amazed at the Divine goodness, and be quickened to pour out his soul in grateful adorations. To produce this frame, is the scope of the whole preceding part of this epistle, wherein the Apostle extols and mag- nifies the grace of God, as manifested to his re- deemed people. Having shewn what their state had been previous to conversion, and contrasted it with that to which they are introduced by the Gospel, he exhorts them to bear it in remembrance : " Where- fore remember ;" remember what ye were, that ye may be thankful for what ye are*.
We propose to shew, I. The state of unregenerate men —
The state of the Jews and Gentiles represented in a very lively manner the conditions of persons under the Gospel : the external privileges of the Jews, typifying the internal and spiritual privileges of the regenerate ; and the abhorred state of the Gentiles marking with equal clearness the ignorance and mi- sery of the unregenerate. In this view, what the Apostle says of the Ephesians, previous to their con- version to Christianity, may be considered as appli- cable to all at this day, who are not truly and savingly converted :
1 They are " without Christ"—
[The Gentiles, of course, had no knowledge of, nor any interest in, the Lord Jesus Christ. And thus it is with the unregenerate amongst ourselves: they are without Christ b; they are separated from him as branches cut off from the vine : they do not depend upon him, or receive sap and nutri- ment from him. They indeed call themselves Christians ; but they have no union with Christ, nor any communications from him.]
2. They are "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel" —
[Israel are called a commonwealth, because they were governed by laws different from all other people, and possessed privileges unknown to the rest of the world. Thus the true Israel at this day may be considered in the same light ; because
a ver. 1 1. with the text. " xw,°'£ Xpiorow. Comp. John xv. 5.