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1. The early Church, like the latter, seems to have been deformed by many dissensions. Those who had the least conspicuous endowments envied those who had the more, in place of using such gifts as they had. In order to show the unreasonableness and the evil of this state of things, St. Paul often drew his illustrations from the human body, the parts of which had different offices; but no part of which could be dispensed with without injury to all the rest. So the Church was composed of many members, some of which were, comparatively, without honour, but none were without use; each had functions essential to the general well-being.

2. Observe what close links there are between the several classes in the community, and how the breaking of any one would dislocate the whole social system. "The king himself is served by the field." The throne is connected with the soil; and the proud occupant of the one is dependent on the tiller of the other. When you look on a community like our own, with its nobles, merchants, teachers, men of science, artificers, you may perhaps think little of the peasantry. But were the peasantry to cease from their labours, there would be an immediate arrest on the pursuits of the community, and, from the throne downward, society would be panic-stricken. There, can, therefore, be no more pitiable spectacle than that of a haughty individual, who looks superciliously on those who occupy stations inferior to his own. And it would be a just method of rebuking his arrogance to require him to trace the production and progress of all that wealth or rank which ministers to his pride, till he finds it originate in the bone and muscle of these objects of his scorn.

3. "That the poor shall never cease out of the land," is one of those wise and benevolent arrangements of Providence which so eminently distinguish the moral government of this world. One of the most fatal and common tendencies of our nature is to selfishness — the forgetting others, and the caring only for ourselves. And who can fail to see that the having amongst us objects which continually appeal to our compassion is wonderfully adapted for counteracting that tendency. It may be perfectly true that the indigent cannot do without the benevolent; but it is equally true that the benevolent cannot do without the indigent; and whenever you give ear to a tale of distress, and you contribute according to your ability to the relief of the suppliant, you are receiving as well as conferring a benefit. The afflicted being whom you succour, keeps, by his appeal, the charities of your nature from growing stagnant, and thus may be said to requite the obligation.

4. Observe how applicable is the principle of our text to the several classes of society. Of what avail would be the skill and courage of the general who had no troops to obey his command? what the ingenuity of the mechanic if there were no labourers to make use of his invention? what the wisdom of the legislator if there were no functionaries to carry his measures into force? In these and a thousand instances, the hand and the foot would be but of little use unless they were directed by the eye and the head; and the eye and the head would themselves be of little use if they were not connected with the hand and the foot. So true is it that we are "every one members, one of another."

5. Turn to the Church, a community knit together by spiritual ties. And here the interests of the various classes are so interwoven that it can only be through wilful ignorance that any suppose themselves independent of the others. It may be true that ministers may be likened, in the importance of their office, to the more important parts of body, to the eye or the head; but in prosecuting their honourable and difficult employment, they are dependent on the very lowest of their people. Recur to what we said about the humanising power of the appointed admixture of the poor with the rich. If the actual presence of suffering be the great antagonist to selfishness, then the poor of his flock must be the clergyman's best auxiliaries, seeing that they help to keep the rest from that moral hardness which would make them impervious to his most earnest remonstrances. You are to add to this that there is a worth in the prayers of the very meanest of Christians impossible to overrate. A rich man may feel attachment to his minister; and he has a thousand ways in which he may give vent to his feelings. But the poor man has little to offer but prayer, and therefore will he throw all the vehemence of his gratefulness into unwearied petitions for blessings on his benefactor.

6. On this great principle we uphold the dignity of the poor man, and the beneficial influence which he exerts in the world. Poverty will never degrade a man — nothing but vice can do that; poverty will never disable a man from usefulness, seeing that it cannot change his office in the body, and there is no office but what is material to the general health and strength. Why, then, are not our honest and hardworking poor to lift up their heads in the midst of society, in all the consciousness of having an important part to perform, and in all the satisfaction of feeling that they perform it faithfully and effectually?

7. We are "every one members, one of another"; and forasmuch as no man ever hated his own flesh, let it be seen that we are all animated with the spirit of charity. It is with reference to this principle that we are to be tried at the last. If we are all members of one body, Christ is the Head of that body; and, consequently, He accounts as done to Himself what is done to the meanest of His members.

(H. Melvill, B.D.)

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KJV: For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:

WEB: For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members don't have the same function,