12
There is a third view of the matter; a view which while insisting indeed upon the moral appeal which Christianity makes; and insisting upon the vital necessity of faith in the Gospel facts; yet holds that both of these are aspects and outcomes of something else which is even more the differentia of Christianity than either of them. This something is living power, a power infused by supernatural gift, a power which qualifies, and informs, and transforms, the natural personality. This power is the Spirit of the Christ, which is the Spirit of God indwelling in man, and constituting him what, in the Spirit, he is capable of becoming. Belief in this Power is belief in God the Holy Ghost.
The sphere of this Power is corporate and social. The true meaning of the Church of Christ is the Spirit of Christ. The Body is before the individual, and the individual is through as well as within the Body. The normal methods of this Power are sacramental. No doubt the Church can become political and corrupt. Historically it has done so, on a large scale. But this does not touch the true meaning of the Church, which remains the Brotherhood of the Spirit. No doubt God can work outside either Church or Sacraments; and the Sacraments, like the Church, can be abused by the grossest superstitions and degraded by mechanical use. But abusus non tollit usum. The Church remains after all the Brotherhood of the Spirit; and the Sacraments remain the outward channels, by Divine appointment, of Spiritual Life.
Now according to this third view, it is the supernatural life, the life of power, the life which is the meaning of the Church, the life of which Sacraments (spiritually conceived and received) are the normal channels, the life which is the Spirit, and therefore is Christ; it is this, and this alone, which constitutes the possibility of true faith in the
