3. And so it is with the present passage. When they still weep and make supplication to God, the plural is used----"They wept and made supplication to me "; but when they find God, He no longer uses the plural----"There |47 He spake, not with them," but with him. For by finding God and by hearing His Word, they have already become one. For the individual when he sins is one of many, severed from God and divided, his unity gone; but the many who follow the commandments of God are one man; as also the Apostle testifies, saying, "For we who are many are one bread, one body"; and again, "There is one God, and One Christ, and one faith, and one baptism"; and elsewhere, "For all we are one body in Christ Jesus"; and again, "I espoused you all to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to the Lord." And that they are well pleasing to the Lord and one, is shown in the Lord's prayer to His Father for His disciples. "Holy Father," He says, "grant that as I and Thou are one, so also they may be one in us." And also, whenever the saints are said to be members of one another, the only conclusion is that they are one body. In The Shepherd, again, where we read of the building of the tower, a building composed of many stones, but seeming to be one solid block, what can the meaning of the Scripture be except the harmony and unity of the many?