Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Look around on all creation, and you will find what metaphysicians have called the "monad," that is, the ultimate principle of unity, pervading all, but diversity its continual development, characteristic of all. The cloud takes its multifarious shapes from the wind, its varied splendours from the sunbeam, but its substance remains continually the same. The fable varies in the incident and the story, but the moral is essentially the same; the music has many variations, but the old air, the original air or melody may be detected like a chord in the midst of all these variations. Animal life,. from the humblest zoophyte up to man, the very perfection of physical life, presents every variety of organization, and yet its essential characteristics are the same in the dog, the cat, the horse, and the man. Human life, again, has general characteristics of unity, but you will find the utmost diversity of development. It is to me one of the most extraordinary and inexplicable and mysterious phenomena of the world, that while in this assembly there may be 1,000 or 1,100 faces, with the same characteristic features in all, yet not one is the least like any of the others. The principle of unity pervades the whole; each face has the great, essential, elemental characteristics of a face; yet no two faces, for reasons we cannot explain, are so alike that one might be mistaken for the other. If, again, we take spiritual intelligence, we shall find the same characteristic unity with the same developed variety. For instance, man seems to me to be the lowest link in spiritual intelligence. He is the basis where soul or spirit is united to matter; the next grade is the angel, the next the archangel, then the cherub, and after that the seraph. Here are ascending-grades or diversities in heaven itself, and yet the fundamental characteristics of spiritual life are the same. If, again, I refer to the botanical kingdom, I find that every plant, tree, and flower, have each certain essential and elemental characteristics, and yet the utmost possible variety of development. The fragrance of a violet is perfectly distinct from that of a rose; the colour of a dahlia is totally different from the colour of a daisy. One flower differs from another in its shape, fragrance, appearance, stem, calyx, leaves, and yet all flowers have certain elemental and essential characteristics which distinguish the whole botanical kingdom. If I refer to the mineral kingdom, I find that all minerals are originated and guided by the same law; but one throws off its crystals in the shape of hexagons, another in the shape of pentagons; that is to say, the great law of crystallization in the mineral kingdom is the same, but the development of that law is as varied as variety can possibly be. The snowdrop, the raindrop, the snowflake, the buds of trees, and the blossoms of flowers — all things in the botanical kingdom, all things in the mineral, all in the animal kingdom, and all in nature, have each their own essential elemental characteristic unity, and yet in their developments we find the utmost possible varieties of that unity. And so, I would argue, there may be in the Church, where, I cannot but think, uniformity would be a blemish rather than a beauty. (J. Cumming, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. |
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