II. THESSALONIANS.

7 For yourselves know how ye ought to imitate us; because we did not walk disorder ly among you;

8 Neither did we eat bread as a gift from any one, but with labour and toil we wrought night and day, in order not to overload any of you.

9 Not because we have not right,' but that we might give ourselves to you for a pattern,2 to imitate us.

10 (Kg, 93.) And therefore when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any one will not work, neither let him eat.1

1

11 For we hear that there are some who STILL walk among you disorderly, not working at all, but prying into other people's affairs.

12 Now, them WHO ARE such, we command and beseech' by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.

13 And ye, brethren, be not weary in welldoing.1

14 (4) Now, if any one do not obey our (acy, 60.) command in this letter, point out that man,' and keep no company with him, that he may be ashamed."

15 Yet do not count нIм as an enemy, but admonish нIM as a brother.

16 And may the Lord of peace1 himself, give you peace always, in every shape. The

CHAP. III.

yourselves know that ye ought to imitate me, because I did not go 7 My own conduct entitles me to rebuke the disorderly. For about in idleness among you, meddling in other people's affairs; labour and fatigue I wrought daily for my own maintenance, and 8 Neither did I eat meat as a gift from any one, but with great for the maintenance of my assistants, (Acts xx. 34.), in order that I might not overload any of you with maintaining us.

9 This course I followed, not because I had not right to maintenance from you as an apostle, but that I might give myself, to such of you as are disposed to be idle, for an example of industry, in which ye ought to imitate me.

if any person among you capable of working, will not work for his 10 And therefore, when I was with you, this I commanded, that own maintenance, let him not eat of your meat, lest it encourage him in his idleness.

11 This injunction I now renew, because I hear that there are to the gospel, applying themselves to no useful labour, but going some who still walk among you disorderly, contrary to reason and about prying into other people's affairs; misrepresenting what they have heard and seen.

beseech by the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, forbearing med12 Now, such idle parasites I command, by the authority, and dling in any shape with other people's affairs, and remaining quietly at home, they work, and feed themselves with their own meat.

13 And ye, brethren, who hitherto, by your honest industry, have not only fed yourselves, but the poor, do not flag in that good work.

14 Now, if any one do not obey our command given to all in rulers of the church, point out that man to the rest, that, as I said this letter, that they work for their own maintenance, do ye, the before, ver. 10. none of you may keep company with him, in order that, being shunned by all as an evil doer, he may be ashamed of his conduct, and amend.

15 Yet do not behave towards him as an infidel, who is incorrigible, but in your public discourses, and in private, as ye have opportunity, admonish him as a brother, who may still be reclaimed. 16 And may Christ, the author of all happiness, himself give you happiness in every shape, by bestowing on you diligence in your brought him a letter from some of the pastors of the church, where. in they informed him of their state. The things mentioned chap. ii. 1, 2. afford another proof of this. Besides, the apostle would not so soon have wrote a second letter to the Thessalonians, if he had not been informed of some particulars which made it necessary. Ver. 12. We command and beseech.)-To his command the apostle added earnest entreaty; and he did so by the authority and direction of Christ. The meaning may be as in the commentary.

Ver. 9.-1. Not because we have not right.]—When our Lord first sent out the twelve to preach, he said to them, Matt. x. 9. The workman is worthy of his meat;' and by so saying, conferred on his apostles a right to demand maintenance from those to whom they preached. See 1 Cor. ix. 4. note. This right Paul did not insist on among the Thessalonians, but wrought for his own maintenance while he preached to them. Lest, however, his enemies might think this an acknowledgment that he was no apostle, he here asserted his right, and told them, that he had demanded no inaintenance from them, to make himself a pattern to them of prudent industry.

2. That we might give ourselves to you for a pattern.]-The apostle's working for his maintenance ought to have put the idle among the Thessalonians to shame, who perhaps excused themselves from working, on pretence they were attending to their neigh bours' affairs. For, if the apostle did not make the necessary and laborious work of preaching the gospel an excuse for not working, the Thessalonians had no reason to excuse themselves from working, on pretence of their minding other people's affairs; which in truth was but officious meddling.

