Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE SECOND MAN VERIFIED IX HISTORY.127and Sonship the Second, so the making holy namesthe Third, the bond of the most blessed Trinity.But this, at least, may be said to be the final causeof the body which He animates, the imparting ofholiness. In virtue of this gift, all the means andaids and rules of holiness are stored up in theBody. And this does not mean that there is nota continual falling away from the rule and practiceof holiness in particular members, but it meansthat while these, in spite of the Body's nurtureand solicitude, fall away from it and perish, theBody lasts for ever, the rules and aids and meansof holiness lasting for ever within it, because it isthe Body of the Spirit of holiness.Now these four gifts, Unity, Verity, Charity,and Sanctity, can none of them exist in the Bodywithout the other, and all of them exist togetherthere, because they have one divine root, that indwellingof the Holy Spirit which is the fruit ofthe Incarnation, and whereby the mystical Bodyof Christ corresponds to His natural Body. Ofthis Body the beginning is Unity, the substanceTruth, the bond Charity, the end Sanctity. Countlessheresies and schisms have sought to break upthe coinherence of these gifts, but in vain. Theonly success which the indwelling Spirit allowsthem is to detach from the Body those who areunworthy to remain in it, and to prolong for atime their maimed existence by some portion ofsome of His gifts. Truth, for instance, has such