Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

410 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMconception of the relation thence arising betweenGod and man. And from this the triple range ofhuman duties, what man owes to his fellow-man,inasmuch as they are creatures of one God, whatthe individual man owes to the commonwealth, andthe commonwealth reciprocally to the individual man,and finally what each nation of these men owes toeach other nation.It was my purpose to show that the ChristianChurch in the exercise of purely supernatural functions,that is, in promulgating a belief in the mostBlessed Trinity, in the Incarnation, and in thedernption, by means of her teaching, her ritual, herhierarchy, her sacraments, and her Sacrifice, effectedlikewise a wonderful change in the natural order byestablishing both the belief and the practice of thesesix principles in the minds of men. It was furthermy purpose to show that Philosophy, which meansthe utmost effort of the unassisted human intelligence,the flower and fruit of Hellenic civilisation, had utterlyfailed to estabish these principles in the minds andpractice of men. It had gone astray as to the firstafter a god of forces, a god without morality andsanctity. As to the second, Philosophy had neveraccepted a continuous and abiding human personalityafter death, responsible for its actions in life, andsubject to an exact retribution. And as these twoconceptions are the conditions of the rest, it had equallyfailed to carry those others into effect.Further, from what I have said it will be apparentthat the effective promulgation of these principlessprung from the declaring and preaching the Personof our Lord as the God-man. They did not at allspring from any effect of race, or development of