g plant. Christ is, as St. Peter says, 'a _living_ stone[3].'
He not only determines the lines of the spiritual structure, but He
pervades the whole of it as a presence and spirit, so that every other
human 'stone' is also alive and growing with His life.

So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are
fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the {111} household of God,
being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ
Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several
building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the
Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in
the Spirit.

These are indeed metaphors expressive of glorious realities, which have
no doubt become dulled in meaning through a conventional Christianity,
which involves no sacrifice and therefore attains no sense of
blessedness, but which a little meditation may easily restore to
something of their original freshness.

(1) The idea of the chosen people all through the Old Testament is that
they are as a whole consecrated to God. Priests and kings appointed by
God to their several offices may indeed fulfil special functions in the
national life, yet the fundamental idea is never lost that the entire
nation is holy, 'a kingdom of priests.' It is because this is true
that the prophets can appeal as they do to the people in general, as
well as to priests and rulers, as sharing altogether the responsibility
of the national life. Now the whole of this idea is transferred, only
deepened and intensified, to the Christian Church. That too has its
divinely-ordained ministers, its differentiation of functions in the
one body, but the whole {112} body is priestly, and all are
citizens--not merely residents but citizens, that is, intelligent
participators in a common corporate life consecrated to God. How truly
realized this idea was in the early Christian communities, St. Paul's
letters are our best witnesses. They are really--except the pastoral
epistles--letters to the churches and not to the clergy. It is the
whole body which is at Thessalonica and Corinth to concern itself with
the exercise of moral discipline[4]--the whole body in the Galatian
churches and at Colossae who are to concern themselves with the
apprehension and protection of the full Christian truth. They are all
to be 'perfectly initiated' in Christ Jesus, full participators in the
affairs of the divine