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THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EDUCATED CLASSES IN PROTESTANT GERMANY...
but in essence it was synonymous with a personal, moral religion, and he pre¬
supposed that both had a supernatural impact. Thus for him, too, everything
depended on the moral success of religion. For Semler, “inner religion was dif¬
ferent for different people; only its moral impact was the same."" Religion was
moral in nature,’ that is, its “main target ... is individual people themselves,
their own moral history, however unequal they may be in social terms and in
way of life. A living knowledge of all true evil and misery is to turn these people,
who are so corrupt, ruined, and disorderly, into inwardly good people.”’® Re¬
ligion aimed for moral improvement of the individual on the basis of his own
insights, stimulated by religious doctrine. The form was unimportant.
Jerusalem believed that the inner nature of religion was such that it ensured
human virtue. Without it, man could not achieve his moral destiny. He saw
Christianity as the best means of promoting good in the world because it cast
light on reason, improved morals, and strengthened its goodwill among men.
“Any religion, any worship of God which does not aim to perfect man, whose
ultimate purpose is not virtue and the improvement of man, cannot be pleasing
to God.”.$1*...be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” Consequently,
religion gave man the aim of perfecting himself by holding out the prospect of
coming to resemble God by acting morally. This argument was by all means
part of the Enlightenment theory of perfectibility.
Enlightened theologians saw Christianity as providing instructions for the
achievement of happiness. Ultimately, even orthodoxy would no longer ignore
this predominant tendency.'’* Morality was regarded as man’s original direc¬
tion, for virtue was the way to happiness, and religion had the task of teaching
man the “holy obligation of virtue”; “By nature, religion and virtue are one”.’®
Thus man and his needs became the crucial factor, and the question asked of
God was to what extent man could fulfil them. Spalding always “came back to
his original purposes, desires and needs of our rational human nature, to the
Hemmerde, 1771, “Vorrede”.
Cf. HOFEMANN, Heinrich, Die Theologie Semlers, Leipzig, Kreysing, 1905, 60.
SEMLER, Johann Salomo, Magazin fir die Religion, vol. 1, Halle, Hemmerde, 1780, “Vorrede”,
xxxiii.
160 SEMLER, Freie Lehrart (note 26), § 51, cf. also § 62: “Anyone who is in Christ, or is a Christian,
must be a new person, as it were, a new creature and, by his moral state and behaviour prove
himself to be a follower of Christ.”
JERUSALEM, Nachgelassene Schriften, Part 1, (note 141), 303.
162 Ibid., 308.
163 Cf., for example, ANER, Karl, Das Luthervolk. Ein Gang durch die Geschichte seiner Frömmigkeit,
Tübingen, Mohr, 1917, 118.
164 Cf. SPALDING, Vertraute Briefe (note 121), 121f.
165 JERUSALEM, Betrachtungen (note 58), vol. 1, 360.
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