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Patterns of the obedience which we should yield to Jesus Christ, the members hesitate not to obey the head, even to their own loss and painful suffering. Take the hand, for instance. Archbishop Cranmer stands chained to the stake. The fagots are lighted. With forked tongues the flames rise through the smoke that opens, as the wind blows it aside, to show that great old man standing up firm in the fiery trial. Like a true penitent, he resolves that the hand which had signed his base recantation shall burn first; and how bravely it abides the flame! In obedience to the head, the hand lays itself down to suffer amputation; in obedience to the head, it flings away the napkin, sign for the drop to fall; in obedience to the head, as was foreseen by some of our fathers when they attached their names to the League and Covenant, it firmly signed the bond that sealed their fate, and doomed them to a martyr's grave. Let the head forgive, and the hand at once opens to grasp an enemy's, in pledge of quarrel buried and estrangement gone. Would to God that Jesus Christ had such authority over us! Make us, O Lord, thy willing subjects in the day of Thy power! Ascend the throne of our hearts! Prince of Peace! take unto Thee thy great power, and reign! The one body: — Now let us, for a few moments, observe what the head does in the natural body, and then see what that spiritual Head does for His mystical body.

1. The head directs. The ends of all the nerves are gathered within that wonderful arch, the skull, which might be called the electric telegraph room of the body, communicating instantly by thought, through those fine white wires the nerves, with every part, and the most distant extremity of the body. If the Christian acts rightly, it is Christ who directs him: He "of God is made unto us wisdom"; and the Christian, feeling his ignorance, and asking for wisdom, according to the promise, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God," is generally guided into all moral and saving truth.

2. The head nourishes. If the nerves are once severed, all below the part severed becomes dead, for the communication is stopped between the head and the members; and if the communication were once stopped between Christ and a member, that member would instantly become paralyzed, or die. As it is in the natural body, the limb withers, the flesh shrinks, the muscles collapse, and the man becomes a mass of bones and shrunken sinew; as I have myself for a long time visited one who was dead from the head downwards, from some such accident as this — whose hands were tied over his body, perfectly lifeless, perfectly motionless. So, if the communication only be imperfect, though not stopped, nutrition and growth are immediately impeded; the heart begins to palpitate, so that disease might be supposed to exist there; and if the leading nerves do not work, if the nervous energy be impaired, the health of the member at once becomes weakness. Christ is the Head of the body; and all the spiritual nourishment which that body receives is as directly received through its union with the Head, as the nourishment of the body is through its union with the natural head.

3. The head unites. My hand and my wrist are next door neighbours; but, near as they are, it is only through the head that they sympathize. Were the nerves separated, they would have just as much sympathy as two corpses laid in the same room. If my hand holds communion with the wrist, it is through the union of both with the head. As one hand holds communion with the other at the opposite quarter of the body, so does the nearest member, as well as the farthest. And so it is with Christians. The nearest believers are united, not by neighbourhood — for we know in this monstrous city that men may live next door to one another, and know nothing whatever of each other, and care less — but by union with Christ, the Head, the members sympathize with the nearest, as well as with the farthest, because they are both one in Christ.

4. The growth of the body depends on the health of every part; and it is this which the apostle directs our attention to, where he says, "According to the effectual working in the measure of every part"; and in this way it is that the body "maketh increase to the edifying of itself." A healthy body is that in which each part is healthy. No part can be disordered in the natural body, without affecting the whole, more or less. The festered little finger will make "the whole head sick, and the whole heart faint," will communicate throbs through the whole body to the brain, spread inflammation, break up sleep, take away appetite, impair digestion, bring on the flushing of fever, or the paleness of atrophy in the cheek. Growth is the result of every part of the body doing its work. Not only is the daily waste made up, and the daily loss repaired, but the body is increased by the addition of fresh particles. The food we take is incorporated, and becomes part of our wonderful body: the salts, the alkalis, the different elements in food, are all carried by the arteries and veins to the different parts, and the stream of life lands and deposits each cargo of supplies at the wharfs along the shore. The very bulb at the root of the hair is fed, and without that nourishment it would not grow. Now, this supply cannot be carried on except the head is united to the members; but it is by each joint of the body receiving its supply, and doing its work, that the body grows. The supply is received in order that the work may be done; and as the work could not be done except the supply were received, so neither will the supply be given if the work is not done. All parts have not, indeed, the same office in the natural body, but all have their own; each part has its own particular work; and the body will be healthy or not in proportion as each part does its own work. No part of the body is idle. The hand, indeed, does not support the body, like the foot; but it supplies the food, and helps it in many ways. The eye does not feed the body, like the hand; but it enables the hand to do so better. The little hidden arteries, that creep along those wonderful hollows, and valleys, and trenches in the bones, and through the skin and the flesh, cannot be seen like the veins; but they are all at work, conveying the stream of life safely and carefully along. No part is idle; each is at work; and it is by each doing its work that the body grows. "The whole body," says the apostle, "fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint" supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body. So is it in Christ's body the Church. Every member has its work to do — its own place in the mystical body, and its own work in that place. Now, this work is not only the work of the minister of the gospel — not the work purely of the bishop, or the elder, or the deacon. How fearful would be the witness against the nominal Christian, if this were the testimony of a servant! Now, it is by each member bearing this in mind, and endeavouring to act out his part, that the Church spreads, and grows, and acts on the world. Think, beloved brethren, what would be the effect on the world at large, if all those only who met together in this house of God every Sabbath day went forth with Christian consistency of conduct, and simplicity of motive and dependence, to exhibit the example of their Redeemer in the world on the weekdays. Think, if every part did its work with energy, what that work would be.

(W. W. Champneys, M. A.)

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KJV: But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

WEB: but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ;