Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE SECOND MAN VERIFIED IN HISTORY.145is, the rule and standard of right U_ JLA. \J belief, r^ *^A-*.v^-i_» whichwas the continuance of the pentecostal gift, theilluminating and kindling fire, and the speakingtongue of unity, which the Body of Christ possessesfor ever. It was by enjoying these endowmentstogether in her bosom, / by t/ the actions of alife pervaded with these principles, by the joint possessionand exercise of these supernatural powerswhich at once opened to the intellect a new field ofknowledge O and strengthened O the will to acts aboveits inborn force, that men were Christians. Andthose who remembered what they had been asJews, and what they had been as heathens, hadno difficulty in recognising such a life as the effectof a divine grace, and no temptation to refer it toanything which belonged t to them as individuals,since its commencement coincided with their entranceinto a divine society, its growth dependedon their membership in that Body. Their unionwith Christ in this Body was something direct andpalpable ; to them the several degrees of that oneministry constituted by Christ were the joints andarticulations of the structure ;? the teaching O thenceproceeding as it were the current of life ; by theirbeing parts of the structure they were saved fromthe confusion of errors which swept freely roundm* f fEcclesia, vir perfectus, ille sponsus, ilia sponsa. Sed erunt, inquit, duoin came una; judicia Dei vera, justificata in idipsum: propter unitatem."S. Aug. in Ps. xviii, 2, torn. iv. 85 f.II.L