this circumstance you will naturally infer the purity of our motives. And indeed it was nothing of our own invention, or that we had any personal interest in, that we taught you; nor did we artfully go about to gain you over to any base purpose of our own, but, considering ourselves as employed by God in a great and important trust, our object was not to recommend ourselves to men, but to approve ourselves to God, by whom we were employed, and who knows the heart; and we can appeal to God, and to yourselves, that we did not study to gain your favour, or your wealth for as honour has not been our object, so neither has gain ; though as men employed in an office, we had a natural claim to some emolument from it. But we treated you with tenderness, as a mother who nurses her own children; and so intense was our affection, that, together with the gospel, we were ready to risk even our lives for your benefit.

To convince you of our disinterestedness, you know that we laboured with our own hands night and day, in order to maintain ourselves, without being any charge to you. With respect to our general conduct, we can call God and you to witness the purity of it, that it was truly pious, righteous and unexceptionable, and it was the great object of our exhortation to engage you to act in the same manner. A father could not be more earnest with his own children in this respect, endeavouring to persuade you not only to abandon your former vain idols, and the impure rites annexed to that worship, but to act with propriety and dignity, becoming the worshippers of the one true and living God, who has called you from darkness to light, and made you the subjects of his glorious and everlasting kingdom.

II. 13. The apostle having given a short account of his preaching the gospel in Thessalonica, and the manner in which he conducted himself with respect to it, proceeds to express his thankfulness to God for such happy fruits of his preaching, that his disciples there were so soon capable not only of receiving the truths of the gospel, but of acting up to them, and of bearing extreme persecution on that account. He also expresses most eager desire to visit them once more, and considers their conversion as his happiness and glory.

The apostle here ascribes the happy effects of the gospel upon the Thessalonians not to any immediate divine influence upon their minds, but to the natural effect of a belief of its truth. It was the mere word of God, which, by its natural power, worked so effectually in them. And cer

tainly all that is necessary to reform men's lives, and to fit them for a happy immortality, is a firm belief of the doctrine of a resurrection and a judgment to come, and that all men shall then receive according to their works. Indeed, it was absurd to suppose that God would provide means naturally adapted to work so favourably upon men's minds, if, after all, they were not sufficient for the purpose, but required his own supernatural influence to come in aid of them, and any influence of this kind would be as much a miracle as raising the dead. Indeed, they that believe this influence, and depend upon it, represent mankind as actually so dead in sins, as that nothing they can do can avail them, so that their conversion is owing to the sovereign and miraculous influence of God upon their minds, operating when and how he pleases, without any aid from the persons so operated upon. But upon this plan, there is an end of all religion properly so called, since motives and arguments to excite men to virtue are of no avail.

14. The Romans had not at this time interfered in the progress of Christianity, considering it as a sect springing up among the Jews, whom they tolerated every where. But the Jews being settled in every town of note, and having considerable influence, stirred up the Gentiles to do the Christians ill offices, and were often the cause of great outrages against them.

15. The pride of the Jews, and their contempt and . hatred of other nations, was noticed by all the writers who speak of them ;* and, indeed, we see traces enough of it in the gospel history. To express this contempt of the Gentiles, they commonly called them dogs, a term which our Saviour, to try the faith of a Phoenician woman, applied to her, and which it appears she had been used to, and was not particularly offended at it.†

16. This was fully verified in the destruction of Jerusalem, and the calamities of the Jewish nation, which took place in less than twenty years after this epistle was written, and which have continued to this day.

PARAPHRASE.

We rejoice, therefore, that you received the gospel, which was preached to you from such distinguished motives, with

• See Le Clerc; Elsner, (Observ. II. p. 274,) in Doddridge.

See Mark vii. 27, 28, Vol. XIII. pp. 175, 176, on Matt. xv. 26, 27.

"Literally, hath overtaken them, on account of its nearness and certainty." Wakefield.

a just sense of its divine origin and importance, as the word of God, and not of man; containing truths that are capable of producing such a happy effect upon the mind. In consequence of this, you were immediately capable of following the noble example of the Christian church at Jerusalem itself, and even of bearing such suffering from your countrymen on account of the gospel as the believing Jews suffered from theirs; and the malice of those unbelieving Jews has been most inveterate, having persecuted unto death their own former prophets, our Lord Jesus Christ, and us his followers. In this they shew themselves to be the enemies of God whose messengers we are, and their pride, and their hatred of all other nations besides themselves, are notorious.

What more particularly excites their jealousy and rage, is our preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, that they may enjoy the blessings of it. This fills up the measure of their iniquity, and accordingly the wrath of God is coming upon them to the uttermost.

