634 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 



France and, above all, in England, that the close connection between 

 the Reformation and social and economic conditions is particularly 

 plain. Even after England had shaken off the Papacy it was social 

 and economic conditions which determined religious parties and 

 struggles: the King and the aristocracy held to the church of the 

 Thirty-nine Articles; the higher middle classes were Presbyterian; 

 the aspiring lower middle classes were Puritan and rallied to Crom- 

 well's flag. When we look, too, at the way in which, both there and 

 in Protestant Germany, the character and aims of the church were 

 then settled by the theologians, it is plain that side by side with 

 political conditions the theories adopted were strongly acted on by 

 social influences as well. These influences extend even to dogmatics 

 and ethics (the "divinely appointed" orders), and to show that in 

 detail is one of the tasks of the future. We must never allow ourselves 

 to forget, however, that behind the economic factors there are always 

 the political, and that it is these that really turn the scale. In power 

 and effect they outweigh all other factors, so far as externals are 

 concerned. 



That the history of the church is most closely bound up and inter- 

 woven with all the great branches of general history, is what I have 

 tried to show. In recognizing this fact, and in shaping our study 

 accordingly, there may possibly be some risk of our losing sight of or 

 undervaluing the special character which attaches to the history of 

 the church. We shall guard ourselves against any such danger if we 

 always bear in mind that all our labors in this sphere ought to help 

 us to throw light on the question, What is the Christian religion? 

 This must ever remain the guiding-star of our researches, however 

 wide the range which they will have to take. If ecclesiastical history 

 loses sight of that guiding-star, it will also lose the right to form a 

 special subject of study within the science of history. If it follows 

 that star, then what is characteristic of every independent subject of 

 knowledge will also hold good of it that it unveils itself only to 

 the man who devotes himself entirely to it. Grimm once made the 

 fine observation that knowledge has no secrets, though it has its 

 secrecies; it has no Geheimnisse, but it has Heimlichkeiten. The 

 history of the church also has its Heimlichkeiten. The man who is 

 half-hearted in his efforts about it will see nothing; it is only when 

 he woos it with the loyalty of a Jacob that he will win the bride. 



In the history of the church, however, these Heimlichkeiten go 

 very deep and are very precious. We have seen that there is no such 

 thing as a double history, and that everything that happens enters 

 into the one stream of events. But there is a single inner experience 

 which every one can possess; which to every one who possesses it is 

 like a miracle; and which cannot be simply explained as the product 



