Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

126 THE SECOND MAN VERIFIED IN HISTORY.and to it alone, and belongs to it because it is animatedby the Spirit of Truth. And this animationis like the Head, the same yesterday, to-day, andfor ever. It is not of any past time more or lessthan of the present or the future. It is the illuminationwhich belongs to that whole last day,through which the Body of Christ grows, teaches,labours, and suffers, until the mortal day breakinto the light of eternity.His third gift to the Body is that of charity,and for the same reason, because He is this Himself.He who is not only the Unity of the Fatherand the Son, 7 but their mutual Love, * coming O as thegift of that Divine love which redeemed the worldby the sacrifice of its Maker, and as the Spirit ofthat Love, who invested Himself with human flesh,creates in this human dwelling-place that one cha-rity which bears His name, and is of His nature ,and which in that one body joins the wills of mentogether as His Truth joins their intellects. [If theBody of Christ has one prevailing charity, whichreaches to all its members, and encompasses theleast as well as the greatest, it is because the heartis divine.The fourth gift which He bestows upon theBody is sanctification, and it may be said to bethe result of the other three. This, again, is Hisown name and nature, and many have thoughtand said, His personal attribute, to make holy ;and that, as Fathership indicates the First Person,