CONTENTS
The subject of reproof is continued through this Chapter. But it is mingled with mercy. Here are many blessed marks to show that the Lord had mercy in reserve for his people.
The mercy of God here spoken of cannot be considered as intended only, and not executed, but rather the words should be read, when I had healed Israel. For Christ the Almighty healer had been set up, as the lamb slain from everlasting. And it appears to me by the expression, as a beautiful instance of the freeness, and greatness of sovereign grace, that the remedy for sin went before the disease. And certain it is, that the fall of man, as is here said of Ephraim's iniquity, becomes more discovered in the prevenient grace and mercy which the Lord had provided against it. What Paul said of himself, in respect of his ignorance of sin, but by the law, is equally true of our discovery, through God the Holy Ghost, of our fallen state, by beholding the previous provision made for our recovery by the Lord Jesus Christ. See Romans 7:7.