+Lessons.+--1. _Man left to himself inevitably degenerates._ 2. _When man abandons God his case is desperate._ 3. _The rescue of man from utter ruin is an act of Divine mercy._ _GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._ Vers. 11, 12. _The Condition of the Ephesians before their Conversion descriptive of the State of Sinners under the Gospel._ +I. They were in time past Gentiles in the flesh.+--He admonishes them not to forget the dismal state of heathenism out of which they had been called, and often to reflect upon it, that they might ever maintain a sense of their unworthiness and awaken thankful and admiring apprehensions of that grace which had wrought in them so glorious a change. +II. Reminds them of the contempt with which they had been treated by the Jews.+--The Jews, instead of improving the distinction of their circumcision to gratitude and obedience, perverted it to pride, self-confidence, and contempt of mankind. They not only excluded other nations from the benefit of religious communion, but even denied them the common offices of humanity. One of their greatest objections to the Gospel was that it offered salvation to the Gentiles. +III. They were without Christ.+--To the Jews were chiefly confined the discoveries which God made of a Saviour to come. From them in their captivities and dispersions the Gentiles obtained the knowledge they had of this glorious Person. This knowledge was imperfect, mixed with error and uncertainty, and at best extended only to a few. The Gentiles, contemplating the Messiah as a temporal prince, regarded His appearing as a calamity rather than a blessing. +IV. They were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.+--To the forms of worship instituted in the Mosaic law none was admitted but Jews and such as were proselyted to the Jewish religion. All uncircumcised heathens were excluded as aliens. +V. They were strangers from the covenants of promise.+--The discovery of the covenants of promise until the Saviour came was almost wholly confined to the Jews. How unhappy was the condition of the Gentile world in the dark, benighted ages which preceded the Gospel! +VI. They had no clear hope of a future existence.+--Many of them scarcely believed or thought of a life beyond this. They had no apprehension, hardly the idea of a restoration of the body. Those who believed in a future state had but obscure and some of them very absurd conceptions of it. Still more ignorant were they of the qualifications necessary for happiness after death. +VII. They were atheists in a world in which God was manifest.+--The heathens generally had some apprehension of a Deity; but they were without a knowledge of the one true God and without a just idea of His character. There are more atheists in the world than profess themselves such. Many who profess to know God in works deny Him.--_Lathrop._