ould
reason so upon the perfectness of the atoning merits as to disclaim the
need of seeking with all his soul a personal conformity to the Lord of
the Atonement. Such a man would conceivably affirm for himself an
experience of intense spiritual insight, a communion with God profound
and direct, an exaltation into a celestial atmosphere of consciousness;
while yet, and on his own avowed theory, he was living a life in which
sin was allowed to reign in his mortal body, What did it matter? The
spirit soared and expatiated in a higher region. The true man lived in
the world above, "commercing with the skies"; it was but the body, soon
to perish, which went its own way, and might be allowed to do so, for
it could never be other than the uncongenial burthen of the real man.

Such theories, as all are aware, were largely developed and widely
spread in the sub-apostolic age. The word Gnosticism, so familiar to
the reader of the early history of thought in and around the Church,
reminds us of this; for while many Gnostics were severe ascetics,
others were practical libertines; and the divergent practices sprang
from one deep source of error, dishonour of the body. To both schools,
spirit was good, matter was evil. By both therefore the body was
viewed not as a subject of redemption, but as a barrier in its way.
The one aimed to wear out the barrier, to help it to disappear. The
others left it, as they thought, alone; leapt, as they thought, over
it; as if they could pursue a spiritual life which should be
irrespective of the body's hopeless evils.

The embryo, at least, of this latter type of thought was beyond doubt
apparent in St Paul's day, and had begun to be felt at Philippi.
There, in that loving and beloved community, the plague had begun, or
at least the infection was imminent. "Many walked" (perhaps not
actually at Philippi yet, but they might soon come) in the foul broad
road which they asserted to be clean and narrow. Very probably they
used the terms of the Pauline Gospel, and said much of grace, and
faith, and the Spirit, and the things above. But none the less they
were the victims of an awful self-delusion; teachers whose doctrine led
downwards to the pit. To them he comes at length, explicitly and
finally. In view of them he places before the Philippians once more
the fact of his own and his brethren's examples, and then the
sanctifying power of that blessed hope, the Redemption of the Body.

Ve