is subsumed in the Divine Person of the Creative Word.1

The doctrine of the impersonal humanity of Christ had, however, another and more practical significance than that of preserving a theoretic union of two natures in one Person; it was associated with the notion of "real universals," and implied that when Christ assumed human nature He assumed the nature of all of us, so that by His Incarnation we are united, in Him, to God. That is profoundly important, but it makes difficulties when so stated; for it ought to involve that all men, whether believers or not, are forthwith united to God; and experience tells us that this union is at best incomplete, while the same theologians, who state a doctrine logically involving the union of all men with God, actually limit this to members of the Christian Church, who have still, moreover, to renew and deepen that unity by sacraments and lives of service.

We still believe in "real universals," but they are concrete, not abstract, universals.2 There is no such thing as human nature apart from all individual human beings. But there is a perfectly real thing called Mankind or Humanity which is a unit and not a mere agglomeration. As each man is a focussing point for Reality as seen from the place within it which he occupies, he is very largely constituted what he is by the character of his fellow-men. Influence is not an affair of external impact but of inward constitution of the person influenced. Therefore Mankind or Humanity is a close-knit system of mutually influencing units. In this sense the humanity of every one of us is "impersonal "; and the greater the man, the less merely "personal" is his humanity.

1 Mr. Grensted writes to me: "I usually try to solve this problem by using the term ενέργεια. Clearly there are in Christ two ενέργειαι, of which the human progressively expresses the divine. And as Will can only be defined intelligibly in terms of conation, the orthodox result follows. Any other definition of Will gives one or other of the great heresies, besides breaking down inherently."

Cf. Mens Creatrix, pp. 7-23.

He is more, not less, individual than others; but he is individual by the uniqueness of his focus for the universe, not by his exclusion of all that is not himself. He more than others is Humanity focussed in one centre. Into this system of mutually influencing units Christ has come; but here is a unit perfectly capable, as others are only imperfectly capable, both of personal union with all other persons and of refusing to be influenced by the evil of His environment. It is this more than anything else which proves Him to be more and other than His fellow-men. But thus He inaugurates a new system of influence; and as this corresponds to God's Will for mankind, its appeal is to the true nature of men. So He is a Second Adam; what occurred at the Incarnation was not merely the addition of another unit to the system of mutually influencing units, it was the inauguration of a new system of mutual influence, destined to become, here or elsewhere, universally dominant. "By His Incarnation," therefore, the Lord did indeed "raise our humanity to an entirely higher level, to a level with His own "; but this was not accomplished by the unspiritual process of an infusion of an alien nature" but by the spiritual process of mutual influence and love that calls forth love. If this seems less than the other, it is only because we have let our pride teach us to emphasise separateness as the fundamental characteristic of our personality, so that influence only shapes but does not constitute us; this we have seen to be false. I am mankind-England --my school-my family-focussed in a point of its own history. Mankind-" Adam "-has made me what I am. If similarly Christ makes me something else the participator in His own divine freedom 2— then indeed " there is a new creation; the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new." 3

1 Archbishop Temple.

2 Corinthians v. 17.

2 St. John viii. 36.

Thus in a most real sense Christ is not only a man; He is Man. In Dr. Moberly's phrase, “Christ is Man not generically but inclusively," just as He is "God not generically but identically." All the significance and destiny of the human race is summed up in Him. He is the Head of the Body. But this is by no mechanical identification; it is by a spiritual transformation, wrought out, as is the selfmanifestation of God in the Incarnation, through the process of time and the course of history.

CHAPTER IX

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHURCH

"The fellowship of the Holy Spirit.”—ST. PAUL.

In the midst of human history the Universal Spirit had appeared at a particular time and a particular place, had lived as Man a completely human life, had been rejected by His own creatures, had suffered and died, had risen in the body in which He suffered, and had signified by the enacted parable of the Ascension both His liberation from the limiting conditions characteristic of His earthly ministry and also the taking of Manhood, in His Person, into God.

Such an occurrence must be beyond all comparison the most important in history. Indeed, it may fairly be said that history, in its full meaning, dates from that event. Through all the ages God creates, for at all times the universe depends for its existence on His sustaining will; but if any division at all is to be drawn between a date or period of Creation and a period of History subsequent to Creation, it is best drawn, so far as this planet is concerned, at the Ascension and Pentecost, which are two phases of one thing, the taking of Manhood to the throne of God and the indwelling of God in the hearts of men. Creation and Redemption are, indeed, different; but they are different aspects of one spiritual fact, which is the activity of the Divine Will, manifesting itself in love through the Creation, and winning

from the Creation an answering love. The act whereby this purpose should be accomplished was complete at the Ascension; all human history from that time onwards is the process of eliciting man's answer. This is still the work of God, but that work is thenceforth within the souls of men rather than on the objective stage. There are still events and occurrences to come; but they come now by the working of causes already present rather than by any such introduction of a new causative force as we find in the Incarnation.

When the physical presence of the Lord was withdrawn at the Ascension, there remained on earth as fruit of His ministry no defined body of doctrine, no fully constituted society with declared aims and methods, but a group of men and women who had loved and trusted Him, and who by their love and trust and conviction of His Resurrection were united to one another. It was in this society that there came the experience of spiritual power, certainly a gift of God, and of inner compulsion to proclaim alike this gift of power and its source in the Life and Death and Resurrection of Jesus their Master. This society is a veritable Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. It is definable in terms of the Spirit; and the Spirit is definable in terms of it. To be a Christian is to confess Jesus as Lord, to have the Spirit, to be a member of the Church; it is all of these or any of them, for no distinction had arisen between them in experience, and none or scarcely any had yet been drawn in thought. Here, in the company of the personal disciples of Jesus, is found an activity of the Divine Spirit so plainly identical with the activity of the same Spirit in Jesus of Nazareth, that St. Paul, who, not having shared the initial training of the others, comes into the society from outside, finds it natural to speak of it as His body and of its constituent individuals as His limbs or members.