eousness and holiness of truth.

There is one phrase in this passage which may need some further
comment--'The life of God.' Into God's own eternal life, as He lives
it in Himself, we are given but glimpses. But God is also living in
the world as its inherent life, and each form of creation participates
in its measure, even if unconsciously, in the life {183} of God.
Consciously and intelligently man was intended to participate in it,
but he 'alienated' himself from it by sin; and, while he was physically
sustained in life by God, morally and mentally he was an exile. But
Christ embodies the divine life anew in human form, and by His Spirit
imparts it as a new life to men. Once more in Christ men live both 'in
God' and 'according to God.'

This thought of our relation to the life of God is, in part, expressed
in the Latin original of the Collect for the ninth Sunday after
Trinity, in which we pray 'that we who cannot exist without Thee, may
be enabled to live according to Thee.'

[1] 2 Pet. iii. 16.

[2] Rom. vi. 1 ff.

[3] 'To work all uncleanness.' Marg. 'to make a trade of.'

[4] Rom. vi. 17.

[5] Eph. iv. 24, R. V. Marg. 'the new man which is after God, created,'
&c.

{184}

DIVISION II. Sec. 2. CHAPTER IV. 25-32.

_The new life a corporate life._

[Sidenote: _Corporate duties_]

The first characteristic of the new life dwelt upon is its corporate
character, as a life lived by those who are 'members one of another,'
and have therefore a common aim. In a body of people working with a
common aim there may be a healthy rivalry and competition in doing good
work, a manifold spirit of initiation and inventiveness, and there may
be rewards of labour, proportioned not merely to needs but to these
personal excellences. But what there cannot be is a competition which
runs to the point of mutual destructiveness, or such accumulation of
the fruits of skill and labour in a few hands as maims or starves the
life of the majority. The common interest prevents this. 'The members
must have the same care one of another,' so that 'when one member
suffers all the members suffer with it[1].' The life is the life {185}
of a body, and the general well-being is therefore the common interest
of all the members, for the weakening or decay of one is the weakening
and decay of a more or less valuable part of a connected life. This is
the general principle on which the Church is based. This is the moral