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
The third quality is the adoption of Sonship, which flows directly from
incorporation into the Body of Christ, and to which man has no sort of
title in himself or from his own nature, but which comes to him only by
kindred with Him who, on the morning of His resurrection, greeted that
great penitent who bore the figure of the Church with that paschal
salutation of the Second Adam, “Go to my brethren, and say, I ascend to my
Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God.” And the divine
virtue of hope well corresponds to this quality, the effects of which in a
state of trial and conflict are to so great a degree future and unseen. It
seems, moreover, to be as a special link and tie between the virtue which
purifies the intellect, and that which corrects the will and makes it
obedient. Thus through it we pass on to the fourth quality of
Sanctification, which is the completion of the other three and their end,
the harmony of each individual will with the divine will, the work of
charity. That divine virtue is the special fruit of the passion of Christ,
which was to gather up into one what sin had disunited and torn away,
first from its Author, and then from the order by Him created, which was
to heal the animosities thus introduced, and to change the world from a
conflict wherein each sought to better himself at the expense of his
neighbour, into a community cemented together with mutual affection. It
was with reason, therefore, that S. Augustine would not allow the
possession of charity, save in the unity of that one Body which Christ had
created,(102) and without charity there is no sanctification.
The four qualities thus slightly sketched, forgiveness of sins,
illumination of faith, adoption to sonship, and sanctification by charity,
which come to the individual by and with incorporation into the Body, are
not given to him irrevocably, but are conditional upon his perseverance.
They are portions and derivations of that vast treasure of Truth and Grace
which the Body holds in their entireness and for ever, because of the
perpetual indwelling of the Spirit who makes its life, but which He
dispenses as it pleases Him to the members, and which He may withdraw from
them in default of their coöperation. Vast are the losses thereby
incurred, not to the treasure-house which remains inexhaustible, but to
those who fall out of it back into the world, or rather that body of Adam
from which they were taken. But these losses touch not the beauty and the
glory of that Body of Christ, which goes on through the ages, and takes up
its own, fulfils its appointed work, and reaches its intended end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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