Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

136 THE SECOND MAN VERIFIED IN HISTORY.is to the one exactly what Adam is to the other.As the Word of God, creating, joined to the inheritanceof the flesh of Adam from generation togeneration the communication of a spirit such asAdam's, by which double action we have the unityof race, so the Word of God, redeeming, when Hehad taken our flesh as the first-fruits of humannature, breathed forth from that flesh the conimu-nication . of His Spirit to the Body of the Church,by which we belong to the race of the IncarnateGod, and are become His family, and make Hishouse. Thus that which the body of Adam isnaturally, the Body of Christ is spiritually, andthe descent of human nature in its unity a pictureof the Holy Spirit's unity working through theBody which He has chosen. And this analogis made the more striking by the statement sooften repeated in the Greek Fathers, that with thenatural life, as first given to Adam, was conjoinedthe gift of the Holy Ghost, forfeited afterwardsby his sin, and withdrawn from, him and his race,and now restored as the special gift of the IncarnateGod.16 Thus the descent of the Spirit atPentecost is a true and real counterpart of thecreation of man in Eden ; but they who share itare become kindred of God through His flesh, andby so sharing it together, they form that society16 For instance, two passages on the Incarnation in S. Cyril of^ m ^^"qucnce of the Fall and the Restoration, and how wonderfully the giftof the Spirit replaces what was lost in Adam.