MEDITATIONS ON
THE FIRST CHAPTER
OF THE FIRST EPISTLE
GENERAL OF PETER

As we have reason to believe from various testimonies which have reached us that our Meditations upon the first two chapters of the Epistle to the Ephesians have been received with acceptance by, and been found profitable to very many of our spiritual readers, we have felt encouraged to move onward in the same track; for besides this acceptable encouragement from without, we are well persuaded from our own experience from within that there is not only a peculiar safety, but a special blessedness in the laying open of the word of truth, which is not usually to be found in any other path of private meditation or public exposition. God has himself set a special value upon his own inspired Scriptures. "Thou hast magnified thy word," says the Psalmist, "above all thy name;" that is, all thy other manifested perfections. (Psa. 138:2.) Nor are the reasons why God has thus magnified his word far to seek. Several occur to our mind:

1. As the display of his own glory is, and ever must be, the chief object and ultimate purpose of all his works, the main reason why God puts this high value on his word is because, as being a revelation of his mind and will, it especially glorifies himself. Creation manifests his eternal being, and with it his greatness, wisdom, and power; "for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead" (Rom. 1:20); and providence displays his tender care in sustaining the creatures of his hand in life and being; but it is revelation which discovers the thoughts of his heart, and especially the purposes of his grace; and as this discovery of those thoughts of God's heart, "which are to all generations" (Psa. 33:11), is more precious in his sight than any external manifestation of his works, he has magnified his word above those other perfections of his nature in which consists his name.

2. But besides this special reason for magnifying his word above all his name, there is another, in that he has given therein a revelation of his dear Son, who is emphatically the Word; and as all we can now know of the incarnate Word is through the medium of the written word, God has put a special value and honour upon the inspired Scriptures as "the testimony of Jesus;" for that "is the spirit of prophecy." (Rev. 19:10.)

3. Another reason is that he thereby forms a people for himself to show forth his praise. All that is done in and for the soul to conform it to the image of Christ is by the power of the word. Our gracious Lord, therefore, when he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and, as the High Priest over the house of God, offered up that memorable intercessory prayer which the Holy Ghost has recorded John 17, said, "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." This work of sanctification includes the whole of that sacred work of the Holy Ghost upon the soul, whereby it is made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light: which made the Apostle say, in his parting address to the elders of the church at Ephesus, "And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified." (Acts 20:32.) By it he begets us into spiritual life, as James testifies: "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth;" and to this corresponds the language of Peter in the chapter which we have been led to propose as the subject of our present meditations: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Pet. 1:23.) By this word, in the hands of the Spirit, is the soul first convinced of sin; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. "Nay," says the Apostle, "I had not known sin but by the law." And as divine life is thus communicated by the word, and with life the knowledge of sin through a condemning law, so is it maintained throughout by the same instrumentality. "As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby." If we look back to the first work of God upon our soul, and it is often profitable to do so, we shall see that never till then did we feel the power of God's word upon the heart. It was with us as the Psalmist speaks, "The entrance of thy words giveth light." (Psa. 119:130.) And though we might have been, and no doubt were, very ignorant of doctrinal truth, and had, so to speak, to grope our way to it more by feeling than by sight, yet the word of God was not as before, a sealed book, nor were we deaf to its voice or altogether blind to its meaning, for those words were made true in us: "And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness." (Isa. 29:18.) It was this divine light entering the soul, and this divine life together with it quickening it into faith and feeling, that made us, like the new-born babe, desire the sincere milk of the word; and never, perhaps, was the word more attentively listened to, or the feet made more ready to run after it, than in those early days when eternal realities were first laid with great weight and power upon the mind. By the word, too, came all ourfaith; for "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Rom. 10:17.) By the word came also a goodhope through grace: "Remember thy word unto thy servant,