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<p>He begins with thanksgivings and praise, and enlarges with a great deal of fluency and copiousness of affection upon the exceedingly great and precious benefits which we enjoy by Jesus Christ. For the great privileges of our religion are very aptly recounted and enlarged upon in our praises to God.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. In general he blesses God for <i>spiritual blessings</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.3" href="/passage/?search=Eph.1.3">Eph. 1:3</a>; where he styles him <i>the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ</i>; for, as Mediator, the Father was his God; as God, and the second person in the blessed Trinity, God was his Father. It bespeaks the mystical union between Christ and believers, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is their God and Father, and that in and through him. All blessings come from God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. No good can be expected from a righteous and holy God to sinful creatures, but by his mediation. <i>He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings</i>. Note, Spiritual blessings are the best blessings with which God blesses us, and for which we are to bless him. He blesses us by bestowing such things upon us as make us really blessed. We cannot thus bless God again; but must do it by praising, and magnifying, and speaking well of him on that account. Those whom God blesses with some he blesses with all spiritual blessings; to whom he gives Christ, he freely gives all these things. It is not so with temporal blessings; some are favoured with health, and not with riches; some with riches, and not with health, etc. But, where God blesses with spiritual blessings, he blesses with all. They are <i>spiritual blessings in heavenly places</i>; that is, say some, in the church, distinguished from the world, and called out of it. Or it may be read, <i>in heavenly things</i>, such as come from heaven, and are designed to prepare men for it, and to secure their reception into it. We should hence learn to mind spiritual and heavenly things as the principal things, spiritual and heavenly blessings as the best blessings, with which we cannot be miserable and without which we cannot but be so. <i>Set not your affections on things on the earth, but on those things which are above</i>. These we are blessed with in Christ; for, as all our services ascend to God through Christ, so all our blessings are conveyed to us in the same way, he being the Mediator between God and us.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">II. The particular spiritual blessings with which we are blessed in Christ, and for which we ought to bless God, are (many of them) here enumerated and enlarged upon. 1. Election and predestination, which are the secret springs whence the others flow, <a class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.4,Eph.1.5,Eph.1.11" href="/passage/?search=Eph.1.4,Eph.1.5,Eph.1.11"><span class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.4">Eph. 1:4</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.5">5</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.11">11</span></a>. <i>Election</i>, or choice, respects that lump or mass of mankind out of which some are chosen, from which they are separated and distinguished. Predestination has respect to the blessings they are designed for; particularly <i>the adoption of children</i>, it being the purpose of God that in due time we should become his adopted children, and so have a right to all the privileges and to the inheritance of children. We have here the date of this act of love: it was <i>before the foundation of the world</i>; not only before God’s people had a being, but before the world had a beginning; for they were chosen in the counsel of God from all eternity. It magnifies these blessings to a high degree that they are the products of eternal counsel. The alms which you give to beggars at your doors proceed from a sudden resolve; but the provision which a parent makes for his children is the result of many thoughts, and is put into his last will and testament with a great deal of solemnity. And, as this magnifies divine love, so it secures the blessings to God’s elect; for <i>the purpose of God according to election shall stand</i>. He acts in pursuance of his eternal purpose in bestowing spiritual blessings upon his people. <i>He hath blessed us</i>—<i>according as he hath chosen us in him</i>, in Christ the great head of the election, who is emphatically called <i>God’s elect, his chosen</i>; and in the chosen Redeemer an eye of favour was cast upon them. Observe here one great end and design of this choice: <i>chosen—that we should be holy</i>; not because he foresaw they would be holy, but because he determined to make them so. All who are chosen to happiness as the end are chosen to holiness as the means. Their sanctification, as well as their salvation, is the result of the counsels of divine love.—<i>And without blame before him</i>—that their holiness might not be merely external and in outward appearance, so as to prevent blame from men, but internal and real, and what God himself, who <i>looketh at the heart</i>, will account such, such holiness as proceeds from love to God and to our fellow-creatures, this charity being the principle of all true holiness. The original word signifies such an innocence as no man can carp at; and therefore some understand it of that perfect holiness which the saints shall attain in the life to come, which will be eminently before God, they being in his immediate presence for ever. Here is also the rule and the fontal cause of God’s election: it is <i>according to the good pleasure of his will</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.5" href="/passage/?search=Eph.1.5">Eph. 1:5</a>), not for the sake of any thing in them foreseen, but because it was his sovereign will, and a thing highly pleasing to him. It is <i>according to the purpose</i>, the fixed and unalterable will, <i>of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.11" href="/passage/?search=Eph.1.11">Eph. 1:11</a>), who powerfully accomplishes whatever concerns his elect, as he has wisely and freely fore-ordained and decreed, the last and great end and design of all which is his own glory: <i>To the praise of the glory of his grace (<a class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.6" href="/passage/?search=Eph.1.6">Eph. 1:6</a>), that we should be to the praise of his glory</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.12" href="/passage/?search=Eph.1.12">Eph. 1:12</a>), that is, that we should live and behave ourselves in such a manner that his rich grace might be magnif
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<p class="tab-1">The apostle mentions the great end and design of God in bestowing all these spiritual privileges, <i>that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ</i>—we to whom the gospel was first preached, and who were first converted to the faith of Christ, and to the placing of our hope and trust in him. Note, Seniority in grace is a preferment: <i>Who were in Christ before me</i>, says the apostle (<a class="bibleref" title="Rom.16.7" href="/passage/?search=Rom.16.7">Rom. 16:7</a>); those who have for a longer time experienced the grace of Christ are under more special obligations to glorify God. They should be strong in faith, and more eminently glorify him; but this should be the common end of all. For this we were made, and for this we were redeemed; this is the great design of our Christianity, and of God in all that he has done for us: <i>unto the praise of his glory</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Eph.1.14" href="/passage/?search=Eph.1.14">Eph. 1:14</a>. He intends that his grace and power and other perfection should by this means become conspicuous and illustrious, and that the sons of men should magnify him.</p>
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