Ver. 10. If any one will not work, neither let him eat.]-From this precept of the gospel we learn, that all men, without distinction, ought to employ themselves in some business or other which is useful; and that no man is entitled to spend his life in idleness. From the lower classes of mankind it is required, that they employ themselves in agriculture, or in the mechanic arts, or in such other services as are necessary to society; and from them who are in higher stations, such exercises of the mind are expected, as may advance the happiness of others, either in this life or in that which is to come. Whether, therefore, we fill higher or lower stations, let us apply ourselves diligently to such useful occupations as are suitable to our particular rank, that when we give account of ourselves to God, we may be found to have lived not altogether uselessly in the world. This passage of the word of God ought likewise to be regarded by such as go about begging their bread, notwithstanding they are able, and have opportunity, to work for their own maintenance. In the apostle's judgment, such have no right to maintenance, and therefore to give them alms is to encourage them in vice, a practice which the apostle has forbidden, ver. 6. and should be avoided by all conscientious Christians, lest by supplying such disorderly persons' wants, they make themselves accessaries to their idleness and wickedness.

Ver. 11. We hear that there are some who still walk among you disorderly.]-Froin this it appears, that, after writing the former letter, the apostle had received a particular account of the state of the Thessalonian church. Probably the messenger who carried that letter gave hiin an account of their affairs at his return, or

Ver. 13. Be not weary in well-doing.]—M» xxx properly signifies, do not flag through sloth or cowardice. See Eph. îìi. 13. note 1. The Thessalonians were not to flag in the performance either of their civil or of their religious duties.

Ver. 14.-1. Point out that man. A like direction is given, Rom. xvi. 17. 1 Cor. v. 9. 11. 13. Phil. iii. 17. Beza thinks the word onμsloves, put a mark upon that man, means excommunicate him; to which meaning the subsequent clause seems to agree. Grotius construes the words δια της επιςολης with τουτον σημείους. S, 'Give me notice of that man by a letter.' But the phrase in that sense is not common. See Benson on the passage.

2. Keep no company with him, that he may be ashamed.]-From this and other passages, particularly Matt, xviii. 15-17. Tit. iii. 10. and ver. 6. of this chapter, it appears that Christ hath established a wholesome discipline in his church, to be exercised by the pastors and people for reclaiming those who sin. This discipline does not consist in corporal punishment, imprisonments, fines, and civil incapacities; but in the administration of admonitions and rebukes. When these are without effect, and the offender continues impenitent, he is to be excluded from joining the church in the offices of religion. In that case, however, the faithful must not lose, either their affection for the offending party, or their hope of his recovery; but must continue to admonish him as a brother, till he appears incorrigible. When this happens, he is to be cast out of the society, and avoided as a person with whom to have any intercourse, except in the offices of humanity, would be dangerous. Matt. xviii. 17.

Ver. 16.-1. The Lord of peace.]-The apostle calls Christ 'the Lord of peace,' in allusion to Isa. ix. 6., where he is foretold under the character of 'the Prince of peace,' because he was to reconcile Jews and Gentiles to God and to one another, making peace between God and them; and 'making of two one new man,' whose members are to live in peace with one another.-This prayer the apostle subjoins to the foregoing command, to intimate, that if the rulers of the church are faithful in their exhortations and admonitions, it is to be expected that the Lord will follow their labours with his blessing, and make them effectual for producing peace and righte ousness among the members of his body.

Lord BE with you2 all.

17 The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token' in every epistle: thus I write.

18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ BE with you all. Amen.

worldly business, concord among yourselves, and good agreement with your heathen neighbours. The Lord be with you all, to direct

you.

17 The salutation of me, Paul, written with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle by which ye may distinguish my genuine letters. In this manner I write.

18 May the graces which shone in our Lord Jesus Christ, remain with you all. Amen. See Eph. vi. 24. note 2.

2. The Lord be with you all.]-This wish is founded on Christ's promise, Matt. xxviii. 20. Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' With this promise Paul may have been made acquainted by revelation.

