Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.105with its Head, was to last for ever. The notionthat this Body, as such, could fail, that it couldcease to be the treasure-house of the divine truthand grace, would have struck them with as mhorror as the notion that Christincarnate, and was not their Redeemer. TheBody which the Holy Ghost animated on the dayof Pentecost never ceased to be conscious of itsexistence-conscious that the power of its Head,the Eternal Truth, was in it, and would be in itfor ever. Confidence in himself as an individualmember of the Body, the Christian had not, forhe knew that through his personal sinfulness gracemight be withdrawn from him, and that he mightfall away ; confidence he did not place either inhis own learning, knowledge, and sanctity, or inthese gifts as belonging to any individual Christian; his confidence lay in the King who reignedin an everlasting Kingdom, in the Head whoanimated an incorruptible Body. To sever thesetwo would have been to decapitate Christ.36 Thethought that the Bride of Christ could herselfbecome an adulteress, and teach her children thevery falsehoods of that idol-worship which shewas created to overthrow, would have ^appearedto him the denial of all Christian belief. Andsuch a denial indeed it is to any mind which,36 "Quid tibi fecit Ecclesia, ut earn velis quodammodo decollare?Tollere vis Ecclesise caput et capiti credere, corpus relinquere, quasi ex-anime corpus. Sine caussa capiti quasi famulus devotus blandiris. Qvult, et caput et corpus conatur occidere." S. Aug. torn. v. p. 636.