VINET, of"ne', ALEXANDRE RODOLFE: Swiss theologian; b. at Ouchy (2 m. s. of Lausanne) June 17, 1797; d. at Clarens (14 m. s.e. of Lausanne) May 4, 1847. He was educated at the gymnasium and academy of Lausanne, Early Life. where his patriotic Le Reveil des Vaudois, long a popular song, was written when he was seventeen. In 1817 he was appointed instructor in French at the gymnasium and normal school at Basel, and in 1819, after passing his theological examination at Lausanne, was ordained to the Reformed ministry. At this period he was filled with religious doubts, and his faith was essentially one of authority and custom. In Basel, however, he came in contact with very different tendencies, though the pietism which he found there was long his antipathy because of its narrowness and because it seemed to reduce the facts of revelation to mere symbols. The revival in Vaud,

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originating with English Methodists, at first exercised little influence on Vinet; but all these factors were at work within him, and during an almost fatal illness in 1823, his entire point of view was changed, and he resolved to devote his life to Christ in thanksgiving for redemption.

The year 1823-24 marked the beginning of Vinet's literary activity as well as of his new religious life, and in his first contribution to the journal of the

Paris society for Christian morals he Career advanced the view that ethics can not at Basel. be divorced from dogma. A specific

turn was given his energies by the law which, on May 20, 1824, officially sanctioned intolerance in the canton of Vaud, and in his pamphlet Du respect des opinions he set forth the kernel of all the theories he was subsequently to advance on religious liberty. In 1826 he was enabled to give wider currency to his views by winning the Lambrecht prize of 2,000 francs offered by the Paris society for Christian morals with his Mémoire en faveur de la liberte des eultes, thus establishing a reputation with the leading French Protestants as a thinker and author. In the following years the opposition to which dissenters were exposed in Vaud led Vinet to write much on freedom and conscience, his attitude even causing him to be involved in a suit, resulting in a nominal fine and suspension from all ecclesiastical functions in his canton for a year. The liberal revolution in Vaud in Dec., 1830, gave his energies a fresh impulse, though he was unable to secure the proclamation of religious liberty, to say nothing of the separation of Church and State. Meanwhile Vinet had been appointed associate professor at Basel. His critical essays first appeared in the Protestant Le Semeur of Paris, a number of them being reprinted under the title of Essais de philosophic morale et de morale religieuse (Paris, 1837). During this period, moreover, it was customary for the professor of literature at Basel to preach frequently in the French church, and in this capacity Vinet won the highest praise. His sermons, carefully revised and characterized at once by classic form and by a union of warmth aced culture, were issued under the title of Discours sur quelques sujets religieux (Paris, 1831; Eng. transl. of parts of this work and of his Nouveaux discours, Christian Philosophy, London, 1846), their themes being dogmatic and apologetic. In the uprising that led to the separation of the city of Basel from its territory, Vinet was made a member of the committee to inform the general public of the condition of affairs in Basel, and was entrusted with a diplomatic mission to Lausanne. In return for these services, a new chair of French literature and rhetoric was founded for him in the university.

In 1837 he accepted a call to the Academy of Lausanne as professor of theology; and during this

period of his life passed through a crisis Life at which resulted. in an ever-increasing

Lausanne. opposition to the theology of the R& veil, with its intellectualism and an tinomianism. This change of position found full expression in his Nouveaux discours sur quelques sujets ret2gieux (Paris, 1841). Soon after settling in Lausanne, Vinet, as a member of the committee