Ver. 17. The salutation, &c. which is the token in every epistle.] -Paul commonly employed one to write, or at least to make a fair copy of his letters, especially if they were of any length. Wherefore, as impostors had now begun to forge letters in his name, (2 Thess. ií. 2.), to prevent the ill consequences of that fraud, he wrote the salutation in all his letters with his own hand. And that

the faithful at Thessalonica might be able to distinguish his genuine letters from such as were forged, he desired them to take particular notice of that mark. It seems the apostle's converts were generally acquainted with his handwriting.-Doddridge insinuates, that Paul ployed in the labours of his occupation of tent-making; and says, may have dictated some of his epistles, while his hands were emnThis may account for some small inaccuracies of style at which little minds have been offended, but which good judges easily know how to excuse.

CONCLUSION.

As the first epistle to the Thessalonians contains a formal proof of the divine original of the gospel, founded on the knowledge and experience of the persons to whom it was addressed, its primary intention was to establish them in the faith of the gospel. Yet, like the other inspired writings, it was calculated for the benefit of all the churches of Christ to the end of the world. Accordingly, it has been of singular use to them in every age; for from it we learn what the facts and circumstances were on which the apostles built their pretensions to a divine commission, and by which they persuaded mankind to embrace the gospel. And our knowledge of these facts and circumstances leads us to believe, that the rapid progress of the gospel was owing neither to fraud nor to enthusiasm, nor to the power of the sword, but to the excellent nature of the gospel; the holy lives of its first preachers and professors; the undeniable miracles which the apostles wrought in proof of their mission from God; the gifts of the Spirit which they bestowed on their converts; the witness which they bear to the resurrection of their master; and their appealing to that great miracle, in proof that, according to his promise, he will return from heaven to reward the righteous, and to punish the wicked. For these being matters of fact, obvious to the senses of mankind, the vulgar, equally with the learned, were able to judge of them; and, being strongly impressed by them, great numbers of them became Christ's disciples. Wherefore, although no miracles are now wrought in confirmation of the gospel, and the spiritual gifts have long ago ceased in the church, we have still abundant evidence of the divinity of our religion. The first epistle to the Thessalonians affords a convincing proof, that the gospel was established in the chief city of the province of Macedonia by its own intrinsic excellence, accompanied with miracles and with the exercise of the spiritual gifts, notwithstanding the philosophers, of whom there were many in Thessalonica, endeavoured to overturn it by reasoning; and the unbelieving Jews, to stop its progress, stirred up the heathens to persecute those who professed it. For the miracles and spiritual gifts which accompanied the preaching of the gospel, rendered it superior to all opposition.

The second epistle to the Thessalonians, although it was written to correct a particular error, being an illustrious monument of the inspiration of its author, affords to us who live in these latter times an additional, and I may say an increasing evidence of the truth of our religion. Certain false teachers, by misinterpreting an expression or two in the apostle's first epistle, had made the Thessalonians believe, that the coming of Christ to raise the dead and carry the righteous into heaven was at hand, and thereby had occasioned them to neglect their worldly affairs. To undeceive them, the apostle, in his second epistle, assured them, that before the coming of Christ a great apostasy or defection from the true faith and practice of the gospel would take place in the church; that that defection would not happen all at once, but would proceed by slow degrees to the height and extent determined; and that to carry it to that height, a long series of ages was requisite. And to shew that the apostasy would be of a long continu ance, the apostle foretold the particulars of which it was to consist, described the persons by whom it was to be introduced, and discovered the vile arts by which they were to establish it. Withal, that the Thessalonians might not be too much afflicted with the foresight of the evils which the apostasy would occasion, and that the faithful who beheld these evils might not be tempted to think God had cast off all care of his church, the apostle foretold that the apostasy would be destroyed-but in as gradual a manner as it had been introduced; and even described the means by which it would be destroyed; naniely, by the scriptures put into the hands of the people, and by the preaching of the true doctrine of the gospel out of the scriptures; so that the eyes of the people, long blinded by the arts of the deceivers, being opened, they would at length discern and acknowledge the truth.-No events similar to these having ever taken place in any prior age of the world, the prediction of them by the apostle, and their happening exactly as they were foretold to us, who have seen the rise and progress, and begun destruction of the apostasy, are such a demonstration of the inspiration of St. Paul, and of the truth of our religion, as cannot be gainsaid.

