq.; Pa. li. 12).

With this prophecy John the Baptist connects his

demand of repentance with which is associated the

symbol of the cleansing of baptism (Matt. iii. 1 sqq.).

The religious and moral demands of Jesus rest upon

the testimony of a prevening act of God which

enables a new attitude (Matt. xviii. 23 sqq., xv. 13,

xix. 26). It is necessary to make a new beginning

(Matt. xviii. 3), and the death of Jesus is designated

as the decisive act of salvation that originates a

new relation to God (Mark x. 45; Matt. xxvi. 28).

The apostolic preaching represents the operation of

a thoroughgoing renewal of life in consequence of

the death and resurrection of the Redeemer. Paul

does not use in the older epistles the term " regen­

eration," but the idea of a new creation occupies

an important part. God fulfils in Christ, the sec­

and Adam, a new creation of humanity (I Cor. xv.

45). Christ's death is the end of the old, his resur­

rection the beginning of a new life, which from him

is transferred to his adherents (Rom. vi. 4 sqq.;

II Cor. iv. 10, v. 17; Gal. ii. 19 20; Eph. ii. 5 6;

Col. ii. 12). The Christian therefore is a new crea­

tion (Gal. vi. 15); a new man (Col. iii. 10; Eph.

iv. 24). The entrance into this new state of life is

connected with baptism (Rom. vi. 3 sqq.; Col. ii.

11 sqq.), which, however, is not without faith (Gal.

RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA

441

iii. 26 2?). In this new state of life there are to be distinguished two aspects: justification, which de­livers man from the guilt and the condemnation of sin (Rom. v. 18 19; Gal. ii. 16), and the endow­ment with the Spirit of God (Gal. iii. 5, iv. 6; Rom. viii. 2); although Paul did not strictly discriminate between the two. Objectively the new creation consists in the mission and work of Christ; sub­jectively in the faith called forth by it. The de­markation of the new creation from the subsequent unfolding of the new life is made difficult in that sanctification appears now as, with justification, a newly implanted life tendency (I Cor. vi. 11), and again as a continuous task (Rom. vi. 19 22), and in that the new life is even represented as ever un­dergoing a retransformation (Rom. xii. 2, xiii. 14; Eph. iv. 22 aqq.). I Peter connects the new crea­tion with the resurrection of Christ (i. 3). The means of this renewal of life consists of the Word of God (i. 23); this serves also the growth and strength­ening of the newly born babes (ii. 2 sqq.). In the Johannine writings birth is represented from God (John i. 12 aqq.), or the birth from above is a fre­quent designation of the state of the Christian. This divine generation of the new man produces the state of the children of God, which is here res­toration of a relation with the being of God. The possibility of such a state is produced by the incar­nation of the Logos (John i. 12); its realization is the work of the Spirit (iii. 6, 8). To the Word is ascribed mediation in so far as it is the medium of the Spirit (vi. 63). As a further medium of the spiritual new birth is mentioned the water of bap­tism (iii. 5); but it is merely a step preparatory for the renovation by the Spirit. Regeneration must be experienced by faith (John i. 12; I John v. 1). In some passages of the Johannine writings the life from God appears as a possession which excludes not only apostasy, but also the sinning of the new man (I John iii. 6, 9). According to other passages not only may Christians sin (I John i. 8 aqq., ii. 1), they may sin even unto death (v. 16). With John, therefore, regeneration is represented as the transposition into a new stage of life which is essen­tially relationship with God; but also with him the transition takes place through faith, and the new state of life is conditioned by the moral preserva­tion of the endowed character.