on church reorganization, found opportunity for practical activity in behalf of his ideals, especially for voluntary admission of members to the Church and for the inclusion of laymen in ecclesiastical government. He advocated the retention of the Helvetic Confession, but the laws governing the Church, adopted in 1839, were so repugnant that he resigned, a year later, from the clergy of Vaud. These experiences seem to have confirmed Vinet in his insistence on the separation of Church and State, and in his Essai sur la manifestation des convictions religieuses et sur la separation de l'eglise et de l'etat (Paris, 1842; Eng. transl., Essay on the Profession of Personal Religious Conviction, . . . London, 1843) he wrote a classic on this theme. Nevertheless, he remained a simple member of the national Church; nor was he induced even by his position as professor of practical theology to make a propaganda for his theories. In 1845 the situation changed, and the February revolution in Vaud resulted in intense opposition to Protestantism in every form. When, therefore, the government, instead of heeding Vinet's demand for liberty of worship in the reorganization, repressed such liberty still more, he resigned his theological professorship in 1846. A consequence of this revolution was the Free Church in Vaud, though it would be incorrect to regard Vinet as its founder, even though he were the author of the concept of the freedom and dignity which were its due. Vinet approved the course of the 150 clergy who left the national church rather than obey the State in its attempt to make them recommend the new constitution to their congregations, and accorded them his warmest sympathy; he also set forth the principle unconsciously adopted by them, that the freedom of the Church can be won only by complete separation from the State, in his anonymous Considerations presentkes d Messrs. les demissionaires. His activity as a publicist in articles for the periodical and daily press and in pamphlets now increased, the ripest of his productions of this type being his Du socialisme considers daps son principe (Geneva, 1846). Vinet naturally joined the Free Church which was soon founded, often preaching for its congregations and acting as a member of the committee on organization. He devoted much thought to the preparation of a confession of faith in which he sought to avoid all theological subtleties and polemics. He continued his activity to the last months of his life, delivering private lectures on practical and exegetical subjects.

Whether appearing as the apostle of the separa tion of Church and State, as the critic and historian of French literature, or as the Christian thinker, Vinet was, first and foremost, an apologist, ever seeking to reconcile the modern spirit with the Gos pel. Holding, as he did, that the high Significance est element in man is conscience, and as a Writer. that this is the seat of reason, the in strument of religious feeling, compul sion in matters of religion would naturally be violence to conscience. While, moreover, the indi vidual is, in a sense, higher than the social organ ism, which is made for man, " society forms a field for the activity of the individual, affords scope for the exercise of his virtues, and sets up a barrier to

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his selfishness. Thus man becomes master of himself in proportion as he devotes himself to his fellows, is the more free the more social he is, receives more as he demands less, and is more himself the less he belongs to himself." Thus the individual and society grow in unison, attaining mutual perfection in the fulfilment and the service of duty. Applying this doctrine of individualism to the Church, Vinet became an advocate of the separation of Church and State, the step urged in the only two of his works which do not bear the mark of collected essays. Here he maintained that religion is an affair between God and man alone, while the State should have sole control of social morals, which comprize security of person and property and public decency. In 1831 Vinet was still a true son of the national Church, but by the time of the publication of his Essai sur la manifestation, etc., ut sup. (1842), his attitude had changed. The tenets set forth in his first essay of 1826 are here carried still further, with special attack upon the theory that the State is the entire man. Vinet maintained, on the contrary, that the State is based on identical traits common to all, while the foundation of the Church is human individuality of conscience. Individuality being thus considered a part of the inmost essence of Christianity, Vinet deemed the union of Church and State as heresy, and allowed validity only to a church independent of the State. A theological system he never evolved, though from him proceeded great ideas destined to bring forth fruit both for theology and for the Church. Thus he became a sort of second Pascal, and there is, therefore, little cause for surprise that Vinet's posthumous Études sur Blaise Pascal (Paris, 1848; Eng. transl., Studies on Pascal, Edinburgh, 1859) should be the best study yet written on that philosopher. In his apologetics he laid stress on the way in which the Gospel perfectly answers the needs of the heart. He was firmly convinced, moreover, that the most efficacious apologetic is psychological. But the psychological method of apologetics was the weakness, as well as the strength, of Vinet; for though history does not make faith, the neglect of historical factors leads to the peril of subjectivity and ultimately to rationalism. Vinet has even been termed a rationalist, but, in spite of occasional phrases in his letters and in his conversation, he was no skeptic. Had his attitude toward the Bible been clearer, the charge of rationalism might more easily be refuted. Lack of precision is characteristic of his apologetics and of his theology in general, but the reality which he ascribes, in all his writings, to the fall and to original sin, as well as to the great facts of salvation and the miracles, is alone sufficient to prevent rationalists or modern "liberals" from claiming him as one of their number. The entire character of his works demonstrates with equal clearness that he presupposed as absolutely necessary the facts of revelation. Christianity was for him primarily a history and a fact, which it must have been to gain currency.

