3. Those who have been educated in the pure principles. of the Christian religion, have no idea of the abominable licentiousness of the Heathens, and especially of the Greeks and Romans, with respect to the commerce of the sexes. The philosophers themselves went no farther than to condemn adultery and fornication, with free-born women. The use of prostitutes, and of female slaves, was rather encouraged, and the most horrid excesses, and even unnatural pollutions, were practised in their religious rites themselves, as all persons acquainted with the state of things in those times well know. The Heathens even thought it necessary to allow such practices in the rites of their religion, as they discouraged upon other occasions. As the apostle says, [Ephes. v. 12,] "it is a shame to speak of those things which they do in secret," that is, in the most secret rites. or mysteries, as they were called, of their religion. In Egypt, the rise of the Nile, which was necessary for the fertilizing of the country, was thought to depend upon certain practices used by a set of priests maintained for that purpose, which are justly punished with death in this country. Constantine the Great abolished this horrid custom, and, to the surprise, no doubt, of the Heathens, the Nile was found to rise to its proper height without that ceremony,' while the Christians as naturally imagined that it rose better than ever.

Without revelation, men would not naturally consider any thing as a vice which had no obvious ill consequences with respect to society; and as to that purity of mind, and dignity of sentiment, which is the perfection of moral character, and which is debased by voluptuousness and criminal pleasures, they had no idea of it, and were not solicitous about it. But as the apostle observes, fleshly lusts war against the soul, and debase the mind. It is, however, the utter and manifest inconsistency of these vices with the Christian character that gives many persons of the present age a dislike to it. For, in these respects, the maxims of modern unbelievers are as loose as those of the ancients.

6. As the apostle is treating of lewdness, both before and after this verse, it is probable that this should be so translated as to refer to the crime of adultery, by which others are injured.† and instead of any matter, it should be this matter, that is, in respect to the thing of which I am now treating.+

• Sée Vol. VIII. p. 279.

+ See Le Cene, pp. 683-685. ↑ See a proposed transposition of vers. 6, 7, Theol. Repos. I. pp. 60, 61.

We may be surprised that the apostle should think it necessary to animadvert at all upon such vices as are recited in this address to Christians; but till men were apprized of the purity of the Christian precepts, they had no idea of much blame in very gross vices. You will see marks of this in many of the epistles, in which such exhortations are repeated. But in a short time after, such things were not heard of among Christians. It is proper that these things should be observed, in order to give us a just idea of the value of Christianity, how great a blessing it has been to mankind, in a moral respect, as we are too apt to think lightly of it. We owe to it both the knowledge of a future life, and the proper means of preparing for it.

11. It is very possible that some idle persons, more disposed to talk about religion than to practise it, had taken advantage of the remarkably liberal disposition of the richer Christians at Thessalonica, to neglect their own business, and live at the expense of others. There are too many persons of this disposition in all places, and at all times. This the apostle very justly and severely reproves, and indeed his own example in this very case carries a still stronger reproof along with it.

12. [Honestly.] Reputably.

PARAPHRASE.

As you have been fully instructed with respect to the great object of the gospel, viz. holiness in heart and life, as the only method of recommending you to God, I most earnestly intreat you, as speaking in the name of Christ, that you strictly conform to it, and endeavour to make greater proficiency in it daily. You cannot have forgotten what precepts and instructions I gave you, as necessary to be observed by all Christians, and especially that you should abstain from all kinds of lewdness, to which your Heathen neighbours are peculiarly addicted; that you should in all respects preserve yourselves pure, as if you were vessels appropriated to sacred uses, and not live in such licentiousness as the Heathens, who are strangers to the true God and the precepts of a pure religion, without scruple indulge themselves in; especially that you should abstain from such criminal indulgences as would injure others, because such persons shall not escape the righteous judgments of God, concerning which I have given you repeated warnings. The object of our religion is holiness, and it does not admit of the impure rites and practices of the Heathen worship.

To disregard these pure precepts, therefore, is to despise not man but God, who, by the gift of his Holy Spirit, hath confirmed to us the truth of the gospel.

With respect to another article of Christian virtue, viz. brotherly love, I have no occasion to give you particular instructions; for you both know, and have observed, the precepts which God hath equally written on your hearts, and taught you in the gospel on that subject; and your brethren in Macedonia have been in an especial manner the objects of your kindness, though there is room to exert yourselves still more in this respect. But I would have those who have been relieved by the benefactions of the richer sort among you, not to be unnecessarily troublesome to them, but to endeavour to maintain themselves by their own labour, as I taught you both by precept and example; that the character of Christians may not suffer, but appear respectable to your unconverted neighbours, and also that you may always have a resource within yourselves against want, without depending upon others.

IV. 13. The apostle having given the Thessalonians proper advice with respect to those impurities to which they had been addicted in their Heathen state, and the obligation to labour, so as to avoid a life of idleness, and a mean de-pendence upon others, proceeds to give them some advice concerning those dismal howlings and lamentations which the Heathens usually made over their dead, and which did not become Christians, who believed the doctrine of a resurrection, of which he here reminds them, and concerning which he gives them some more particular information.

