pletion of humanity. Christ is the true ideal man." " The incarnation was no mere theophany ; no transient wonder ; no
illusion exhibited to the senses The Word became flesh ;
not a single man only, as one among many ; but * flesh,' or hu- manity in its universal conception. How else could He be the principle of a general life, the origin of a new order of existence for the human world as such ? How else could the value of his mediatorial work be made over to us in a real way, by a true imputation, and not a legal fiction only ? " 1 " Christianity is a life, not only as revealed at first in Christ, but as continued also in the Church. It flows over from Christ to his people, always in this form. They do not simply bear his name and acknowl- edge his doctrine. They are so united to Him as to have part in the substance of his life itself." 2 He had before said,3 that " by the hypostatical union of the two natures in the person of Jesus Christ, our humanity as fallen in Adam was exalted again to a new and imperishable divine life." " The object of the incarnation was to couple the human nature in real union with the Logos, as a permanent source of life." Again,4 "the new life of which Christ is the source and organic principle, is in all respects a true human life ; . . . . not a new humanity, wholly dissevered from that of Adam ; but the humanity of Adam itself, only raised to a higher character, and filled with new meaning
and power, by its union with the divine nature Christ's
life, as now described, rests not in his separate person, but passes over to his people ; thus constituting the Church, which is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." " Christ com- municates his own life substantially to the soul on which He acts, causing it to grow into his very nature. This is the mystical union ; the basis of our whole salvation ; the only medium by which it is possible for us to have an interest in the grace of Christ under any other view." 6 With his substance, his life, his divine-human nature thus communicated to the soul come his merit, his holiness, his power, his glory. These are predi- cates of the nature which becomes ours, constituting our personal life and character. Even the resurrection is to be effected, not by the power of Christ operating " ab extra," as when He raised Lazarus from the dead, but by " a new divine element, intro- duced into our nature by the incarnation." 6
i Mystical Pretence, Philadelphia, 1846, pp. 210, 211. 2 Ibid. p. 218.
* Ibid. p. 165. * Ibid. p. 167. * Ibid. p. 168. « Ibid. p. 226.
204 PART HI. Ch. XVII. — JUSTIFICATION.
Objections to these Theories.
In opposition to these views it may be said very briefly in the way of recapitulation of what has been more fully said in the chapters above referred to, —
1. That this is a philosophy. The scheme has its entire basis in a philosophical theory as to the nature of man and his relation to God. This is undeniable, and is hardly denied. Dr. Nevin states three "scientific principles, " ignorance of which led the Reformers to a misapprehension and imperfect representation of Christianity, and the recognition of which and of their applica- tion to theology, enables the modern theologian to set forth the nature and plan of salvation in a much more satisfactory light. Those principles are, (1.) The true import of organic law. The Reformers did not make a clear distinction, he says, " between the idea of the organic law which, constitutes the proper iden- tity of a human body, and the material volume it is found to embrace as exhibited to the senses." There may be, therefore, a real communication of Christ and even of his body to his peo- ple without a communication of his flesh. (2.) The absolute unity involved in personality. In the case of Christ, body, soul, and divinity are united in " a single indivisible life," so that where the one is, all are. To communicate Christ to the soul is therefore to communicate that indivisible life, including in it as an organizing, organic principle, body, soul, and divinity. (3.) The distinction between individual and generic life. " In every sphere of life," it is said, u the individual and the general are found closely united in the same subject." The acorn, in one view, is only a single existence ; but it includes the force of a life capable of reaching far beyond itself. The life of a forest of oaks is only the expansion of the life of the original acorn, " and the whole general existence thus produced is bound together, in- wardly and organically, by as true and close a unity as that which holds in any of the single existences embraced in it, sepa- rately considered." Thus also Adam, in one view, was a man ; in another, he was the man. A whole world of separate person- alities lay involved in his life, as a generic principle or root. M Adam lives in his posterity as truly as he has ever lived in his own person." In like manner, although in a higher form, the life of Christ is to be viewed under the same twofold aspect. In one view the Saviour was a man ; but in another, He was the man, " the Son of man, in whose person stood revealed the true