The conception of regeneration has no definite place in the terminology of the doctrine of salvation in the early and medieval Church, and no connected history; because in the post apostolic

3. In the time there reigned a moralistic con 

Early and ception of salvation. It indeed offered

Medieval room for the acts of human self activ 

Churches. ity which introduce and accompany

the new life, such as repentance, recog­

nition of the truth, fulfilment of the law, with but

slight connection of these with the divine operation

and the mediator of salvation; but this jejune con­

cePtiOn was supplemented by a faith in the magic

and supernatural effect of baptism and the Lord's

Supper. The Eastern Church recognized the univer­

sal regeneration of humanity in the incarnation of the

Logos, but it knew little of the renewal of life in

the individual. Augustine traced regeneration en 

8saa~le

Bsgenaration

tirely to the effect of grace; but he associated this with the mediation of the Church, and as he saw in the new life not so much a possession of faith as the activity of love, he confounded the conceptions of regeneration and sanctification. Scholasticism resolved the cultivation of the new life into a num­ber of the Church's impartations of grace and the corresponding efforts of will, which scarcely ad­mitted of a unified conception of regeneration. Thomas Aquinas preferred the most impersonal expression which the New Testament offers for the idea of regeneration, " participation in the divine nature " (Summa, ii. 110). For the Council of Trent regeneration was only another name for justifica­tion (Ses&lo, vi. 3), which found its consummation in the " infusion of love." For the mystics who have a special preference for the picture of regen­eration, it meant essentially union with God af­forded to the soul that was emptied of the world and selfhood. But this individual experience of the pious absolved itself in the moment of subjec­tive feeling, and was not sobered by a firm hold upon the historical divine will of grace.

The Reformation restored to regeneration its firm connection with God's act of salvation in Christ. In the forgiveness of sin man finds the basis of a new existence. The faith that receives this blessing is the immediate reality of a new life. Faith itself is, according to Luther, the new birth.

4. In the In faith we are both justified and sano 

Reforms  tified. This view was not affected by tion. Luther's association of regeneration and baptism. He assumed even the difficulty of the idea of faith in infants in order to maintain the same saving operation in children and adults. The same intimate connection. of justifica­tion and new life is found in Melanchthon's Loci of 1521 and in the Apology. The latter does not limit the term " justification " to the conception of a mere declaration of being just, but unhesitatingly denotes " justification " as " regeneration " and faith as the " rightness of heart " demanded by God as " obedience toward the Gospel." Justifies, tion included moral renewal and the endowment of the Spirit. This merging was due to the appre­hension of justification not as a transcendent act of God but as a human experience; but in the commentary on Romans (1532) Melanchthon began to connect more strictly the judgment of God de­claring man as just with Christ's work of atone­ment and to exclude from it every reference to the transformation of man that begins with faith. Calvin conceived regeneration as " penitence" and restricted it to the moral act of the mortification of the old man and the generation of the new. The Formula of Concord (q.v.) left the conception of regeneration vague, while it, on the other hand, clearly defined justification, thus exposing the re­lation of faith to morals, now excluded from justi­fication, to neglect. The period of the Reformation left to later theology a number of unsolved ques­tions regarding regeneration, such as the relation of the Spirit to the individual. The Augsburg Con­fession (q.v.) states that the Spirit effects faith (Art. 5) and that faith conditions the possession of the Spirit (Art. a0). These statements are not oon 

Regeneration Regensburg

THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG

442

tradictory if by the Spirit that effects faith is understood the Spirit of God incorporate in the Word and the congregation,  and by the Spirit that is imparted to faith the individualized spirit dwell­ing in the believer. But as this distinction was gen­erally unobserved, there resulted a different inter­pretation of regeneration in the process of salvation. If Luther's conception of regeneration as the " gift of faith " was to be adhered to, it must neccessarily be considered as the presupposition of the life of faith in general and consequently as preceding justificar Lion. But if one holds the idea that only the indi­vidual possession of the spirit effects regeneration, then regeneration is the consequence of the sonship attained in faith. In the latter instance regenerar tion is reduced to a secondary position but receives a richer ethical import. Still more important for the later development of the doctrine was the ques­tion in regard to the relation of regeneration to bap­tism. Some dogmaticians adhered to the bold thesis of Luther that the baptism of infants and the re­generation of adults by faith in the Word were essen­tially the same process. But the later theologians taught in connection with the doctrine of baptism a regeneration which was not at the same time a renovation of life, but communicated to the soul chained by hereditary siri the capacity to believe. In this way the conception of regeneration was con­siderably emptied 'and placed where it could no longer serve as an expression of the experience of salvation.

