These are the great leading thoughts which are in St. Paul's mind as he begins to write to the Asiatic Christians. His heart, his imagination, his intellect is full of the thought of the catholic society as it exists in Christ, the extension of His life; of this society as the outcome of an eternal and slow-working purpose of God; of this society, as serving universal divine ends for humanity and for the universe; of this society, as affording a sphere in which all men's faculties may be enlightened and delighted with the depth and largeness of the divine purpose; while his whole being is kept, safe from all the delusions of pride, in continual and conscious dependence upon divine grace. {77} With these thoughts reflected in our minds we shall find that we have the main clue to the whole of the Epistle to the Ephesians, and more particularly to all the words of the opening chapter, which St. Paul begins with a great ascription of praise to God for the blessing of the Church. Blessed _be_ the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly _places_ in Christ: even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved: in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in him, _I say_, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will; to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ: in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation,--in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of _God's_ own possession, unto the praise of his glory. [1] Rom. viii. 29. [2] 1 Cor. xv. 23. [3] Eph. iv. 15, 16. [4] Eph. v. 32; Rev. xxi. 9. [5] 1 Cor. xv. 45; Rom. v. 12-19. [6] 1 Cor. xii. 12. [7] Acts xix. 1-7. [8] Rom. iii. 24-26. I have tried to develope St. Paul's hint. [9] Rom. iii. 25; Acts xiv. 16; Acts xvii. 30. [10] The earliest and simplest expression of the matter is that in St. Paul's earliest epistle (1 Thess. v. 10), Christ 'died for us ... that we should live together with him.' [11] Eph. i. 7; cf. ii. 13 ff. [12] Rom. ix. 21. [13] 1 Cor. xii. 22 ff.