• A building sets forth the unity of the builder's design.


• A flock, unity of the shepherd's possession.


• The title of citizen implies unity of privilege.


• The idea of an army displays unity of object and pursuit.

• The same Father, and thus unity of relationship.


• The same life, and so unity of nature.


• The same mutual love growing out of nature and relations.


• The same desires, interests, joys, and cares.


• The same home for abode, security, and enjoyment.


• The same inheritance to be soon possessed.

• Sinning and repenting, not yet made perfect.


• Suffering and despised, strangers and foreigners among men.


• Dying and groaning, because yet in the body.

• Serving and rejoicing. Sinless and free from all infirmity.


• Honoring God and honored by him.


• Free from sighing and engrossed in singing.

• The same occupations. It is our meat and drink to serve the Lord, to bless the brotherhood, and to win souls.


• The same delights: communion, assurance, and expectation.


• The same love from the Father.


• The same justification and acceptance with our God.


• The same rights to the throne of grace, angelic ministration, divine provision, and spiritual illumination.


• The same anticipation's: growth in grace, perseverance to the end, and glory at the end.

The Scripture knows but two places for the receipt of all believers, either heaven or earth. So when the apostle will tell us where all they were who were gathered under Christ as their Head and Redeemer, he arranges them in these orders,"things in heaven, and things in earth" (Eph. 1:10); the apostle forgot limbo there, and purgatory here. As the Scripture doth know but two sorts of saints, so but two places, heaven for the triumphant, earth for the militant. — Paul Bayne

"The whole family in heaven and earth," not the two families, nor the divided family, but the whole family in heaven and earth. It appears, at first sight, as if we were very effectually divided by the hand of death. Can it be that we are one family when some of us labor on, and others sleep beneath the greensward? There was a great truth in the sentence which Wordsworth put into the mouth of the little child, when she said, "O master, we are seven."

Should we not thus speak of the divine family? for death assuredly has no separating power in the household of God. — C. H. S.

"When I was a boy;' says one, "I thought of heaven as a great shining city, with vast walls and domes and spires, and with nobody in it except white tenuous angels, who were strangers to me. By-and by my little brother died; and I thought of a great city with walls and domes and spires, and a flock of cold unknown angels, and one little fellow that I was acquainted with; he was the only one I knew in that time. Then another brother died, and there were two that I knew. Then my acquaintances began to die, and the flock continually grew. But it was not till I had sent one of my little children to his Grandparent — God — that I began to think I had got a little in myself. A second went, a third went, a fourth went; and by that time I had so many acquaintances in heaven that I did not see any more walls and domes and spires. I began to think of the residents of the celestial city. And now there have so many of my acquaintance gone there, that it sometimes seems to me that I know more in heaven than I do on earth." — Handbook of Illustration

Stein, a great German statesman and head of the Prussian government in 1807, wrote in 1812 to Count Munster, "I am sorry your excellency suspects a Prussian in me, and betrays a Hanoverian in yourself. I have but one Fatherland, and that is Germany; and as under the old constitution I belonged to Germany alone, and not to any part of Germany, so to Germany alone, and not to any part of it, I am devoted with my whole heart."

Thomas Brooks mentions a woman who lived near Lewes, in Sussex, who was ill, and therefore was visited by one of her neighbors, who to cheer her, told her that if she died she would go to heaven, and be with God, and Jesus Christ, and the saints and angels. To this the sick woman in all simplicity replied, "Ah, mistress, I have no relations there! Nay, not so much as a gossip, or acquaintance; and as I know nobody, I had a great deal sooner stop with you and the other neighbors, than go and live among strangers." It is to be feared that if a good many were to speak their thoughts they would say much the same.

• "Your inner man." Understanding, faith, hope, love — all need power from a divine source.


• "Strengthened." Made vigorous, active, healthy, capacious.


• "With might." No low degree of force will suffice.


• "By his Spirit." The power required is spiritual, holy, heavenly, divine, actually imparted by the Holy Ghost.

• "In your hearts." Love must learn to measure Christ's love. It is revealed to the heart rather than to the head.


• "By faith." A carnal man measures by sight, a saint by faith.


• "May dwell." He must be ever near that we may learn to measure him. Communion is the basis of this knowledge.

• We must love him ourselves if we would measure Christ's love.


• We must, by experience of his love, be confirmed in our own love to him, or we cannot measure his love.


• We must also have a vital grip of Christ. We must be rooted as a tree, which takes many a hold upon the soil.


• We must settle down on his love as our foundation on which we are grounded, as a building.


• We must also show fixedness, certainty, and perseverance in our character, belief, and aim; for thus only shall we learn.

• Comprehending all nations: "Preach the gospel to every creature."


• Covering hosts of iniquities: "all manner of sin."


• Compassing all needs and cares.


• Conferring boundless boons for this life and worlds to come.

• Eternal love in the fountain: election and the covenant.


• Ceaseless love in the flow: redemption, calling, perseverance.


• Endlessless love in endurance: longsuffering, forgiveness, faithfulness, patience, immutability.


