The rest of the sentence, following the comma that we place at “knit together,” has its parallel in Colossians ii. 19: “All the body, through its junctures and bands being supplied and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.” According to St Paul’s physiology, the “bands” knit the body together, but the “junctures” are its means of supply. Each point of contact is a means of nourishment to the frame. In touch with each other, Christians communicate the life flowing from the common Head. The apostle would make _Christian intercourse a universal means of grace_. No two Christian men should meet anywhere, upon any business, without themselves and the whole Church being the better for it. “Wherever two or three are met together in my name,” said Jesus, “there am I in the midst.” In the multitude of these obscure and humble meetings of brethren who love each other for Christ’s sake, is the grace supplied, the love diffused abroad, by which the Church lives and thrives. The vitality of the Church of Christ does not depend so much upon the large and visible features of its construction--upon Synods and Conferences, upon Bishops and Presbyteries and the like, influential and venerable as these authorities may be; but upon the spiritual intercourse that goes on amongst the body of its people. “Each several part” of Christ’s great body, “according to the measure” of its capacity, is required to receive and to transmit the common grace. However defective in other points of organization, the society in which this takes place fulfils the office of an ecclesiastical body. It will grow into the fulness of Christ; it “builds up itself in love.” The primary condition of Church health and progress is that there shall be an unobstructed flow of the life of grace from point to point through the tissues and substance of the entire frame. FOOTNOTES: [105] Εἰς ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον (_homo_), ch. ii. 15; similarly in iv. 22, 24; Rom. vi. 6; 1 Cor. xv. 45, 47, etc. Here εἰς ἄνδρα τέλειον (_vir_); comp. 1 Cor. xiii. 11; James iii. 2. To call the Church ἀνήρ would be highly incongruous, in view of ch. v. 23, etc.; comp. 2 Cor. xi. 2. [106] Col. i. 22, 28, 29; 2 Tim. ii. 10. [107] For this association of metaphor, comp. Shakespeare: _Julius Cæsar_, Act V., Scene 1:-- “Blow, wind; swell, billow; and swim, bark! The storm is up; and all is on the hazard!” [108] Vulgate: _per omnem juncturam ministrationis_. St Paul’s word here is διὰ πάσης ἁφῆς, _through every touching_. See Lightfoot’s valuable note on the medical and philosophical use of the word by Greek authors, in his Commentary on Colossians (ii. 19). [109] Comp. ch. i. 13: “in whom you also [Gentiles, along with us Jews] found hope”; also Rom. iii. 29, 30; Tit. i. 4, “my true child according to _a common faith_.” [110] See the connexion of thought in Col. ii. 8-10, 18, 19. [111] Compare 1 Cor. ii. 6, iii. 1-3, xiv. 20, xvi. 13; Gal. iv. 19; Heb. v. 11-14. ON CHRISTIAN MORALS.