The apostle compares the state of death to that of sleep, which, when it is sound, is a state of perfect insensibility, undisturbed by pleasing or by painful sensations.

14. The doctrine of a resurrection of the dead appears to have been known to all the Jews in the time of our Saviour, when it was the belief of all the Pharisees, and of the great bulk of the nation, though they had fallen into some mistakes with respect to it. They also considered it as having been the belief of their ancestors in remote ages, Our Saviour himself evidently considered it in the same

"Dieu ressuscitera par J. C. ceux qui seront morts et les amenera avec lui." Le Clerc. "Them which sleep God will bring, through Jesus Christ, to be with him." Bowyer. For an uncommon sense of this passage, as entirely "concerning the spiritually dead," see a " Paraphrase on 1 Thess. iv. 13, to the end; v. 1—12,' Cappe's Crit. Rem. 1802, II. pp. 259–270.

light, and therefore I do not see how it could have been otherwise, whatever difficulty we may find in accounting for the little mention that is made of it, or the little or no reference that is made to it, in the books of the Old Testament. As such a doctrine as that of a resurrection could never have been discovered by man, and what the Heathen philosophers had no idea of,* and what their peculiar tenet concerning a separate soul would lead them off from, it must have been communicated by God to mankind, in some very early period of the world, probably prior to the Mosaic institution, or even to the flood, so that it is no wonder the record of it is not extant, though the effects of it remained. But when this doctrine was corrupted, as it was among the Jews, and was destined by God to be communicated to all mankind, it was with the greatest wisdom and propriety that he not only made a fresh discovery of it, but also exemplified it in the person of Christ, the great preacher of this most important doctrine, in order to give mankind the fullest assurance of this great event. The translation of Enoch, supposing him to have preached the same doctrine, would, no doubt, give men a knowledge of another life and state, and might convince them that God could make men immortal, notwithstanding the effects of the fall; but the resurrection of a man to immortal life after a state of unquestionable death, was calculated to give men, who expected to die themselves, much more complete satisfaction with respect to the same thing.

1

15, 17. It is very remarkable that the apostle, in comforting these Thessalonians with respect to their departed friends, makes no mention of any happiness that they enjoyed in a state between death and the resurrection, though it be a topic of consolation that is never overlooked by those who believe in that state, and indeed is unavoidable. It may, therefore, safely be concluded that the apostle knew of no such state, but thought that, agreeable to the tenor of Scripture on all other occasions, death was a state of mere insensibility; and that the great hope of the gospel was the return of our Lord Jesus Christ to raise the virtuous dead to a state of life and happiness. On the hypothesis of the dead being supremely happy, and continuing to be

• See Hallett, I. pp. 298-300.

+ Ver. 16. "Le seigneur lui-même, lors que le signal en aura été donné, par la voix d'un archange, et par un trompette de Dieu, descendra du ciel." Le Clerc. "Le mot de l'original signifie, proprement le signal que l'on donnoit aux rameurs, afin qu'ils commençassent à ramer ensemble." Ibid.

so till the resurrection, it would have been so far from being necessary to inform them that those who should be alive at the coming of Christ would have no advantage over those who had been dead, that these would have had a great and manifest advantage over their brethren, having enjoyed the greatest happiness, in the presence of God and of Christ, many ages before them. All that the apostle was able to say was, that they who are now dead shall not be, upon the whole, in a worse condition than those who shall be alive, because they would be raised to immortal life before any change should take place in the living.*

18. This is abundant consolation. It may, indeed, appear more desirable to enter upon a state of happiness immediately after death; and this may be a reason why Christians are so ready to adopt this opinion. But we ought to be satisfied with the happiness that God promises us, and which will be revealed in due time, viz. the resurrection of the just.

I would observe that the phrase being with the Lord evidently refers to the state after the resurrection. It is after the meeting of the Lord in the air, and not before, that any persons are said to be with him.† Agreeably to this, our Lord himself says to his apostles, I shall come again and take you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also.

PARAPHRASE.

The most important advice and instructions that I have to give you, relate to the state of the dead, and the grief you express for them. In this respect you ought to differ from the Heathens, with whom it is very natural to make dismal lamentations over the dead, since they have no hope of ever seeing them again. But if we believe the Christian doctrine of a resurrection, which has been confirmed to us by that of Christ himself, we believe not only in his resurrection, but that all Christians will rise again, and that Christ, at his second coming, will collect them all together, and appear along with them.

I must also inform you of what I learned from Christ himself, that they who shall be alive at his second coming, and who therefore will not die at all, shall, nevertheless, have no advantage over those who had been in a state of death; which being only a temporary thing, you ought

• See Vol. II. pp. 355, 357.

+ See Mede, (on vers. 16-18,) pp. 519, 775, 776; Impr. Vers. on ver. 18.