man despise thy youth," but simply, "Let no man despise thee."

III. The apostle concludes this epistle with some excellent admonitions, shewing the use of the gospel in mending the hearts and lives of men; and likewise cautioning Titus against those dangerous principles which were at that time introduced into the church; requiring him by all means to purge the church of them.

1. The proud and unsubmissive spirit of the Jews in general, and of these false teachers who were Jews, in particular, I have frequently mentioned. To oppose this turbulent spirit, the apostle gives these directions about submission to magistrates, Christianity having nothing to do with the civil rights of men, since the kingdom of Christ is not of this world.* At the same time I would observe that Christianity is far from being an enemy to civil liberty or temporal happiness. With respect to these things, we are to act as our best judgment as men shall lead us; and in every truly good cause, the principles of Christianity will give a man both intrepidity in action, and resignation in miscarriage.

3. As a reason for behaving with meekness and forbearance towards all men, even the most refractory, the apostle reminds the Christians what they themselves were before they received the gospel; and it is very possible that in this he had a particular view to his own case and history, which he had before described in nearly the same terms.† The description itself may agree well enough with Paul's former life, and especially with the idea that he now had of it, except that as he said, that he had lived in all good. conscience before God, it may be thought he could not here say, that he had ever served divers lusts and pleasures. But the word in the original does not imply sensual pleasure, but violent desires and gratifications of any kind; and that his character and conduct were violent, his history shews. There is, moreover, one ancient manuscript, which, instead of hating one another, has, hating the brethren, that is, Christians; which will exactly suit the case of Paul.

5. The washing of regeneration probably refers to the rite of baptism, by which was signified, as Peter [1 Ep. iii. 21] says, "the putting away of the filth of the flesh." The change was so great as to be styled by the term a new birth * See on 1 Tim. ii. 2, supra, p. 126.

+ See Origen, and Benson's Paraph. in Lardner, II. p. 539; Doddridge.

and a new life. After a natural birth, much attention was given to the washing of the new-born child.

This gospel salvation is said not to have been given us for any works of righteousness that we have done; and certainly the gospel was the free gift of God to man. Paul in particular, and it is probable that he had a view to his own case, had done nothing to deserve to be called to it in the extraordinary manner that he was. Every means of improvement and happiness is the free gift of God, but then the improvement of it depends upon ourselves. Knowledge of any kind, and that of the gospel itself, is to be considered as a talent given us to improve, and if we ever arrive at the final gospel salvation or the happiness of another life, it must be in consequence of the improvement of our talents, and of acting our parts well while here below. We shall then be rewarded according to our works, the works of righteousness that we perform here.

6. Paul, in speaking of the abundant effusion of the spirit, seems pretty clearly to point to his own case; as he was an apostle, and had therefore the power of imparting the gift of the spirit to others. This renewing power is ascribed both to baptism and the effusion of the spirit. But all that we are authorized to conclude from the passage is, that the principles of Christianity, the profession of which was, in those early times, accompanied both by baptism and the gifts of the spirit, produced this change in the tempers and lives of men, which the apostle here describes.*

7. Notwithstanding every man will be rewarded according to his works, yet, as the whole dispensation of the gospel, by which we are put in the way of our duty and future happiness, is the free gift of God, and as no man can pretend to be justified on account of his innocence, but only by the mercy of God to the penitent, justification may still, with the greatest propriety, be said to be of grace. Our acquittal from condemnation is what God graciously grants to the penitent and sincere, but to no others.

9. The apostle having seen the great importance of good works, as necessary to be urged on all Christians, and then

On vers. 5, 6, see Com. and Ess. I. pp. 131, 182.

+ "Heirs of eternal life, according to hope." Hallett, III. p. 509.

"Passant devant lui pour justes, par sa misericorde; quoique nous ne le soiyons à present qu' imparfaitement, et que nous aiyons été auparavant adonnez à toutes sortes de vices." Le Clerc.

passing immediately to the censure of the false doctrines that were then introduced into the church, we cannot help concluding, that some of the maxims of these teachers were of a licentious kind; and that they were so, is farther evident from the epistles of Peter, Jude and John, and also from the book of Revelation.

The things here referred to under the name of genealogies, I have observed before, were the Gnostic doctrines of the derivation of celestial beings from the Supreme Mind, than which nothing could be more absurd or various. These teachers, being also Jews, laid great stress upon the law of Moses.

10, 11. That the manners of these heretics or Gnostics, for it is evident from all antiquity that no other class of men was considered as heretics in the primitive times, were licentious, seems farther evident from the apostle here saying that they were self-condemned. By this, however, he could only mean that their vices were so flagrant, that it was hardly possible to suppose but that they must blame. themselves for them. There are, perhaps, no speculative principles from which a man will, at all times, and especially in his cooler moments, exculpate himself in cases in which all the rest of mankind think him to be criminal, though in argument he might maintain the lawfulness of his conduct and pretend to justify it.

Heretics were those who had actually left the Catholic

"The Jews carried their fondness for these to a great excess; and Jerome tells us, they were as well acquainted with those from Adam to Zerubbabel, as with their own names. Doddridge. See Chap. i. 14, supra, p. 147.

