that little measure, which we may have received, with all diligence, with firmness and steadfastness. Ver. 14. “That we may be no longer.”—The word, “no longer,” shows that they had of old been in this case, and he reckons himself moreover as a subject for correction, and corrects himself. For this cause, he would say, are there so many workmen, that the building may not be shaken, may not be “carried about,” that the stones may be firmly fixed.292 For this is the character of children, to be tossed to and fro, to be carried about and shaken. “That we may be no longer,” saith he, “children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error.” “And carried about,” saith he, “with every wind.” He comes to this figure of speech, to point out in how great peril doubting souls are. “With every wind,” saith he, “by the sleight of men, in crafti- ness, after the wiles of error.” The word “sleight”293 means the art of gamesters. Such are the “crafty,” whenever they lay hold on the simpler sort. For they also change and shift about everything. He here glances also at human life. Ver. 15, 16. “But speaking truth,”294 saith he, “in love, may grow up in all things into Him, which is the Head, even Christ, from whom,” (that is, from Christ,) “all the body fitly framed and knit together, through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.” He expresses himself with great obscurity, from his desire to utter everything at once. What he means, however, is this. In the same way as the spirit, or vital principle, which descends from the brain, communicates the sensitive faculty which is conveyed through the nerves, not simply to all the members, but according to the proportion of each member, to that which is capable of receiving more, more, to that which is capable of less, less, (for the spirit is the root or source;) so also is Christ. For the souls of men being dependent upon Him as members, His provident care, and supply of the spiritual gifts according to a due proportion in the measure of every single member, effects their increase. But what is the meaning of this, “by the touch of the supply”?295 that is to say, by the sensitive faculty.296 292 [“It is not the figure of a building which Paul employs here, but of a ship abandoned to the breakers, on which figurative expression of restless passive subjection to influences, compare Jas. i. 6.”—Meyer.—G.A.] 293 κυβεία κυβευταί. 294 [“ἀληθεύοντες: The common meaning, ‘To speak truth,’ is clearly unsatisfactory here. It means ‘holding the truth.’”—Ellicott. “Professing the truth,” Thayer, Lexicon. Rev. Ver. has in margin “dealing truly.” Meyer says it means here, as always, “speaking the truth,” and correctly.—G.A.] 295 ἁφῆς, “joint,” Eng. Tr. Theodoret, too, in loc. interprets touch, and considers that it stands for all the senses. S. Austin translates tactus in Psalm x. 7, de Civ. D. xxii. 18, but in the received meaning. [See Meyer.—G.A.] 296 [“Meyer still retains the interpretation of Chrysostom and Theodoret that ἁφὴ=αἴσθησις, “feeling,” “perception,” and connects the clause with αὔξησιν ποιεῖται: but the parallel passage, Col. ii. 19, leaves it scarcely 197 Ephesians 4:4-7