The matters contained in the two epistles to the Thessalonians being of such importance, we may believe that the presidents of the Thessalonian church, in obedience to the apostle's adjuration in his first epistle, took care to have both of them frequently read to the people in their public assemblies; who, considering them as expressions of their spiritual father's love to them, and of his earnest concern for their salvation, would hear them read with pleasure, and be greatly strengthened and comforted by them.-May the reading of these excellent writings have the same happy effects on the disciples of Christ, to the end of time!

I. TIMOTHY.

But before Timothy returned from Corinth, the apostle that they would be saved merely because they had Abraleft Ephesus, and went into Macedonia, where the bre- ham to their father: Intricate questions and strifes about thren above mentioned met him, 2 Cor. ii. 12, 13., hav- some words in the law: Perverse disputings of men of ing Timothy in their company; as is plain from his join- corrupt minds, who reckoned that which produced most ing the apostle in his second epistle to the Corinthians, gain to be the best kind of godliness: and oppositions which all agree was written from Macedonia, immediate- of knowledge falsely so named.-But these errors had ly after the brethren from Corinth gave the apostle an not taken place in the Ephesian church before the aposaccount of the success of his first letter. Wherefore, tle's departure; for in his charge to the Ephesian elders since Timothy was not in Ephesus when the apostle left at Miletus he foretold, that the false teachers were to that city after the riot, it could not be the occasion on enter among them after his departing, Acts xx. 29. 'I which the apostle said to him, 'As I entreated thee to know, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter abide in Ephesus, when going into Macedonia, so do:' in among you, not sparing the flock. 30. Also of your But the journey into Macedonia, of which he speaks, own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to must have been some other journey not mentioned in draw away disciples after them.' The same thing apthe Acts. To remove this difficulty, we are told, that pears from the two epistles which the apostle wrote to Timothy returned from Corinth to the apostle, before his the Corinthians; the one from Ephesus before the riot of departure from Ephesus, and that he was left there after Demetrius, the other from Macedonia after that event; the riot; but that something happened, which occasioned and from the epistle which he wrote to the Ephesians him to follow the apostle into Macedonia: That there he themselves from Rome, during his confinement there : joined him in writing his second epistle to the Corin- For in none of these letters is there any notice taken of thians; and having finished his business in Macedonia, the above mentioned errors, as subsisting among the he returned to Ephesus, and abode; agreeably to the Ephesians at the time they were written; which cannot apostle's request. But as these suppositions are not be accounted for on supposition that they were prevalent warranted by the history of the Acts, Timothy's joining in Ephesus, when the apostle went into Macedonia after the apostle in his second epistle to the Corinthians may the riot. I am therefore of opinion, that the first to still be urged as a proof, that he came with the brethren Timothy, in which the apostle desired him to abide in directly from Corinth to Macedonia. Farther, that Ephesus for the purpose of opposing the Judaizers and Timothy did not go from Macedonia to Ephesus, after their errors, could not be written, either from Troas or joining the apostle in his second epistle to the Corin- from Macedonia, after the riot, as those who contend for thians, but returned with him to Corinth to receive the the early date of that epistle suppose: But it must have collections, I think is plain from Acts xx. 4., where he been written some time after the apostle's release from his is mentioned as one of those who accompanied Paul confinement in Rome, when, no doubt, he visited the from Corinth to Jerusalem, with the collections. church at Ephesus, and found the Judaizing teachers there busily employed in spreading their pernicious errors.

