38 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



that divine grace might have acted prior to 

 thought and will so as to suppress all hostile ele- 

 ments to a perfect moral and religious develop- 

 ment; yet as a supernatural mode of birth is 

 ascribed to Him in records, the witness of which 

 to His words and works secures our credit and 

 commands our respect, it is not a vain imagina- 

 tion, but a good reason to connect these charac- 

 teristics of His personality with this unique fea- 

 ture of His birth." The drift of the thought of 

 this writer is easily seen: Jesus was sinless, be- 

 cause He was procreated in a unique way. But 

 it remains to ask, Did Mary transmit to Jesus 

 real human nature? If not, what is to be our es- 

 timate of the Incarnation fact? If she did, what 

 has this unique birth to do with the fact of His 

 sinlessness, if we assume, as does this author 

 above, that all real human beings are sinful? 

 Would it not be more to the point if we should 

 account for His sinlessness from the birth of His 

 spirit? (Our own view of the distinction of the 

 birth of the spirit from that of the body is set 

 forth in a later chapter, Vid. chapter III. It is 

 only necessary here to suggest that it is not iden- 

 tical with the fleshly birth.) Garvie makes a 

 strong reply to himself when he says : " It seems 

 to the writer unfortunate that the term virgin 

 birth throws so great emphasis on the absence of 

 the paternal function, as though the maternal 

 function under normal conditions were not as 

 liable to be the channel of hereditary taint, or as 



