Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE SECOND MAN VERIFIED IN HISTORY.131The four qualities thus slightly sketched, forgivenessof sins, illumination of faith, adoption tosonship, and sanctification by charity, which cometo the individual by and with incorporation intothe Body, are not given to him irrevocably, but areconditional upon his perseverance. They are portionsand derivations of that vast treasure of Truthand Grace which the Body holds in their entirenessand for ever, because of the perpetual indwellingof the Spirit who makes its life, but which He dispensesas it pleases Him to the members, andwhich He may withdraw from them in default oftheir cooperation. Vast are the losses thereby incurred,not to the treasure-house which remainsinexhaustible, but to those who fall out of it backinto the world, or rather that body of Adam fromwhich they were taken. But these losses touchnot the beauty and the glory of that Body ofChrist, which goes on through the ages, and takesup its own, fulfils its appointed work, and reachesits intended end.Thus on the day of Pentecost a new Power,the Spirit of the Incarnate God, descended notpon single men, but upon an assembly ofling it in a unity, conveying to it a truthkindling in it a charity, and working througla sanctmcatioii never before known; whichPower,g in that Body, was tdatus est nobis.m particeps divinaeest unitatis. N< le Spiritum Sanctumclesiam.'