Ver. 10. Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. THE love of God to his children is the great subject both of his word and of their thoughts, and therefore is it that his word speaks so much of that love, to the very end that they may think much and esteem highly of it, and walk answerably to it. This is the scope of St. Paul's doctrine to the Ephesians, and the top of his desires for them, iii, 17; and this is our apostle's aim here. As he began the epistle with opposing their election in heaven to their dispersion on earth, the same considera tion runs through the whole of it. Here he is represent ing to them the great fruit of that love, the happy and high estate to which they are called in Christ; that the choosing of Christ and of believers is as one act, and they as one entire object of it, one glorious temple, he the foundation and head corner-stone, and they the edifice; one honorable fraternity, he the King of kings and great High Priest, and they likewise through him made kings and priests unto God the Father, a royal priesthood; he the light of the world, and they through Him the children of light. Now that this their dignity, which shines so brightly in its own innate worth, may yet appear the more, the apostle here sets it off by a double opposition, first, of the misery under which others are, and also of that misery under which they themselves were before their calling. And this being set on both sides, is as a dark shadowing round about their happiness, setting off the lusture of it. Their former misery, expressed in the former verse by darkness, is here more fully and plainly set before their view in these words. They are borrowed from the prophet Hosea, ii, 23, where he is raised up by the Spirit of God from the temporal troubles and deliverances of the Israelites, to consider and foretel that great restoration wrought by Jesus Christ, in purchasing a new people to himself, made up both of Jews and Gentiles who be lieve; and therefore the prophecy is fit and applicable to botli; so that the debate is altogether needless, whether it concerns the Jews or Gentiles; for in its spiritual sense, as relating to the kingdom of Christ, it foretels the making of the Gentiles the people of God, and the recovery of the Jews likewise. St. Pauluseth the passage concerning the calling of the Gentiles, Rom. ix, 25; and here St. Peter, writing particularly to the dispersed Jews, applies it to them, as being, in the very reference it bears to the Jews, truly fulfilled in those alone who were believers, faith making them a part of the true Israel of God, to which the promises do peculiarly belong; as St. Paul argues at large, Romans ix. Their former misery, and their present happiness, we have here under a double expression; they were not a people-they had not obtained mercy. Not the people of God, says the prophet; not a people, says our apostle: being not God's people, they were so base and miserable as not to be worthy of the name of a people at all; Deut. xxxii, 21. There is a kind of being, a life that a soul hath by a peculiar union with God; and therefore, in that sense, the soul without God is dead, as the body is without the soul; so that men who are yet unbelievers, are not, as the Hebrews expressed death. Thus sinners are not; they are dead; they want that happy being that flows from God to the souls which are united to himself, and consequently they must want that society and union one with another which results from the former, results from the same union that believers have with God and the same being that they have in him; which makes them truly worthy to be called a people, and particularly the people of God. His people are the only people in the world worthy to be called a people; the rest are but refuse and dross. Although in the world's esteem, which judges by its own rules in favor of itself, the people of God be as no body, no people, a company of silly creatures, yea, as the filth of the world, and the off-scouring of all things: yet in his account who hath chosen them, who alone knows the true value of things, his people are the only people, and all the rest of the world as nothing in his eyes. He dignifies and beau tifies them, and loves in them that beauty which he hath given them. But under this term is comprised, not only that new being of believers in each one of them apart, but that tie and union that is amongst them as one people, being incorporated together and living under the same government and laws, without which a people are but as the beasts of the field, or the fishes of the sea, and the creeping things that have no ruler over them; Habak. i, 14. The regular living in society and union in laws and policy, makes many men to be one people; but the civil union of men in states and kingdoms is nothing comparable to the mysterious union of the people of God with him, and one with another. That commonwealth hath a firmer union than all others. Believers are knit together in Christ as their head, not merely as a civil or political head ruling them, but as a natural head enlivening them, giving them all one life. Men in other societies, though well ordered, yet are but as a multitude of trees, regularly planted indeed, but each hath his own root; but the faithful are all branches of one root. Their union is so mysterious, that it is compared to the very union of Christ with his Father, as it is indeed the product of it; John xvii, 21.. People of God.