And all thy children shall be taught of the
Lord
The children of the church, who are born in her, and nursed up at
her side, and who are the children of God by adoption, which is
made manifest by regeneration; these the Lord will take care of
that they be "taught", even "all" of them, from the least to the
greatest, ( Jeremiah
31:34 ) , they shall be taught of the Lord himself, by his
ministers, word, and ordinances, as means, and by his Spirit, as
the efficient; by whom they are taught to know themselves, their
vileness and sinfulness, their folly and weakness, their want of
right counsels, and the insufficiency of their own to know
Christ, and the way of salvation by him; him as the only Saviour,
able and willing so to know him as to believe in him, receive
him, and walk on in him; this had an accomplishment in the first
times of the Gospel; see ( John 6:45 ) and will have
a further one in the latter day, when there will be a greater
effusion of the Spirit, when the doctrines of the Gospel will be
taught and understood more clearly, fully, and largely: and
great shall be the peace of thy children;
the inward peace of their minds in and from Christ, arising from
a view of their justification by his righteousness, from the
sprinklings of his blood upon their consciences, and from the
discoveries of his love to their souls, enjoyed in a way of
believing, and by means of the word and ordinances; also peace
among themselves, harmony and concord, and no more strifes,
contentions, and animosities; likewise outward peace from
enemies, no more persecution or war. This word includes all kind
of prosperity, external and internal, temporal and spiritual.
This, with the following verses, explain the figurative phrases
used in the foregoing. These words are applied by the Jews
F1 to the times of the Messiah, when
all Israel shall learn the law from the Lord; so the Targum,
``all thy children shall know the law of the Lord;''but it is much better understood of all the children of the church, the true Israel of God, whether Jews or Gentiles, learning the Gospel of Christ.