(1) В¶ Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; (2) But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. (3) Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
I pray the Reader, in the opening of this most blessed Chapter, to attend to the Apostle's beautiful description, of the right, and inheritance, of the Church; though, during the present time-state in which she is placed, it is no other than a state of childhood, and the minority of her being. Though a child, yet an heir, yea, an heir of God, and joint heir with Christ. Romans 8:17. Reader! it is blessed, yea, very blessed, to behold clearly, through divine teaching, that the Church had a being in Christ of everlasting right, and security, in Jehovah's love, and appointment; before the world began. And that then, the whole, and every member of Christ's mystical body, was chosen to unspotted holiness in Christ, and absolute glory, notwithstanding the present fallen state; which was foreviewed, and provided for, in divine mercy. Oh! the unspeakable felicity, when at regeneration, these precious truths are opened to the view, of the heaven-born heir! We differ nothing indeed, from the whole race of Adam, in our sinful origin by nature, and are nothing but children of sin, and ignorance, until grace regenerates our nature. But when our relationship in Christ is discovered, what light and knowledge pours in upon the soul, when we learn, that this is not the first, and original state of the Church; neither is it the final, being begotten to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled, and that faded not away. 1 Peter 1:3-4
The similitude of a school, is admirably chosen, to represent the tutorage of the law. And the bondage under the elements of the world; bears a strict connection also, with the discipline, of souls, under age. Men who are in the bondage of sin, or the bondage of the world; or the bondage of the law, which prescribes rules of life, but affords no help to obey them: strikingly show the awful state of unawakened nature, which sees indeed the holiness of the precept, but finds no power in nature to live up to it. Such is the rigor of the law, which takes every debtor by the throat with unrelenting severity, saying, pay me that thou owest! And, in point of failure, (as must be the case of every child of Adam), nothing but bondage fears, and terror, follow; expecting with daily dread, the correction which must come. Oh! the sad bondages of the elements of the world!