-I will say to them, Thou art my people, and they shall say, Thou art my God; Hos. ii, 23. That mutual interest and possession is the very foundation of all our comfort. He is the first chooser. He first says, My people; calls them so, and makes them to be so; and then they say, My God. It is therefore a relation that shall hold and shall not break, because it is founded upon his choice who changes not. The tenor of an external covenant with a people, as the Jews found, is such as may be broken by man's unfaithfulness, though God remain faithful and true; but the new covenant of grace makes all sure on all hands, and cannot be broken; the Lord not only keeping his own part, but likewise performing ours in us and for us, and establishing us, that as he departs not from us first, so we shall not depart from bim. I will betroth thee to me for ever. It is an indissoDiv. No. VI. S luble marriage that is not in danger of being broken either by divorce or death. My people. There is a treasure of instruction and comfort wrapped up in this word, not only more than the profane world can imagine, for they indeed know nothing at all of it, but more than they who are of the number of his people are able to conceive; a deep unfathomable. My people! They his portion, and he theirs! He accounts nothing of all the world beside them, and they of nothing at all beside him. For them he continues the world. Many and great are the privileges of his people contained in that great charter, the holy scriptures, and rich is that land where their inheritance lies; but all is in this, that he is their God. All his power and wisdom are engaged for their good. How great and many soever are their enemies, they may well oppose this to all, he is their God. They are sure to be protected and prospered, and in the end to have full victory. Happy then is that people whose God is the Lord! Which had not obtained mercy. The mercies of the Lord to his chosen, are from everlasting; yet, so long as his mercy is not discovered to them in the effects of it, they are said not to have obtained mercy. When it begins to act and work in their effectual calling, then they find it to be theirs. It was in a secret way moving forward towards them before, as the sun after midnight is still coming nearer to us, though we perceive not its approach till the dawning of the day. - Mercy. The former word, the people of God, teaches us how great the change is that is wrought by the calling of God; this teaches us how free it is. The people of God that is the good attained in the change: Obtained mercy that is the spring whence it flows. This is indeed implied in the words of the change of no people—such as have no right to such a dignity at all, and in themselves no disposition for it to be made his people, can be owing to nothing but free grace, such mercy as supposes nothing and seeks nothing but misery in us, and works upon that. As it is expressed to have been very free to this people of the Jews, in choosing them before the rest of the world, so it is to the spiritual Israel of God, and to every one par ticularly belonging to that company. And as it is free mercy, so it is tender mercy. The word in the Prophet signifies tenderness, or bowels of compassion; and such are the mercies of our God towards us, the bowels of a father, and if you think not that tenderness enough, those of a mother, yea, more than a mother, Isa. xlix, 15.—It is rich mercy; it delights to glorify itself in the greatest misery; it pardons as easily the greatest as the smallest of debts. It is a constant unalterable mercy, a stream still running. Now in both these expressions the apostle draws the eyes of believers to reflect on their former misery, and to view it together with their present state. This is very frequent in the scriptures; and it is of very great use. It works the soul of a Christian to much humility, and love, and thankfulness, and obedience. It cannot choose but force him to abase himself, and to magnify the free grace and love of God. Likewise, those apprehensions of the wrath due to sin, and the sights of hell as it were, which he brings some unto, either at or after their conversion, make for this same end. That glorious description of the New Jerusalem, Rev. xxi, 16, is abundantly delightful in itself; and yet the fiery lake spoken of there, makes all that is spoken of the other sound much the sweeter. But, universally, all the godly have this to consider, that they were strangers and enemies to God, and to think, Whence was it that I, a lump of the same polluted clay with those that perish, should be taken, and purified, and moulded by the Lord's own hand for a vessel of glory? Nothing but free grace makes the difference; and where can there be love, and praise, and service found to answer this? All is to be ascribed to the mercy, gifts, and calling of Christ. And his ministers, with St. Paul, acknowledge that because they have received mercy, they faint not. But, alas! we neither enjoy the comfort of this mercy as obtained, nor are grieved for wanting it, nor stirred up to seek after it, if not yet obtained. What do we think? Seems it a small thing in your eyes to be shut out from the presence of God, and to bear the weight of his wrath for ever, that you thus slight his mercy, and |