CLAUSE XIII
The guidance exercised by the Divine Spirit, by which we are completely surrounded, is not of the nature of compulsion; it is only a leading and helping influence, which we are able to resist if we choose.
The problem of manufacturing free creatures with a will of their own, to be led, not forced, into right action, is a problem of a different nature from any of those that have ever appealed to human power and knowledge. What we are accustomed to make is mechanism, of various kinds; and the essential difficulty of the higher problem is so obscure to us that some impatient and unimaginative persons cry out against its slowness, and wonder that everything is not compulsorily made perfect at once. But we can see that the kind of perfection thus easily attainable would be of an utterly inferior kind.
It is to be supposed that incarnation, or a connexion between consciousness and material mechanism, is auxiliary to the difficult process of evolution of free beings, thus indicated; and it is probable that matter is thus an instrument of lofty spiritual purpose. Some religious systems have failed to perceive this, and have depreciated matter and flesh as intrinsically evil.
One important feature of Christianity is that it recognises as good the connexion between spirit and matter, and emphasises the importance of both, when properly regarded. It is not mystical and spiritual alone, nor is it material alone; but it tends to unify these two extremes, and to place in due position both soul and body: the material being utilised to make manifest the spiritual, and being dominated by it.
The whole idea of the Incarnation, as well as some of the miracles and the sacraments, are expressive of this wide and comprehensive character of the Christian religion.
It recognises the wonder and beauty of the animal body, destined to be the scene of extraordinary spiritual triumphs in the long course of time; and it teaches
“That none but Gods could build this house of ours,
So beautiful, vast, various, so beyond