The sole works of Vinet on practical theology were posthumous. His Théologie Pastorale (Paris, 1850; Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1852) is especially valuable for its rich utilization of French Roman Catholic literature. Here he denies any priestly character to the clergy, terms preaching a work of love and a mystery, and regards religious instruction as an act of worship. In his Homilétique ou théorie de la prédication (Paris, 1853; Eng. transl., Homiletics, Edinburgh and New York, 1853, new ed. 1880; often republished, since it was long a text-book in theological seminaries in the United States of America), he shows himself relatively indifferent to his text, deciding upon the themes of his sermons before choosing their texts. Both theoretically and practically he regarded almost exclusively the synthetic sermon, and sharply reproved any neglect of artistic embellishment. In citations he especially affected German writers on the theory of homiletics and the French preachers, whose works he had studied exhaustively. The results of these latter studies are embodied in his third work on practical theology, Histoire de la prédication parmi les Réformés de France au dix-septième siècle, Paris, 1860), a publication of great value. The strength of Vinet's own sermons lies in their masterly control of the psychological method; their weakness in their neglect of Biblical foundation. Of Vinet's five homiletic volumes only one was based on sermons actually delivered by him, the remainder containing, for the most part, apologetic or ethical studies in rhetorical form, presented to a relatively small circle of students. The inner life of Vinet is clearly mirrored in his poems, a large number of which have justly been incorporated in French Protestant hymnals. In addition to the works already mentioned, Vinet was the author of the following: Chrestomathie française, ou choix de morceaux tirés des meilleurs écrivains français (3 vols., Basel, 1829-30); Études évangeliques (Paris, 1847; Eng. transl., Gospel Studies, Glasgow, 1849); Méditations évangéliques (1849; Eng. transl., Evangelical Meditations, Edinburgh, 1858); Études sur la littérature française au dix-neuvième siècle (3 vols., 1849-51); Nouvelles études évangeliques (1851); Histoire de la littérature française au dix-huitième siècle (2 vols., 1853; Eng. transl., Hist. of French Literature in the 18th Century, Edinburgh, 1854); Liberté religieuse et questions ecclésiastiques (1854); L'Éducation, la famille et la société (1855); Moralistes des seizième et dix-septième siècles (1859); Poètes du siècle de Louis XIV. (1861); Mélanges (1869); and Lettres (2 vols., Lausanne,1880).

(ARNOLD RÜEGG†.)

Bibliography: Biographical sketches are by E. Scherer, Paris, 1853; E. Rambert, 3d ed., 2 vols., Lausanne, 1876; Laura M. Lane, New York, 1890; E. de Pressensé, Paris, 1890, cf. his Contemporary Portraits, London, ,1879; H. Lecoultre, Paris, 1892. On Vinet's activities and thought consult: F. J. Stahl, Kirchenverfassung nach Lehre und Recht der Protestanten, pp. 279 sqq:, Erlangen, 1840; F. Chavannes, A. Vinet, notice et mémoires, Paris, 1847; idem, A. Vinet . . . comme apologists et moraliste chrétien, Leyden, 1883; J. F. Astié, Esprit d'A. Vinet, 2 vols., Lausanne, 1861; idem; Le Vinet de la légende et celui de l'hist., ib . 1882; A. F. Langlois, A. Vinet consideré comme predicateur, Strasburg, 1864; J. Widmer, A. Vinet envisagé comme apologists, Lausanne, 1875; J. Cramer, A. Vinet, moralist et apologiste chrétien, Lausanne. 1884; L. Molines, Études sur A. Vinet, Paris, 1890; J. B. Roy, L'Individu et la société d'après les . . . ouvrages d'A. Vinet, Lausanne, 1893; V. Rivet, Étude sur les origines de la pensée religieuse de Vinet, Paris, 1896; E. Combs. Vinet inter-

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prEte du N. T., Paris, 1897; A. Rtlegg, A. Vind, Gedanken and Betraehtungen, Heilbronn, 1897; . A. Schumann, V%net, ae%n leben, seine Gedankenmedt, seine Bedeutung. Leipsic, 1907.