The Church as an Army and a Body

1 Let us therefore enlist ourselves, brothers and sisters, with all earnestness in His faultless ordinances. 2 Let us note the soldiers who serve under our rulers, how precisely, how readily, how obediently they carry out the orders given to them. 3 Not all are prefects, nor rulers of thousands, nor rulers of hundreds, nor rulers of fifties, and so on;⁠a but each man in his own rank carries out the orders given by the king and the governors. 4 The great cannot exist without the small, nor the small without the great. There is a certain blending in all things, and in this there is usefulness. 5 Let us take our body as an example. The head without the feet is nothing; and likewise the feet without the head are nothing:⁠b even the smallest parts of our body are necessary and useful for the whole body: but all the members work together and unite in subjection, so that the whole body may be saved.