power of the Godhead, and thus reconciling and bringing into perfect unity all things in Himself (i. 19, 22; ii. 9, 10).
The person of Christ is thus exhibited in two aspects, the cosmical and the theological, in its relations to the universe and to the Church. On the one hand, Christ is supreme in the creation and administration of the world (i. 15-17). “He is the beginning, middle, and end of creation.” On the other hand, Christ is supreme in the spiritual economy. “If the function of Christ is unique in the universe, so is it also in the Church.” In Him alone man is reconciled and united to God. In Him alone the individual children of God are com- pacted into one body, propelled and guided in their several ac- tivities, and each placed and held in due relation to the whole (i. 18, 22; ii. 10-15, 19).
In this rigorous insistence upon the person of Christ as alone solving the problem of God’s relation to the world, Paul strikes not only at the Colossian error, but also at the later error of Arius, whose Christ is of a different essence from God, His participation in the divine attributes partial, and His revelation therefore limited and imperfect. Arianism furnishes a prin- ciple of conduct, but not a basis of communion between the di- vine and the human. “The supernatural being whom Arius sets forth as a mediator between God and man, does not unite, but separates them, for He serves to reveal the infinite, impass- able gulf that lies between them.” *
Bishop Lightfoot most truthfully remarks: “ Christ’s media- torial function in the Church is represented as flowing from His mediatorial function in the world. With ourselves this idea has retired very much into the background. Though in the creed common to all the churches we profess our belief in Him as the Being through whom all things were created, yet in reality this confession seems to exercise very little influence on our thoughts. And the loss is serious. How much our theological conceptions suffer in breadth and fulness by the neglect, a moment’s reflection will show. How much more
* Alexander V. G. Allen, ‘‘The Continuity of Christian Thought.” See also Newman’s ‘“‘ Arians of the Fourth Century,” ch. ii., sec. v.