Rom. v. 11. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom ive have now received the atonement.
THOSE remarkable words of the prophet, " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him," are usually inter- preted in reference to the future world : but St. Paul speaks of them as fulfilled to us under the Christian dispensation : for, having cited them, he adds, " But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit3." So great are the privileges and blessings which we enjoy under the Christian covenant, that no words can adequately express them, no imagination can fully conceive them. We may say respecting them, what God said to Ezekiel respecting the abominations prac- tised by Israel in the chambers of imagery, that the oftener we search into them, the more and greater we shall findb. Truly, " the riches of Christ are un- searchable0." This is strongly intimated by St. Paul in the passage before us. He had expatiated on the blessings which we enjoy in, and by, Christ : " We have peace with God " by him ; and through him are enabled to "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Nay more, we are enabled to " glory in tribulations also," as the appointed means of perfecting the Divine work within us, and of fitting us for the glory which God has taught us to expect d. But neither is this all : for God would have us rise above the mere con- sideration of our own happiness, even though it con- sist in a possession of all the glory of heaven ; and he would have our minds occupied with the contempla- tion of his infinite perfections, and " filled with all the fulness" of his communicable felicity6. Hence the Apostle, declaring this to be the actual experience
a Isai. lxiv. 4. with 1 Cor. ii 0, 10. h Ezek. viii. 3 — 16.
c Eph. iii. 8. <> ver. 1—3. " Eph. iii. 19.