ming the Word, the expressed Thought of God. And
this realisation is from within, a growing manifestation of God _in_
created things. And its climax was reached in the Incarnation when

4. The Word became flesh; the Thought of God perfectly embodied in our
humanity. And now this same progressive revelation of God is continuing
on the higher plane into which it was uplifted at the Incarnation. The
work of the Spirit is to form within the members of Christ's Body, that
Body which is constituted by His indwelling, the Mind and the Life of God
Incarnate. "He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you." So we
get

5. The work of the Spirit of Christ within the Church, extending the
Incarnation.

"He," writes St. Paul, "gave Him [Christ] as Head over all to the Church,
which is His Body, the fulness of Him Who at all points in all men is
being fulfilled."

The application of this to our present subject is as follows. The animal
life in us, and the Divine life in us, are both alike due to the
indwelling God, both alike are manifestations of His Presence. But they
are manifestations at two different levels of being. What follows?

The animal nature is good; the moral and spiritual nature is good. What
do we mean in this connexion by "good"? We mean, they are the results of
the action of Him Whose Will is essential goodness.

The peculiarity of human life is, however, the conflict between these two
elements of man's nature--the lower and the higher. Neither as yet,
_from the human standpoint_, is good or bad. Moral attributes belong
only to the will, which we may provisionally call the centre of man's
personality. For man is a personal being, and as such stands apart from
God.

God, Whose power brought man into being,
Stands as it were a handsbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly made to live,
And look at Him from a place apart,
And use His gifts of mind and heart.

Man alone can bring into existence the morally good or the morally bad.
And the materials of his choice are presented by the co-existence within
him of the lower and the higher. Sin is the choice by the will of the
lower, when that is felt to be in conflict with the higher. It is the
resolution, previous to any action, to satisfy the desires of the animal,
when these are known to contradict the dictates of the moral and
spiritual nature.

Here we pause to notice a point of great importance for clear thinking on
this