It has not been for want of the most intense affection for you that I have not visited you again, notwithstanding I have not been long absent, and this absence has been only in body, and not with respect to my mind; for you are continually in my thoughts; and my wishes to be with you. cannot rise higher than they do. I would have been with you in person several times during this my absence, but one adversary or other has prevented me. For, indeed, what greater object have I in this world than you, who have been my converts to the faith of the gospel? There is nothing that I more rejoice in the hope of, there is nothing that I shall more glory in, as if it were a crown put upon my head, than to present you to our common Lord, as my converts, and his disciples, at his second coming. This will be the consummation of my glory and happiness.

III. 1, 2. The apostle continues to express the anxiety he felt on account of the severe trials to which the Christians of Thessalonica were exposed, and his earnest desire to see them, that he might farther confirm them in the faith and hope of the gospel.

3. We see that, in those early ages, men were not tempted by any honours or emoluments of this life. They were apprized that they were not to expect any advantage from the scheme, in this world, but that all their hopes of reward were to be in another. Now what could induce men, in the cool possession of themselves, as the apostles evidently

were, and thousands of others, naturally lovers of life, and of the pleasures and advantages of it, as well as other men, to entertain these great and distant prospects, and to sacrifice every thing else to them, but the most well-grounded faith in the gospel, or such evidence as could not but command the assent of unprejudiced men in their circumstances, who had every possible opportunity of judging, and which, therefore, ought to satisfy us. For we have no other ground

of faith in facts of ancient date.

8. That is, they live to purpose, enjoy life, and are happy.*

11. We see here, as upon all occasions, that the title of God is appropriated to the Father, and that Christ is not entitled to that appellation, but is quite distinct from God, as much as any other man can be. And though they are here joined together, it is by no means a proper example of prayer to Christ; but as all power is given to Christ with respect to his church, and he frequently appeared to Paul, and directed the course of his apostolical journeys,† it was natural for him to desire that he might have the same direction to go where he wished himself.

13. We see here the great end of our faith in the gospel. It is to be approved before God at the day of judgment. Nothing short of this is ever held out to Christians as the object of their faith and hope. We have no reward but at the resurrection of the just, as will farther appear in this very epistle; and in the mean time we are said to sleep in Jesus, or in sure expectation of his coming to raise the dead and judge the world, our life [Col. iii. 3, 4] being, as it were, "hid with Christ in God, that when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then (but not before) we also may appear with him in glory."

PARAPHRASE.

Being, therefore, exceedingly anxious for you, on account of the trying situation in which I left you, I chose to remain at Athens, where I had no friends or acquaintance, and sent my fellow-labourer, Timothy, to assist and encourage you, and especially to admonish you that the persecution which hath befallen you, though grievous, was nothing that you ought to be surprised or much concerned at, as you

• « Nous ressentons du plaisir à vivre, car ce n'est pas vivre que de vivre dans la tristesse." Le Clerc.

↑ See Acts xxii. 17, Vol. XIII. p. 485; 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9; Impr. Vers. + See Acts xvii. 16, Vol. XIII. p. 461.

had been fully apprized of it by us, and had seen myself and my companions exposed to it; and it is the will of God, for the best reasons, that his church should bear it. When

I was with you, I plainly foretold what has come to pass in this respect.

I was, however, anxious and uncertain about the event, lest by some means or other you should have been induced to abandon your faith in Christ, and thus all our past labour in preaching to you had been lost. But when I was informed by Timothy on his return that you continued stedfast in the faith, in love to the brethren, and also in an affectionate remembrance of myself, it gave me so much satisfaction, that I was more than ever encouraged to bear up under all my own difficulties in the farther propagation of the gospel for my happiness consists in the success of my labours with you and others. I am therefore truly thankful to God, the author of all good, for the joy I have on your account; and I continue earnest in my prayers to have another opportunity of visiting you, and giving you whatever exhortation and instruction you may still want.

I shall rejoice if it be the will of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has the immediate direction of the affairs of his church, that I should come into your parts again. But whether I return or not, it is my earnest wish and prayer, that what you do know of the gospel may continue to produce the most happy effects, especially of increasing your love to one another, and to all mankind, that it may equal that which I have towards you; and, that you may, in all respects, approve yourselves unto God, even the Father, and be presented spotless, at the glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, attended by the angels of God, and all his faithful disciples, at the last day.

IV. 1. The apostle having sufficiently expressed his general good opinion of the Thessalonians, and his anxiety about their welfare, proceeds to give them such instructions and advice as he apprehended they more particularly stood in need of. These respected that open lewdness in which the Heathens in general, and, as we are informed, the Thessalonians in particular, lived; the obligation to labour rather than to be burthensome to others, and a caution with respect to those dismal lamentations which the Heathens in general made over their dead, which gives him occasion to explain himself with respect to the Christian doctrine of the resurrection.