(1) В¶ Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, (2) To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men. (3) For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
We cannot sufficiently admire, the very happy method the Apostle adopted, to conciliate the minds of the people to the observance of those civil obligations he here recommended, in showing, in his own instance, as well as in all others, how unavoidably disposed a state of unrenewed nature is, to everything that is evil. What an humble representation Paul hath here made of himself, and all mankind, considered only in the state of original corruption. Reader! it is always blessed, to have it in remembrance. Nothing, under the teachings of God the Spirit, can be more profitable. It tends to lower all pharisaical pride, which might creep into the heart. It tends, through grace, to keep the soul humble in the dust before God. It keeps open a stream of true godly sorrow, in the consciousness of our first nothingness, and continued undeservings. And, what is preferable to all, it doth endear the Person, and work, and relations, and offices of Christ, to the soul; and thereby sweetly enforceth our need of Jesus, and our everlasting dependence upon him, and his blood and righteousness, more and more. Oh! thou dear Lord! how very precious, yea, increasingly precious, art thou to my soul, when I look back, and contemplate the awful state of that foolish, disobedient, unrenewed nature, in which I was born; the many years I continued in it, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating; and the remains of indwelling corruption, even to this hour, which marks the body of sin, I carry about with me! Oh! the blessedness of knowing it; and the distinguishing mercy of so knowing it, as to loath myself for my own deformity, that I may be looking only to Jesus for holiness and salvation.