The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 128

our holy comprehension, which ca.n never be exhausted. "The believer" says A. Monad "who ha.a been represented j1.1st now a.s rooted and grounded in the lo;e of the Lord, i~ here represented a.s enveloped on all sides by this love, which extends itself in all directions a.round him beyond the limits of vision. Suspended in the very bosom of the infinite love, like the earth in the bosom of space, he looks before him, behind him, above him, below him, to seize the just measure of this love which has saved him, but all ends in demonstrating the impossibility of measuring it. The breadth? On his right and on his left, immensity. The length? Before him and behind him, immensity. The depth? Under his feet, immensity. The height? Over his head, still immen- sity." Here, then, in the infinite love of Christ there is material for eternal study, and the brotherhood realizes that it has begun an everlasting progress towards" the fulness of God." As we comprehend Christ's love, we find ourselves proportionally" partakers of the Divine nature" and filled with the Divine fulness. This is the infinitely distant goal; this is the straight line to which our hyperbolic orbit is continually making approach, though destined never actually to reach it. And as we approach the perfec- tion and fulness of God, we become the more united in Christian brotherhood. IV, CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD REMAINS UNBROKEN BY THE CHANGE OF WORLDS. (Ver. 15.) The family of love, who a.re gathering regularly round the feet of the heavenly Father, cannot be broken up by death or change of worlds. Heaven with its saiats e.nd angels, earth with its suffering and saintly souls, these constitute but one family ci.Icle, and a.re pervaded by the one Christ and the one Christian spirit. It is this thought which robs death of its sting and makes it a.ppea.r but a. sublime emigra- tion. 'fb.e majority are in the Father's house above; it is the minority that are left on earth; and our sainted dead have simply passed over to the majority a.nd are a.waiting us a.mid more perfect associations. "Death, in short," says Ma.rtinea.u, "under the Cbristia.n aspect, is but God's method of colonization; the transition from this mother- country of our race to the fairer and newer world of our emigration. What though no other passage thither is permitted to a.ll the living, a.nd by neither eye nor ear we can discover a.ny trace of that unknown receptacle of vivid and more glorious life? So might the dwellers in any other sphere make complaint respecting our poor worlcl. Intensely a.s it burns with life, dizzy as our thought becomes with the din of its eager passions and the cries of its many woes, yet from the nearest station that God's universe affords-nay, at a few miles beyond its own confines, all its strong force, its crowded cities, the breathless hurry a.nd ferment of its nations, the whole apparition and chorus of humanity, is still and motionless as death; gathered a.11 and lost within the circumference of a dark or illumined disc. Aad silent ss those midnight heavens appear, well ma.y there be, among their points of light, some one that thrills with the glow of our lost and immortal generations; busy with the fleet movements and happy energies of existence more vivid than our own; where, as we approach, we might catch the awful voices of the mighty dead, and the sweeter tones, lately heard in the last pa.iQ and sorrow, of our own departed ones." V. THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD IS SUSTAINED BY THE ASSURANCE OP GoD'B SUll- PABSING POWER. (Vers. 20, 21.) In the doxology the apostle adds one other thought to round and complete his glorious theme. He wishes to ascribe glory unto God; Lut what attribute shall form the substance of the doxology? The attribute of power. Not, howevor, the physical power which obtains in the universe of sense, but the spiritual power which obtaiI!s in the "world of mind." And so be looks upward and pronounces the mighty God a.s "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." In the world of sense he docs not work up to his full st,?ngth, nor is there a.ny reason why be should. The physical universe speaks of bis "eternal," but not necessarily of his" iufinite" power (Rom. i. 20). It is in the domain of the spirit that he performs his chefs-<i'reuvre. And such a thought ia surely fitted to sustain the aspirations of the Christian brotherhood!- R. M. E. Vers. 1-13.-Paul'a apostlesl,ip to the Gentiles: introduction. The apostle has it in his mind to pray for the Ephesian Christians. 'l'here is a. twofold ground upon which he proceeds. 1. Wnat has been said about them. "For this cause." He hai described them in three ways a~ incorporated in the Church. His last stotemeut  126 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. LOR. m. 1-21.