The Formation of Christendom, Volume IIAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
The Formation of Christendom, Volume II
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Christianity; Christianity -- Miscellanea
But thirdly, as in that terrible corruption of heathenism, wherein
immorality was based on false worship, we saw the body of Adam run out
through time and space into the most afflicting form which evil can assume
in the individual and social life of man, so in that Body which is ruled
by the Divine Headship we see the counterpart, the triumph of grace,
individual man taken out of that state of fallen nature, and invested with
a membership answering to the dignity of the Head. The one great Christian
people, the Kingdom of Christ, stands over against that kingdom of
violence, disorder, impurity, and false worship. As there is a unity of
the fallen Adam, a force of evil which impact only gives, so much more is
there a unity of the Second Adam, which is not a collection of
individuals, but a Body with its Head. The first unity consists in the
reasonable soul, informing the flesh which was moulded once for all from
the clay and descended to the whole race; and the race so descending was
polluted by a common guilt, on which, as an ever-fertile root, grew the
whole trunk of man’s personal sins, of falsehood, enmity, corruption of
morals, division, having the common quality of egotism. The second unity
consists in the Holy Spirit of the Head communicated to the soul and body
of the faithful people, both being restored by that grace of which truth
and charity, unity and sanctity, are the tokens, the full virtue being
planted in the cross of the Head, and from the cross diffusing itself to
His Body.
II. And so we are brought again to Him who stood before Pilate to make the
good confession, and who declared that the cause of His coming into the
world was to bear witness to the truth. In what form was that witness to
be made, and how was it to be efficacious? This is that point which we
have now to illustrate. Adam’s disobedience was a single act, the power of
which, springing out of his headship, extended through the whole line of
his race; through the consequences of this act the truth was obscured to
them, and human life involved in manifold error. What was that action on
the part of Christ, the purpose, as He declares, of His Incarnation, which
had an equally enduring effect? If the guilt communicated was not
transitory, then should the corresponding grace be perpetual. And how was
it so? The Son of God, as the Head of His race, does not stand at
disadvantage with Adam, but rather, we are told His grace is superabundant
in its results over the other’s sin: and He Himself declared that He had
completely finished the work given Him to do.(60) But here He describes
this work to be the bearing witness to the truth. For, indeed, it was
worthy of the eternal wisdom to clothe Himself in flesh(61) in order that
truth, the good of the intellect, and the end of the whole universe, might
stand forth revealed to His rational creatures: and He who made all things
in truth would Himself restore truth, when it had been obscured by the
traducer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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