By Very Rev. THOMAS S. PRESTON, V.G.,
As the soul informs the body of man and gives it vitality, so the Holy Spirit, as a soul to the church, communicates to her the gift of life. In the first creation of our race "the Lord God formed the body of man of the slime of the earth" ; but though formed, he had no life, " until the Creator breathed into his face the breath of life"; "then he became a living soul." Genesis ii. 7. This life was in the union of a living principle with the body, and it was in its own order. The human soul gave a human life, and to the vitalized body communicated its own energies. The animal frame awoke with all the properties of the rational and immortal principle which animated it. The eternal Spirit, however, is in the divine order, and the life which flows from Him is that of God. The energies He communicates are those of the divine Being; and the body which He animates possesses a life far above that of earth. This is the necessity of His operation, who always works as God.
The life of the church may be seen in its birth, which is the new creation, in its indefectibility, and in its catholicity.
1. The Christian Fathers fail not to see in the creation of our mother Eve from the side of Adam the type of the formation of the church from the pierced breast of Jesus Christ. From Adam came forth, by the hand of God, the woman fully formed to be his bride and the mother of the human race. From second Adam on the cross came forth the blood and water which, through the agency of the Spirit, were to purify the fallen, and form a spouse for the Lamb. Thus the apostle draws the parallel between the bridegroom and the bride, and Christ and His church: "He is the head of the church, as the husband is the head of the wife " "This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and the church." The bride of Jesus Christ is, then, formed by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and derives her life from her spouse, the Word made flesh. The coming of the divine Spirit into the body prepared for Him was like the breathing of the living soul into our father Adam. By one spiration the man began to live; by the other the race, dead in sin, was quickened to immortality. The church, in its corporate life, takes upon itself personality, and becomes joined in nuptial union to the heavenly Bridegroom. The communication of the Holy Spirit is the new creation. The first creation produces only a human life ; the second takes hold of eternity. If such were not the fruit of the presence of God in the church, we could not believe in that presence; since it could not be found in death or without the communication of life. "The law of the Spirit of life delivers us from the law of sin and death. We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature, " "If any one be in Christ he is a new creature; the old things are passed away : behold, all things are made new."J "Christ is the Saviour of His body. No man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church." The life of the church appears in its divine character, from the fact that it is the life of His body; and the body of the Son of God must of necessity be living, even as Christ lives. Moreover, that any one be made the member of this body, he must be born again of water and the Holy Ghost. As we have already seen, regeneration by holy Baptism is the means of union with the body of Christ. "By one Spirit are we all baptized into Christ, and so into one body, where we all drink of one Spirit."
Where, then, the Holy Spirit dwells, where He works the grace of a new birth, and unites the members of the fallen Adam to the humanity of the Son of God, there must be true life, and the life of the Deity. In the communication of this life the Holy Ghost is the principal worker, and the water and the blood are applied by His power. The individual born again is passed from the corporate life of mere humanity to the new life of the body of the sanctified, who are made one in Christ, and nourished from His flesh and blood. This is the glory of the Christian Church, that it lives by the vitalizing energy of its soul, which is the Paraclete, proceeding eternally from the Father and the Son, and sent by both to complete the miracles of redemption.
