Communicating with God’s World of Spirit – its laws and its purpose | Pastor Johannes Greber

- 161 - 4. 0 The effects of Spirits on the Lives of a Protestant and a Catholic Clergyman in the 19th Century 4. 1 Clergyman Johann Christoph Blumhardt A biography of Johann Christoph Blumhardt, one of the most prominent clergymen of the German Protestant Church of the 19th Century, who lived from 1805 to 1880, was written by Friedrich Zuendel8. A great part of that book is devoted to accounts of the manifestations of the spirit world that played an important part in Blumhardt’s life and in his pastoral activities. The facts related are of particular importance to the understanding of modern spirit communication, since not the slightest doubt can attach to the reality of the manifestations and because the occurrences are identical to those in all ages of the history of mankind. Blumhardt set down his experiences with the spirit world in a report addressed to his ecclesiastical superiors and with strict regard for the truth, adding nothing and leaving nothing out. This is evidenced by the foreword with which he introduced his report: “In submitting the following paper to my ecclesiastic authority, I feel the urgent need to declare that I have never before expressed myself to anyone with equal boldness and freedom from restraint about my experiences….. Therefore, since most of what I have set down has so far been a secret that I could have carried with me to the grave, I was entirely free to select whatever I felt inclined to include in this report, and it would have been easy for me to give an account that anyone could read without taking the least offense. This, however, I could not bring myself to do, and although at almost every paragraph I was assailed by the fear that I might be acting hastily and recklessly in laying everything bare, a voice within me was continually urging: ‘Out with it!’ May the risk be taken, then, and I do so in the name of Jesus, the victorious. To act openly and honestly in this very matter, I regarded not only as my duty toward my highly revered ecclesiastic authority, who have every right to expect frankness on my part, but as my duty to the Lord Jesus, whose cause alone it was that I championed. However, since this is the first time that I am speaking without any restraint whatever, it is my earnest wish that my statements be regarded as private and as though a close friend were laying his secrets in the lap of his friends. My second request may also be pardonable: that my honoured readers may read everything I have set down several times before passing judgment. Meanwhile I put my trust in Him Who has our hearts in His keeping, and whatever the judgments may be, I shall have the consolation of knowing that I have spoken the truth without reservation and, what is more, the unshakable conviction that ‘Jesus is victorious!’” Further light is thrown on his report by Blumhardt in his reply to an attack by a Dr. de Valenti, in which Blumhardt says: “I might, indeed, as may be contended, have been cleverer and conveniently omitted those parts of my report that could be construed as the most boundless conceit, since we have long been accustomed to stories of demonic phenomena, especially those dealing with somnambulism, that have no reasonable outcome. All this I felt very clearly, so do not think that my exceeding frankness is due to stupidity. If I had to make a report, and I had been called upon to do so, I did not want to distort the truth by creating the impression that my experiences were nothing more than another case of demonic charlatanism or oddity, such as have been heard and seen so often within the past few decades. I would have been ashamed to take my place in the ranks of those eccentric adventurers who only too often use the apparitions and manifestations from the other world for frivolous ends; I approached the subject with the fear of God in my heart, and if the matter assumed a much more serious aspect than usually happens in similar cases, that was the very fact that I had to make clear to my authority for my own justification, if for no other 8 Friedrich Zuendel: Johann Christoph Blumhardt. Ein Lebensbild. Brunnen Publishing Co., Giessen, 1926. The facts presented in the present chapter have been taken from the work in question, to which the page references also refer. The Author.

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