Of Jesus Christ.

Of Jesus Christ. Both as the beginning and end of his Apostleship, as Christ is called Alpha and Omega; chosen and called by Him, and called to this—to preach Him, and salvation wrought by Him. Sent by Him, and the message no other than His Name, to make that known. And what this Apostleship was then, after some extraordinary way, befitting these first times of the Gospel, that the ministry of the word in ordinary is now; and therefore an employment of more difficulty and excellence than is usually conceived by many, not only of those who look upon it, but even of those who are exercised in it—to be Ambassadors for the Greatest of Kings, and upon no small employment--that great treaty of peace and reconciliation between Him and mankind.

This epistle is directed to God's elect, who are described here by their temporal and by their spiritual conditions. The first has very much dignity and comfort in it; but the other has neither, but rather the contrary of both; and therefore the Apostle, intending their comfort, mentions the one but in passing, to signify to whom particularly he sent his Epistle; but the other is that which he would have their thoughts dwell upon, and therefore he prosecutes it in his following discourse. And if we look to the order of the words in the original, their temporal condition is but interjected; for it is said, To the God's elect, first, and then, To the strangers scattered, &c. and he would have this as it were drowned in the other—chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

That those dispersed strangers who dwelt in the countries here named, were Jews, appears if we look to the foregoing Epistle, where the same word is used, and expressly appropriated to the Jews. Peter, in Gal. 2:8, is called an apostle of the circumcision, as exercising his Apostleship most towards them; and there is in some passages of this Epistle, somewhat which, though belonging to all Christians, yet has, in the strain and way of expression, a particular fitness to the believing Jews, as being particularly verified in them, which was spoken of their nation. Some argue from the name "strangers," that the Gentiles are here meant, which seems not to be; for proselyte Gentiles were indeed called strangers in Jerusalem, and by the Jews; but were not the Jews strangers in these places, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Not strangers dwelling together in a prosperous, flourishing condition, as a well planted colony, but strangers of the dispersion, scattered to and fro. Their dispersion was partly, first by the Assyrian captivity, and after that by the Babylonish, and by the invasion of the Romans; and it might be in these very times increased by the believing Jews flying from the hatred and persecution raised against them at home. The places here mentioned, through which they were dispersed, are all in Asia. So Asia here is Asia Minor; where it is to be observed, that some of those who heard Peter are said to be of those regions. And if any of those then converted were among these dispersed, the comfort was no doubt the more grateful from the hand of the same Apostle by whom they were first converted; but this is only conjecture.

Though Divine truths are to be received equally from every minister alike, yet it must be acknowledged, that there is something (we know not what to call it) of a more acceptable reception of those who at first were the means of bringing men to God, than of others; like the opinion some have of physicians whom they love. The Apostle comforts these strangers of this dispersion, by the spiritual union which they obtained by effectual calling; and so calls off their eyes from their outward, dispersed, and despised condition--to look above that--as high as the spring of their happiness--the free love and election of God. Scattered in the countries, and yet gathered in God’s election, chosen or picked out; strangers to men among whom they dwelt, but known and foreknown to God; removed from their own country, to which men have naturally an unalterable affection, but made heirs of a better country (as follows, verse 3, 4); and having within them the evidence both of eternal election and of that expected salvation, the Spirit of holiness