When man determines to adopt a Religion he asks himself, “What is the ground of my faith?” The Christian Religion replies—“The Spirit’s witness to its content.” Christ reproved the Pharisees for wishing to see miracles; the Spirit alone comprehends Spirit, the miracle is only a presentiment of that Spirit; and if the miracle be the suspension of natural laws, Spirit itself is the real miracle in the operations of nature. Spirit in itself is merely this comprehension of itself. There is only one Spirit, the universal divine Spirit. Not that it is merely everywhere; it is not to be comprehended as what is common to everything, as an external totality, to be found in many or in all individuals, which are essentially individuals; but it must be understood as that which permeates through everything, as the unity of itself and of a semblance of its “other,” as of the subjective and particular. As universal, it is object to itself, and thus determined as a particular, it is this individual: but as universal it reaches over this its “other,” so that its “other” and itself are comprised in one. The true universality seems, popularly expressed, to be two—what is common to the universal itself and to the particular. A division is formed in the understanding of itself, and the Spirit is the unity of what is understood and the understanding person. The divine Spirit which is comprehended, is objective; the subjective Spirit comprehends. But Spirit is not passive, or else the passivity can be momentary only; there is one spiritual substantial unity. The subjective Spirit is the active, but the objective Spirit is itself this activity; the active subjective Spirit is that which comprehends the divine, and in its comprehension of it it is itself the divine Spirit. The relation of Spirit to self alone is the absolute determination; the divine Spirit lives in its own communion and presence. This comprehension has been called Faith, but it is not an historical faith; we Lutherans—I am a Lutheran and will remain the same—have only this original faith. This unity is not the Substance of Spinoza, but the apprehending Substance in self-consciousness which makes itself eternal and relates to universality. The talk about the limitations of human thought is futile; to know God is the only end of Religion. The testimony of the Spirit to the content of Religion is itself Religion; it is a testimony that both bears witness and at the same time is that witness. The Spirit proves itself, and does so first in the proof; it is only proved because it proves itself and shows or manifests itself.