to believe in
the unity of humanity in any real sense at all is a great act of faith.
But it is an act of faith in which science encourages us, and not least
the comparative study of religions. Our religious instincts and
faculties are found in very different degrees of development, but they
are fundamentally the same. And it is an act of faith to which Christ
and Christianity fundamentally commit us, though it is probably true to
say that since New Testament times the brotherhood of men has been
practically found to be the most difficult of Christian dogmas.

4. It is not inopportune, in view of recent controversy, to call
attention in this connexion to the fact that St. Paul's doctrine of
Christ as the second Adam of necessity involves in some form His
miraculous birth. St. Paul indeed says nothing about Christ's nativity
of {201} the Virgin as an event in history; but he conceives of the
Christ as a fresh start in manhood, a new man, who yet drew the
substance of His manhood from the old stock, for He was 'born of a
woman,' and 'of the seed of David.' There is thus physical continuity
between the old Adam and Christ, and yet, from the moral point of view,
the break is complete. The inheritance of sin which has followed, and
must according to natural law follow, physical descent, is quite cut
off. Christ is man of our old substance and yet new man, wholly free
from any taint of sin. This involves a new creative act upon the
manhood of Christ in its source. It involves something strictly
miraculous conditioning the continuity of His descent from David.
There is continuity, and yet a break in continuity. And this is
exactly what the strongly-attested fact of the Virgin birth--whatever
be the physiological account which is to be given of it--is calculated
to supply. It presents us with a Christ born of a woman, of the
substance of our nature, and yet only so constituted by a new creative
act of God.

5. It will of course be noticed that the drift of St. Paul's argument
in this passage is directly towards universal salvation, for 'the many'
{202} means 'the whole mass.' This is the case in other places where
he is considering what we may call the natural tendency and scope of
the gospel, 'As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive.' But there are passages of a different tendency in St. Paul's
epistles, where he is considering the human attitude towards the
purpose of God; and there he ap