2. When the apostle wrote his first epistle to Timothy, 'he hoped to come to him soon,' chap. iii. 14. But, from the history of the Acts, it is certain, that in no letter written to Timothy after the riot, till his first confinement in Rome, could the apostle say, that he hoped to come to him soon.' He could not say so in any letter written from Troas, the first place he stopped at after leaving Ephesus: For at that time he was going into Macedonia and Achaia, to receive the collections from the churches in these provinces. Neither could he say so, after writing his second to the Corinthians from Macedonia: For in that epistle he told the Corinthians he was coming to them with the Macedonian brethren, who were commissioned to attend him in his voyage to Jerusalem with the collections, 2 Cor. ix. 4., and that he meant to sail directly from Corinth to Judea, 2 Cor. i. 16.-As little could he write to Timothy, that he hoped to come to him soon,' when he altered his resolution on occasion of the lying in wait of the Jews, and returned into Macedonia, Acts xx. 3.: For he was then in such haste to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, that when he came to Miletus, instead of going to Ephesus, he sent for the elders of that church to come to him, Acts xx. 16, 17.-When he arrived in Judea, he could not write that he hoped to come to Ephesus soon;' for he was imprisoned a few days after he went up to Jerusalem. And having continued two years in prison at Cæsarea, he was sent bound to Rome, where likewise being confined, he could not, till towards the conclusion of that confinement, write to Timothy, that he hoped to come to him soon.' And even then he did not write his first epistle to Timothy: For Timothy was with him at the conclusion of his confinement, Phil. ii. 19-23.

3. From the first epistle we learn, that the following were the errors Timothy was left in Ephesus to oppose: Fables invented by the Jewish doctors to recommend the observance of the law of Moses as necessary to salvation: Uncertain genealogies, by which individuals endeavoured to trace their descent from Abraham, in the persuasion

4. In the first epistle to Timothy, the same sort of persons, doctrines, and practices, are reprobated, which are condemned in the second. Compare 1 Tim. iv. 1-6. with 2 Tim. iii. 1-5., and 1 Tim. vi. 20. with 2 Tim. ii. 14., and 1 Tim. vi. 4. with 2 Tim. ii. 16.-The same commands, instructions and encouragements, are given to Timothy in the first epistle as in the second. Compare 1 Tim. vi. 13, 14. with 2 Tim. iv. 1-5.—The same remedies for the corruptions which had taken place among the Ephesians, are prescribed in the first epistle as in the second. Compare 1 Tim. iv. 14. with 2 Tim. i. 6, 7.—And as in the second epistle, so in the first, every thing is addressed to Timothy, as superintendant both of the teachers and of the laity in the church at Ephesus: All which I think imply, that the state of things among the Ephesians was the same when the two epistles were written; consequently, that the first epistle was written only a few months before the second, and not long before the apostle's death.

And

These arguments appeared so convincing to Pearson, Le Clerc, L'Enfant, Cave, Fabritius, Mill, Whitby, and others, that they were unanimously of opinion, Timothy was left by the apostle in Ephesus, as he went into Macedonia, not after the riot of Demetrius, but after he was released from his first confinement in Rome. from that circumstance they infer, that he did not write his first epistle to Timothy till some time in the end of the year 64, or in the beginning of 65. I think it was written from Nicopolis. See Pref. to Titus, sect. 1. To the late date of the first epistle there are three plausible objections, which must not be overlooked.

Object. 1. It is thought, that if the first epistle to Timothy was written after the apostle's release, he could not, with any propriety, have said to Timothy, chap. iv. 12. Let no man despise thy youth.'-But it is replied, That Servius Tullius, in classing the Roman people, as Aulus Gellius relates, lib. x. c. 28., divided their age into three periods:-Childhood, he limited to the age of seven

teen; youth, from that to forty-six; and old age, from SECT. III.-Of the Occasion of Writing the First forty-six to the end of life. Now, supposing Timothy to have been 18 years old, A. D. 50, when he became Paul's assistant, he would be no more than 32, A. n. 64, two years after the apostle's release, when it is supposed this epistle was written. Wherefore, being then in the period of life, which, by the Greeks as well as the Romans, was considered as youth, the apostle, with propriety, might say to him, 'Let no man despise thy youth.'