Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th CenturiesJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Religion
Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries
Jones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Mysticism; Reformers
6. This Nature patiently bears 6. This nature thrusts the
the Cross. Cross away.
15. This Nature desires to be 15. This nature desires to be
conformed to Christ and equal with God without
His Cross in all things. any humility at all.[11]
Christ is thus for Weigel entirely a new order of Being--the Beginner
of a new race. Adam had in himself all the possibilities which Christ
realized, but the former failed and the latter succeeded and so has
become the Head of a divine and heavenly type of humanity. By "a new
nativity," a rebirth from above, any man in the world who wills it in
living faith may be a recipient of the divine-principle, the
Christ-Life, and may thereby be raised to membership in the Kingdom of
the Christ-Humanity, which is as far above the Adam-Humanity as the
flower is above the soil from which it first sprang. When Christ is
formed within and the Humanity which He produces appears in the world,
then a new way of living comes into operation. Love is the supreme
"sign" of the new type or order. "The man who has the Christ-Life in
him does not quarrel; he does not go to law for temporall goods; he
does not kill; he lets his coat and cloke go rather than oppose
another."[12] "If Christ were of the seed of Adam, He would have the
{144} nature and inclinations of Adam. He would hang thieves, behead
adulterers, rack murderers with the wheel, kill hereticks, and put
corporeally to death all manner of sinners; but now He is tender, kind,
loving. He kills no one. The Lamb kills no woolf."[13] Weigel goes
the whole bold way in his revolt from legalism, and he accepts the
principle of love as a structural principle of the society which Christ
is forming in the world: "Where the Life of Christ is, there is no
warre made with corporall weapons." "The world wars but Christ doth
not so. His warfare is spiritual." "He that maketh warre is no
Christian but a woolf, ana belongs not to the sheepfold nor hath he
anything to expect of the Kingdom of God, nor may the warrs of the Old
Testament, of the time of darknesse serve his turne, for Christians
deal not after a Mosaicall, earthly fashion, but they walke in the Life
of Christ, without all revenge." "We walk no longer under Moses but
under Christ."[14]
The Christian man, however, even with his new "nativity" and with his
re-created spirit of love, differs in one respect from Christ. Christ
is wholly heavenly, His Nature is woven throughout of spiritual and
divine substance. There is no rent nor seam in it. Man, on the other
hand, is double, and throughout his temporal period he remains double.
By his new "nativity" man can become inwardly spirit though he remains
outwardly composed of flesh.[15]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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