Pietism opposed this shallow conception of re­generation, representing it as an experience of faith,

and was intent upon insuring its le­g. Pietism. velopment into a new moral attitude.

Spener (q.v.) taught that in the mo­ment of regeneration, which coincides with that of justification, there is posited in the believer a new principle of life that develops into sanctification. The Lutheran doctrine of justification was the basis of the certainty of salvation also for Zinzendorf (q.v.), but in one period of his life he held a mystico­theosophic theory of regeneration, representing it not so much as an experience of faith as a mysteri­ous penetration of the power of the blood of Christ. Similar thoughts of a substantial or physiological interpretation of regeneration are found in P. Nicolai (q.v.) at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in the Swabian Pietism, in J. A. Bengel, F. C. Oetinger, and Michael Hahn (qq.v.). Also in mod­ern Pietism frequently Methodistic thoughts appear of a second experience of grace after justification that is to lead man to the threshold of sinless per­fection. In this the fact is overlooked that justify­ing faith conceived in its Biblical and Reformation depth includes already this second act of self sur­render.

The treatment of the conception of regeneration in modern theology presents a variegated if not confused picture. A stimulating influence upon the development of dogma was Immanuel Kant's pos­tulate of radical evil and the deepening of the idea of personality by the distinction of the " intel­ligible " and the empiric character. What R. Eucken, following J. G. Fichte, indicates as "We­sensbildung " is essentially a philosophical parallel

to Christian regeneration. The fruit of philosoph­ical idealism was made especially productive for theology by Schleiermacher, who taught

6. In that regeneration on the subjective Modern side as the reception of the individ 

Theology. ual into the life communion of Christ

corresponds to redemption as the

communication of sinless perfection and blessed­

ness. It is the foundation of a new character,

while sanctification is its unfolding. The change

that has begun with regeneration may be re­

garded either as a changed form of life, conver­

sion, the elements of which are repentance and

faith; or as a changed relation to God or a changed

feeling of life, justification. Most of the theologians

who followed Schleiermacher returned to that sense

of justification according to which it is grounded

upon a divine judgment, without, however, relin­

quishing the thought that this judgment accrues to

the believer only in so far as he is in real union with

Christ. Thus in avoiding au empty concept of

faith, they returned to the original Reformation

idea. Four other types parallel to the above may

be distinguished: (1) The adherence to the com­

bination of regeneration and baptism, involving the

belabored efforts of integrating the turning to God

or conversion later in life with infant baptism;

(2) the theosophical representation of regeneration

is that of a transubstantiation. Richard Rothe

(q.v.), with his followers, approaches from his con­

ception of the spirit as the unity of the ideal and the

natural existence. From regeneration there follows

the positing of a spiritual nature which is to unfold

in organic growth toward imperishable results.

(3) Another group of theologians, among them es­

pecially Albrecht Ritschl (q.v.), replaces the concep­

tion of regeneration by that of justification in order

to prevent every Pietistic obscuration of the doctrine

of grace. Regeneration, if the term is preferred, is

not to be distinguished from justification or adop­

tion. Ethical transformation is hereby secured in

that, in reconciliation, the purpose of the kingdom

of God is appropriated and by doing good, freedom

from the world, or eternal life, is attained. Johann

Georg Wilhelm Herrmann (0..v.) insists that regen­

eration can not be established externally as a fact,

but only by a judgment of faith. This judgment

bases itself not upon our possession, but upon the

attitude which God in Christ assumes toward us.

According to Julius Wilhelm Martin Kaftan (q.v.)

the divine act of redemption fulfilled in Christ, espe­

cially in his death and resurrection, becomes by

faith a personal experience involving ethical re­

newal. In the conception of regeneration these

three elements are by faith perceived as a totality.

