And here, too, in the spiritual community of the faith, in the same way as in the political body, man’s patrimony of original evil branches out into two directions. In the one it turns longingly back toward the past, and in the other it tends restlessly forward into the indefinite future. Both of these aberrations are wholly independent of the outer form as well as of the subject-matter of belief. They are consequently to be found in the old covenant, as the first grade of divine revelation, no less than in the second. The first of these hereditary faults of man’s nature is deadness, or, in a somewhat different phase, lukewarmness--manifesting itself outwardly in a close and literal adherence to the old in its mere external forms. In a word, it is spiritual death. For though in the abundance of His love, God may have made a revelation of His will to man, and even died to make an atonement for him, still it is left to the free will of the individual to receive it or not; and its retention and observance is the trial of his goodness, and, consequently, in this point, as in others, his hereditary and inborn spiritual death strongly manifests itself. The second of these hereditary faults, or, rather, the same in a different form, is the spirit of innovation, or a false semblance of life, by which, in fact, this inner death is merely propagated. On both these faults and erroneous ways of thinking on religious matters, Revelation expresses itself equally in the tone of stern reprobation, though perhaps its language with regard to the former is even still more severe. As regards the spirit of innovation, all changes in this domain, which are merely human, and not visibly and manifestly of a divine spirit and origin, must simply on that account be opposed and condemned. Now, in both the parties into which the faith is unhappily divided, there are many who are captivated and led away by this spirit of change. For among those who were originally seduced by it not a few are now animated with a sincere and profound respect for whatever is old and sterling, while of the innovation-mongers of our days, many are to be found in the ranks of those who originally strove to stem the tide of alteration and change. Oh that all who are pervaded by this evil spirit, and are ever casting their views forward into the future, would only advance a little farther still in their thoughts, so as to take in the end and conclusion of all. In the knowledge of the final judgment of the world (and what is this philosophy of revelation but such a reminiscence of death and the end--in which light philosophy was even in olden times explained--not, indeed, in a narrow-minded limitation to ourselves, but in a far wider sense, embracing in its universal sympathy the final catastrophe of the whole human race), in the warnings and allusions to this last day of account, so long and so often given, men will find all the information that they seek, and will