X. By supplying the absence of enslaving fear with salutary caution.
XI. The actual existence of our depraved nature and the work of sanctification in us pressing forward to its maturity tend to that regulated temperament of mind which we urge.
XII. Certain views of personal conduct are so coupled in the Gospel with the noblest views of grace that any improper warping of our minds is counteracted.
XIII. While the distinctive blessings and honours of the Christian might tend to elate him, he is affected by the most opposite motives.
XIV. God abounds in this wisdom and prudence towards us by most strongly abstracting us from the things of earth and yet giving us the deepest interest in its relations and engagements.—All the truths of revelation are only parts of one system, but their effects upon the believing mind are common and interchangeable. There is no extraneous, no irreconcilable, no confusing element in Christianity. It is of One; it is one. And if we be Christians, our experience will be the counterpart of it. As it works out from apparent shocks and collisions its perfect unity, so shall our experience be wrought in the same way. In obeying from our hearts its form, whatever of its influence may seem to interfere with each other, they will all be found to establish our heart; as the opposing currents often swell the tide and more proudly waft the noble bark it carries, as the counterbalancing forces of the firmament bear the star onward in its unquivering poise and undeviating revolution.—R. W. Hamilton.
Vers. 9–12. The Mystery of the Gospel.
I. The sovereign grace of God in making known to us the mystery of His will.—1. The Gospel is called the mystery of God’s will, the mystery which from the beginning was hid in God, and the unsearchable riches of Christ. Not that these phrases represent the Gospel as obscure and unintelligible, but that the Gospel scheme was undiscoverable by the efforts and researches of human reason and could be made known to men only by the light of Divine revelation. There are many things in the Gospel which are and will remain incomprehensible to human reason; but though we cannot fully comprehend them, we may sufficiently understand them.
2. God has made known to us His will “according to the good pleasure which He purposed in Himself.”—Though the reason of His administration is not made known to us, yet all His purposes are directed by consummate wisdom. He is Sovereign in the distribution of His favours; His goodness to us is no wrong to the heathen.
II. The purpose of God in making known to us the mystery of His will (ver. 10).—1. The Gospel is called “the dispensation of the fulness of times.” It was introduced at the time exactly ordained in the purpose, and expressly predicted in the Word of God, and in this sense may be called “the dispensation of the fulness of times.”
2. One end of this dispensation was that God “might gather together in one all things in Christ” (ver. 10).—To form one body in Christ, to collect one Church, one great kingdom under Him.