came upon them, as just punishments of those apostacies, were degraded from the outward diguities they had, as the people of God, and withal were spiritually miserable and captives by nature, and so in both respects laid equal with the Gentiles, and stood as much in need of this restitution as they. St. Paul useth it concerning the calling of the Gentiles. And here St. Peter writing as is most probable, 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 that were believers, faith making them a part of the true Israel of God, to which the promises do peculiarly belong, as the apostle St. Paul argues at large". 2. We have their present happiness; and this we also have here under a double expression, they were not a people; destitute of mercy; not the people of God, says the prophet; not a people, says our apostle; being not God's people, so base and miserable as not to be worthy of the name of a people at all, as it is taken 2. 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, yea, as the body separated from the soul, is not only a lifeless lump, but putrifies, and becomes noisome and abominable; thus the soul separated from God, is subject to a more loathsome and vile putrefaction. So that men that are yet unbelievers, are not, as the Hebrews expressed death; and multitudes of them are not a people, but a heap of filthy carcases. Again, take our natural misery in the notion of a captivity, which was the judgment threatened against the Jews to make them not a people; therefore their captivity is often spoke of as a death by the prophets, and their reduction as their resurrection. And as a captive people is civilly dead, as they speak, so a soul captive to sin and the prince of darkness is spiritually dead, wanting hap piness and well-being, which if it never attain, it had better, for itself, not be at all. There is nothing but disorder and confusion in the soul without God, the affections hurrying it away tumultuously, as in a state of anarchy. Thus captive sinners are not, they are dead; they want that happy being that flows from God to the souls that are united to himself, and consequently 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 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, that judges by its own rules, and favour of itself, the people of God be as no body, no people, a company of silly creatures; yea, we are made, says the great Apostle, 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 beautifies them, and loves in them that beauty which he hath given them. But under that term is not only comprized 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, as the prophet Habbak. i. 14. speaks. That 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. e 1 Cor. iv. 13. That commonwealth hath a firmer union than all others. Believers are knit together in Christ as their head; not merely 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'. People of God.] I will say to them, thou art my people, and they shall say, thou art my God". That mutual interest and possession is the very foundation of all our comfort. He is the first chuser; 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 particularly 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 him. I will betroth thee to me, says he there, for ever: It is an indissoluble marriage that is not in danger to be broke either by divorce or death. My people. There is a treasure of instruction. and comfort wrapt up in that word, not only more than the profane world can imagine (for they indeed know nothing at all of it,) but more than they that are of that number are able to conceive, a deep unfathomable. My people. They his portion, and he is 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 f John. xvii. 21. g Hos. ii. 23. the privileges of his people contained in that great charter, the holy Scriptures, and rich is that land where their inheritance lies; but all flows from this reciprocal relation, that he is their God. All his power and wisdom is 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 decree of mercy runs hid, and is not discovered to them in the effects of it, they are said not to have received or obtained mercy; and 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; it makes those his people, who were not a people. This word, obtained mercy, discovers the spring from whence it flows; and likewise teaches us; 1. How free it is; 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 chusing them before the rest of the world', so it is to the spiritual Israel of God, and to every one particularly belonging to that company. Why is it that he chuseth one of a family, and leaves another; but because it pleaseth him? He blots out their transgressions for his own name's sake.. And, 2. h Psal. xxxiii. 12. i Deut. vii. 7, 8. Isa. xliii. 25. 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". 3. It is rich mercy, which delights to glorify itself in the greatest misery; and pardons as easily the greatest as the smallest of debts. 4. A constant unalterable mercy, a stream still running. Now in both these the Apostle draws the eyes of believers to reflect on their former misery, and 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 chuse but force him to abase himself and magnify the free grace and love of God, and this may be one reason why it pleaseth the Lord to suspend the conversion of many, for many years of their life, yea, to suffer some of them to stain those years with grievous and gross sins; that the riches and glory of his grace, and freeness of his choice may be the more legible both to themselves and others. Likewise those apprehensions of wrath due to sin, and sights of hell as it were, that he brings some unto, either at or after their conversion, make for this same end. That glorious description of the New Jerusalem', is abundantly delightful in itself, and yet the fiery lake spoke of there, makes all that is spoke 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 let each of them 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? No n Isa. xlix. 15. m Psal. ciii. 13. Jer. xxxi. 20. 4 v. 8. |