October 29

Who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. - 1 Peter 2:9.

THE state referred to was one of great wickedness, wretchedness, weakness, and vice. This state is common to all mankind by nature. For, naturally, men are not found in different states, but in different degrees of the same state; all descended from the same source; and “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” Not one.

This, therefore, applies to the subjects of divine grace as well as others. “We were sometimes foolish and disobedient, walking in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another;” and after this the kindness and love of God through Christ towards man appeared. They therefore often look (but not half often enough) “to the rock whence they were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence they were digged.” For they are not left where they were found. “They were dead, but are alive again; they were lost, but are found;” they were afar off, but they are made nigh; they were once darkness, but are now made light in the Lord, for he hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light.

Observe the medium of their deliverance from this state. God himself called them. When men would execute their purposes they stand in need of instruments, and with all these, sometimes numerous and various, they fail in accomplishing their enterprise. But when God works, none can let or hinder. It is enough for God, in the production of his designs, to speak. It was so in the first creation: he only “spoke and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast.” He said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” He called things which were not, and they appeared. It is the same in the dispensation of his providence. He calls, it is said, for a sword, and it leaps out of its scabbard, and thousands arm themselves with instruments of destruction; he calls for a famine, and cleanness of teeth stalks throughout the land; he calls for a pestilence, and the cholera comes, and says, Whom shall I strike next? It is the same in all the operations of his grace.

He therefore derives his character from this:-“Faithful is he who hath called you, who also will do it.” This spirit cometh not from him who calleth you. Now, here our divines distinguish a twofold call. The one is common to all who are addressed by conscience, by afflictions, by reproofs, and by the examples of the wise and good, and by having opportunities to hear and to read the Scriptures of truth. But then there is another call, which they distinguish as internal and effectual. It is so because it is heard in the very conscience, and is obeyed from the heart; because now the end is answered:-they hear, and their souls live.

When God says, “Seek ye my face,” they answer, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” He calls on them to “forsake the foolish and live, and walk in the way of understanding,” and they comply; he calls upon them to believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God, and they are soon at his feet, crying, “Lord, save, or I perish;” he calls them to come out of darkness, and they obey.