+"This Greek word Hereticke is no more in true English and in truth, than an obstinate and wilful person in the church of Crete, striving and contending about these unprofitable questions and genealogies, &c.-This rejecting is no other than that avoiding which Paul writes of to the church of Christ at Rome (Rom. xvi. 17); which avoyding (however wofully perverted by some to prove persecution) belonged to the governors of Christ's church and kingdom in Rome, and not to the Romane emperour, for him to rid and avoyd the world of them by bloody and cruel persecution." Williams's Blondy Tenent, pp. 34, 37.

AlpETIKOS is properly the same as alperiors, that is, one who follows a sect, alpes, whether its doctrines are true or false; but the doctrines of the apostles being true, whoever departed from their sect, alperis, did by consequence maintain false doctrines: hence persons that unhappily differed in opinion from the leading men, however sound they might really be, were afterwards called heretics: orthodoxy and majority being soon made convertible terms. So that when the governors of churches were no longer inspired, and had degenerated from the power of working miracles, and that of discerning spirits, they however assumed the authority adherent to those characters, aud at length turned religion into a farce, by not only avoiding those, who justly complained of their errors and tyranny, but by excommunicating them, and damning them by wholesale for not stooping to their ambition." N. T. 1729, II. pp. 796, 797. See Foster's Sermon on Heresy, and his Controversy with Stebbing.

church, and having separated themselves from it, they must have known that they did not belong to it, and therefore in this sense they might be said to be self-condemned.*

12, 13. The apostle now concludes the epistle with giving directions about particular things. These little circumstances, though of no use to us in any other view, are of the greatest use in proving the genuineness of the epistles. They are so written as that no man can seriously believe them to be forgeries. Accordingly, it never was doubted either that they were Paul's, or that they were written in the circumstances to which he alludes. The proof of the truth of the gospel history from this one circumstance, is of a peculiarly clear and satisfactory kind to those who properly attend to it; but, few appear to me to have done this. It would be quite as easy, as I have observed, to account for the writing of the epistles of Cicero, upon the supposition of there being no truth in the Roman history, as to account for the writing of these of Paul, on the idea of there being no truth in the Christian history; so exactly do they correspond to one another.

II. CORINTHIANS.

Ir appeared from the tenor of the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, that many abuses had crept into the Christian church in that place, occasioned chiefly by some new teachers pretending to great knowledge, who wished to undermine the authority of Paul, and who discarded some of the most important doctrines of Christianity, and especially that of the resurrection. The apostle had written to them from Ephesus with great earnestness on the subject, and had long been anxious to know what reception his epistle had met with. Titus, who had been sent with it, was to have met him at Troas, on his way to the western continent, but not meeting with him there, he proceeded to Macedonia, where Titus joined him, and gave him such an account of the state of the church at Corinth, and the reception that his epistle had met with, as gave him great encouragement; though he saw occasion to write to them a second time before he chose to visit them himself, which he did in the year following, viz. A. D. 58.

• "AUTOxatanρITOs, one who has passed sentence against himself, by openly renouncing Christianity." N. T. 1729, II. p. 797. See Hallett, III. pp. 377-382; Cyprian in Lardner, III. p. 168; Doddridge.

This second epistle is supposed to have been written from Macedonia, or Illyricum, towards the end of the year 57, and like the former, it was also sent by Titus, who was returning to Corinth, in order to promote a collection for the poor Christians at Jerusalem.*

In this second epistle, the apostle explains himself farther in some things which he had urged in the former, and he repeats his admonitious, though not always in the same direct manner, against the false teachers with whom they had been troubled. In this first chapter he gives the Corinthians an account of his own situation, and of his feelings with respect to them, by which they could not but perceive how much he had their interest at heart, and that he had no higher wish than their improvement in the knowledge of the gospel, and their happiness here and hereafter in consequence of it.

CHAP. I. 4. Here the apostle probably alludes to the great satisfaction which he had received from the account that Titus had given of their affairs, and the effect of his former epistle, as well as his happy deliverance from the troubles at Ephesus.

5. As we resemble Christ in our sufferings, so we partake with him likewise in our consolations. We see here that the sufferings of Christ are placed in the very same light with those of other good men, his followers. As he laid down his life for the brethren, we also are exhorted to do the same if we are called to it; which shews that there was nothing peculiar in the sufferings of Christ, as making atonement for the sins of men. He suffered in the cause of truth and virtue, and his example should encourage us to do the same.

6.† That is, the troubles which I undergo are of use to encourage you to act with the same fortitude, in suffering for the sake of the gospel, which will issue in your salvation and future glory. My consolation also contributes to

yours.

10. We have but a very short account of the sufferings of Paul at Ephesus. He did not make his appearance in the great tumult, which was occasioned by his preaching there; at least Luke does not mention this. But his life

See Locke's Synopsis; Michaelis's Introd. Lect. pp. 263, 264; Lardner, VI. pp. 324, 325; Doddridge's Introd. IV. pp. 415, 416.

+ " Relief, (rather than salvation,) deliverance from their present sorrow." Locke. See Acts xix. 23-34, Vol. XIII. pp. 472–474.