• Boundless love, in length exceeding our length of sin, suffering, backsliding, age, or temptation.

• Stoop of divine love, condescending to consider us, to commune with us, to receive us in love, to bear with our faults, and to take us up from our low estate.

• He stoops and becomes incarnate, endures our sorrows, bears our sins, and suffers our shame and death.

• As developed in present privilege, as one with Jesus.


• As to be revealed in future glory.


• As never to be fully comprehended throughout the ages.

• Be filled. What great things man can hold!


• Filled with God. What exaltation!


• Filled with the fullness of God. What must this be?


• Filled with all the fullness of God. What more can be imagined?

In the gospel history, we find that Christ had a fourfold entertainment amongst the sons of men: some received him into house, not into heart as Simon the Pharisee who gave him no kiss nor water to his feet; some into heart, but not into house, as Nicodemus and others; some neither into heart nor house, as the graceless, swinish Gergesenes; some both into house and heart, as Lazarus, Mary, Martha. And thus let all good Christians do: endeavor that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith, that their bodies may be fit temples of his Holy Spirit, that now in this life, whilst Christ stands at the door of their hearts, knocking for admission, they will lift up the latch of their souls, and let him in; for if ever they expect to enter into the gates of the city of God hereafter, they must open their hearts, the gates of their own city, to him here in this world. — John Spencer

The more we know, the more are we conscious of our ignorance of that which is unknown, or, as Dr. Chalmers used to put it in his class, borrowing an illustration from his favorite mathematics, "The wider the diameter of light, the greater is the circumference of darkness." The more a man knows, he comes at more points into contact with the unknown.

A gentleman passing a church with Daniel Webster, asked him, "How can you reconcile the doctrine of the Trinity with reason?" The statesman replied by asking, "Do you understand the arithmetic of heaven?"

We shall not attempt full or even accurate exposition of the original, but dwell on the figure of the English text, undoubtedly a scriptural one, and full of profitable instruction.

The most careful self-watch will not be a selfish measure, but a sanitary duty involved by our relationship to the rest.

There is great fitness in the figure of the head and the members. The head is: (1) The highest part of the body, the most exalted. (2) The most sensitive part, the seat of nerve and sensation, of pleasure and pain. (3) The most honorable part, the glory of man, the part of man's body that receives the blessing, wears the crown, and is anointed with the oil of joy and of consecration. (4) The most exposed part, especially assailed in battle, and liable to be injured, and where injury would be most dangerous. (5) The most expressive part, the seat of expression, whether in the smile of approval, the frown of displeasure, the tear of sympathy, the look of love. — G. S. Bowes

Everyone knows that it would be far better to lose our feet than our head. Adam had feet to stand with, but we have lost them by his disobedience: yet, glory be to God, we have found a Head, in whom we abide eternally secure, a Head which we shall never lose. — "Feathers for Arrows"

The moment I make of myself and Christ two, I am all wrong. But when I see that we are one, all is rest and peace. — Luther

What a happy condition the Church and members of Christ are in! (1) Interested in the same love as the Head. (2) Under the same decree of election with the Head. (3) Allied to the same relations, interested in the same riches, and assured by membership of the same life and immortality in the world to come: "Because I live, ye shall live also)' — Benjamin Keach

Of all the symbols, which set forth Christ's church, I prefer this. Bringing out, as well as any other, our relationship to Christ, and better than any other our relationship to each other, it teaches us lessons of love, and charity, and tender sympathy. When bill-hook or pruning-knife lops a branch from the tree, the stem bends; it seems for a while to drop some tears, but they are soon dried up; and the other boughs suffer no pain, show no sympathy — their leaves dancing merrily in the wind over the poor dead branch that lies withering below. But a tender sympathy pervades the body and its members. Touch my finger roughly, and the whole body feels it; wound this foot, and thrilling through my frame, the pang shoots upward to the head; let the heart, or even a tooth, ache, and all the system suffers disorder. With what care is a diseased member touched! What anxious efforts do we make to save a limb! With what slow reluctance does a patient, after long months or years of suffering, consent to the last remedy, the surgeon's knife! Many holy lessons of love, charity, and sympathy, our Lord teaches by this figure. — Dr. Guthrie

We must work in concert. Stress is laid on this in Scripture, as may be seen from such expressions as these: "if two of you shall agree," "fellow-helpers to the truth," "with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel)' It is as with the human hand. Take one of the fingers, the forefinger, for example; it can do many things by itself separately. I lay it on my pulse, to know how my heart beats; I turn over the leaf of a book with it; I use it to point a stranger the way; I place it on my lips to signify silence; I single out the individual to whom I would say, "Thou art the man"; I shake it in warning or remonstrance. But the hand can do, not five times as much as a single finger, not fifty times as much, not five hundred times as much, but five thousand times — and more. So with Christian churches; there must not merely be individual effort, but combined and united effort, on the New Testament principle, "As every man hath received the gift, even so let him minister." — Dr. Culross