invested with that nature, is our Lord Jesus Christ. It is he who so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoso believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life. It is therefore the peculiar, characteristic Christian designation of God, as it presents him as the God of redemption. Rom. 15,6. 2 Cor. 11, 31. Col. 1, 3. I Pet. 1, 3. This God who has revealed himself as the God of love in sending his Son for our redemption, the apostle still further designates as the Fcither of mercies, i. e. the most merciful Father ; he whose characteristic is mercy. Comp. Ps. 86, 5. 15, Dan. 9, 9. Micah 7, 18. The explanation which makes the expression mean the author of mercies is inconsistent with the signification of the word oIktip/xos, which 151 ways means mercy as a feeling. Tfie God of all comfort, ''^his most merciful Father is the God, i. e. the author of all, i. e. of all possible, consolation. God is the author of consolation not only by delivering us from evil, or by ordering our external circum- stances, but also, and chiefly, by his inward influence on the mind itself, assuaging its tumults and filling it with joy and peace in believing. Rom. 15, 13.
4. Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
Us here refers to the apostle himself. Throughout this chapter. he is speaking of his own personal trials and consola- tions. He blessed God as the author of comfort, because he had experienced his consolations. And the design, he adds, of God m afllicting and in consoling was to quahfy him for the office of a consoler of the afflicted. In this design Paul acquiesced ; he was wilhng to be thus afflicted in order to be the bearer of consolation to others. A life of ease is com- monly stagnant. It is those who suffer much and who expe- rience much of the comfort of the Holy Ghost, who live much. Their fife is rich in experience and in resources. In all our trihulation, i. e. on account of (eVt). His tribulation was the ground or reason why God comforted him. The apostle was one of the most afflicted of men. He suffered from hunger, cold, nakedness, stripes, imprisonment, from perils by sea and land, from robbers, from the Jews, from the