Consistently with this view, Weigel declares that here lies the significance of Christ's saying, "I am Bread"; "I am Meat and Drink." The only adequate Supper of the Lord, he says, is real feeding upon His spiritual, life-giving flesh and blood, so that Salvation is not tied to external sacraments, but stands only in the faith that Christ feeds us with Himself.[10] There are, he proceeds to show, two radically diverse natures, the traits and { 143} characteristics of which he arranges in opposing pairs, in two parallel columns as follows:
A. The Nature of Christ and B. The nature of Adam and of those who live in Him those who live by him, and by Him. _i.e._ those who live the natural, earthly life.
1. This Nature turns from 1. This nature turns from God creatures to God. to creatures.
2. This Nature hates itself and 2. This nature loves itself loves others. more than it loves God or others.
3. This Nature abhors all it 3. This nature delights only itself does or omits. in itself and in things of self.
4. This Nature seeks to lose 4. This nature seeks itself in self. everything.
5. This Nature denies self. 5. This nature cleaves to self.
6. This Nature patiently bears 6. This nature thrusts the the Cross. Cross away.
15. This Nature desires to be 15. This nature desires to be conformed to Christ and equal with God without His Cross in all things. any humility at all.[11]
Christ is thus for Weigel entirely a new order of Being--the Beginner of a new race. Adam had in himself all the possibilities which Christ realized, but the former failed and the latter succeeded and so has become the Head of a divine and heavenly type of humanity. By "a new nativity," a rebirth from above, any man in the world who wills it in living faith may be a recipient of the divine-principle, the Christ-Life, and may thereby be raised to membership in the Kingdom of the Christ-Humanity, which is as far above the Adam-Humanity as the flower is above the soil from which it first sprang. When Christ is formed within and the Humanity which He produces appears in the world, then a new way of living comes into operation. Love is the supreme "sign" of the new type or order. "The man who has the Christ-Life in him does not quarrel; he does not go to law for temporall goods; he does not kill; he lets his coat and cloke go rather than oppose another."[12] "If Christ were of the seed of Adam, He would have the { 144} nature and inclinations of Adam. He would hang thieves, behead adulterers, rack murderers with the wheel, kill hereticks, and put corporeally to death all manner of sinners; but now He is tender, kind, loving. He kills no one. The Lamb kills no woolf."[13] Weigel goes the whole bold way in his revolt from legalism, and he accepts the principle of love as a structural principle of the society which Christ is forming in the world: "Where the Life of Christ is, there is no warre made with corporall weapons." "The world wars but Christ doth not so. His warfare is spiritual." "He that maketh warre is no Christian but a woolf, ana belongs not to the sheepfold nor hath he anything to expect of the Kingdom of God, nor may the warrs of the Old Testament, of the time of darknesse serve his turne, for Christians deal not after a Mosaicall, earthly fashion, but they walke in the Life of Christ, without all revenge." "We walk no longer under Moses but under Christ."[14]