(4) Richard Adelbert Lipsius (q.v.) designates re­

generalyion as the ethical aide of the state of grace

in distinction from justification as its religious side.

Regeneration accordingly is called the logical con­

sequence of justification.

Regeneration is here represented as the divinely wrought origin of a new, personal existence. But the term can denote only its origin; the preserva­tion and growth of the new life are not included in the conception, but are to be represented as the state of the children of God. Moreover, there is

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RELIGIOUS

no need to include the objective basis of salvation in the conception of regeneration, although the

New Testament occasionally expresses q. The the close connection of the new person 

Doctrine ality with the person and work of the Presented. mediator of salvation (Eph. vi. 6, 10;

I Pet. i. 3). For the historical basis of

salvation there are used other conceptions, Atone­

ment and Redemption (qq.v.), and the idea of re­

generation is more appropriate for application to

individuals than to the comprehensive followahip.

There is no reason to break with the view offered

by the Reformation in connecting regeneration with

the origin of faith, or as Luther has it, that the new

birth is faith. By faith not only is the divine judg­

ment of justification appropriated but a union is

effected with Christ transforming the believer into

a new person. Faith has thus not only a religious

but an ethical meaning, in that it represents a re­

ceptive attitude toward the vivifying and deter­

mining influence of the Redeemer. Man's relation

to God can not be measured by the diagnosis of the

state of his own soul, but merely by the worth of

Christ, the object of his faith; hence the certainty

of salvation is not jeopardized. Owing to the con­

dition of appropriation by faith, it is impossible to

ascribe to the baptism of infants unconditionally

the effect of regeneration; for the realization of the

state of grace offered in baptism is not completed

with that act. The advent of a new personality

can only proceed in the light of self consciousness.

Moreover, the conceptions of regeneration and con­

version form an indivisible unity; they denote the

same beginning of a new life, only that regeneration

characterizes it as an act of God and conversion,

as a new tendency of life assumed by the believer.

It does not follow either from Scripture or the na­

ture of the case that the new life of regeneration

can not be lost, as the Reformed dogmaticians hold

concerning the elect and as Rothe infers from the

metaphysical essence of the spiritual existence.

But it may be said that the communion with Christ

having once become the fundamental tendency of

life possesses an incomparable power to give a firm­

ness to the unstable will, and that the surrender of

it must appear intolerable to a person that has be­

gun to experience the value of the blessing of sal­

vation. (O, Knw.)
BIBLtoonAray: The subject is treated in many of the works cited m and under BIBLICAL THEOLOGY (q.v.), and of course m the works on systematic theology (for titles, etc., see DOGMA, DooMATICS). Special treatises are: P. Gennrieh Die Lahr, von der Wiedergeburt in d,men­geschichtlicher and religionsgesehichtdicher Beleuchtung, Leipsic, 1907; idem, Wiedergeburt and HeilWung mit Beaug auf die gegenwdr*en ~tromungen des re~igidsen Lebena, ib. 1908; G. Duffield, SPiritual Life; or, Regenera­tion, Carlisle, 1832; G. d. Faber, The Primitive Doctrine of Regeneration, London, 1840; S. Charnoek The Doctrine

of Regeneration Philadelphia (18431; E. H. Sears, R&e Boston, 1853; E. C. Wines, A Treatise on Re 

generation, Philadelphia. 1863 ; A. Phelps, The New Birth; Or, the Work of the Holy ~SPirit Boston 1886; W. Anderson, Treatise on Regeneration 2d ed., Philadelphia, 1871; A. Rftschl, Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtferti­gung and Veredhnung, Vol. m., Bonn. 1874; G. T. Fox, Doctrine of Regeneration, London, 1880; G. Thomasius, Christi Person and Werk, iv., $§ 75 76, 2 vols., Leipsic, 188688; $. Heckel, Die Idee der Wiedergeburt, ib. 1889; G  N. Boardman, Regent, New York, 1891; E.

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