Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THK FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMh thos by th body A and in tw ill telf hat s, n an errng use th bertyhich made its dignity, lay th seat f all sn. OfRedempt hat the philosophy k andd know nothin and ke manner of Sanctifit Both were repugnant t pt f thhuman mind But these two ideas w he spring ofChristian ethics and of Christian p m mttd th le m der to the indiidal and tthe body politic.The difference in the cwf after life correspondedto the difference in the view of the nature of goodduring life. In the philosophy the mind freed frommatter returned to that from which it had beensevered. Individual identity was lost. The body,prison of the mind, was for ever dissolved. The mind,after a longer or shorter sojourn in some new prison,was absorbed again in the universal mind. Insteadof this shadowy dream of immortality the Churchtaught the everlasting union of the human personwith the Triune God, the Giver of that personalitywhich is the highest completion of the creature'sbeing. But in this union the personal being wasfor ever maintained by the preservation of identityin the whole man, body and soul. As truly as in thisworld each man had been " the individual substanceof a rational nature," so in that world in which manwould find his true end the full man and the sameman should exult in the glory of body and soul underthe divine light of a vision unfolding to him thedivine essence. If to be a person, enjoying free-will,is the natural dignity bestowed upon man by God increating him, so, when he attained his true end, hewas not to lose that dignity, but retain it ineffably