unanimity, and mutual help; of thankfulness, self-possession, and prayerful dependence on God, with which is connected the promise of a perpetual and all-sustaining peace.

7. Religion elevates and ennobles us. We are called to the attainment of high moral excellence. St. Paul then speaks of the practical love of the Philippians in ministering to his necessities, and concludes the epistle with thanksgiving to God, and benedictions on his church.

THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS.

By comparing chap. iv. 3, 15, with Eph. vi. 22, Col. iv. 17, Philem. 10, and Col. iv. 9, it becomes apparent that, like the foregoing, this Epistle was written at the time of St. Paul's captivity in Rome.

1. Inscription and salutation. Devout feelings of the apostle on having become acquainted through Epaphra with the spiritual prosperity which had attended their reception of the gospel.

2. The habitual prayer of St. Paul for their advancement in knowledge, wisdom, rectitude, and beneficence; with a strength to do and to endure, and with minds pervaded with eucharistic gratitude for the inestimable blessings and hopes of Messiah's kingdom. The Godhead, majesty, and mediatorial sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ.

3. The Christians of Colosse, who knew by experience his power to save, are exhorted to persevere in the faith of the gospel, with the ministration of which the writer had been intrusted, and which, while it dispels the ignorance of God that had overclouded the mind in past ages, makes known to us the riches of his grace, and brings to the believer an especial interior revelation of the

Saviour, and, with him abiding in the soul, the assurance of future blessedness. To bring every human being to the participation of this good, the great design of the apostolic institute. St. Paul's concern for their salvation in particular, and for the spiritual prosperity of their own and the sister church of Laodicea.

He

4. Exhortations and cautions to the same effect. who is united abidingly to Christ, is independent of the world; for in him the only Saviour is a divine plenitude of good. That Saviour has satisfied the claims of justice for us, and triumphed over our foes.

5. These Gentile believers are hereupon exhorted to be on their guard against the devices of the false teachers around them, and against any doctrines which seduce them to the practice of the formalities of Judaism, the Platonic homage to demons, or the useless mortifications of the Pythagoreans, all of which were adverse to the spirit and design of the gospel revelation.

6, 7. Our experimental interest in Christ will be proved in the heavenward tone of our dispositions. The renewed life tends upward. If we have life in Christ our affections will make their home on high, because He is there. It is this which makes true piety so inexplicable to the man of mere sensualism. But at the last advent the mystery will be solved. What the unbeliever now denies, because he cannot see it, will then have visual demonstration. But every one who has this solemn hope of glorification with the sons of God will be anxious to be made altogether meet for it by being cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and being renewed in the moral image of the Lord. Practical exhortations to mutual love, and efforts for the common edification; to the fulfilment of the relative duties; to prayer and intercession ; and to watchful endeavour for the conversion of the unsaved.

FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS.

THE gospel was first preached in the city of Thessa

See Acts xvii. This is

Paul's Epistles. It was

lonica about A.D. 52 or 53. considered the earliest of St. written when the church, then but recently founded, was suffering persecution.

1. Exordium. Their conversion and steadfastness a perpetual cause of gratitude to the apostle and his fellowlabourers. Retrospection: (1.) The experience of the flock. They had heard the divine voice in the gospel, and had obeyed. Their adherence to the truth had already been the means of promoting the spread of it in the surrounding regions. (2.) The conduct of their first pastors among them, demonstrative of their perfect sincerity as the avowed messengers of the Lord.

2. The effect of their reception of the gospel the same in them as in all believers. In their case, too, a similarity of experience with the other early Christians, in the endurance of persecution. The hatred to Christianity which had been elicited in the conduct of their Gentile persecutors, appeared with still greater aggravation of guilt in that of the Jewish opposers of it in Judea. Their impending doom.

3. In knowing their exposure to the ordeal of persecution, St. Paul's anxiety for them had been augmented. The sending of Timothy, and the consolation afforded by the intelligence he had brought of their perseverance in the faith. He yearns to be with them himself.

4. He now reminds them that further and final perseverance demands progression; and exhorts them to adCounsels tending to this, on sanctification, and purity of life, brotherly love, self-composedness, and habits of industry.

vance.

5. As from the precincts of the grave, the hand of

inspiration then points some of them who had been bereaved, to the glorious immortality to be enjoyed by the risen dead in Christ, and by transformed believers, at a day which is swiftly approaching. The rapture of the saints at the coming of the Lord distinctly foretold.

Theorizing on the time of this great event, of infinitely less importance to us than being in earnest to be ready for it. The very uncertainty of the day an additional motive to vigilant effort. The provisions of the gospel insure the triumph of all who are thus disposed.

6. Practical teachings to the same effect. St. Paul's solicitude that all the disciples might become acquainted with the written word. Benediction.

SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS.

WRITTEN not long after the first letter, probably from Corinth. Though still persecuted, the church remained faithful.

1. The judgment of God in bestowing upon them the blessings of his kingdom proved to have been unerring, in their manifested fidelity, charity, and patience under persecution and affliction. But while they could look forward to the eternal repose of the saints, their adversaries were already condemned to a fiery retribution, to be inflicted at the coming of Christ to be glorified in the consummation of his saving work in the finally faithful. Such expectations excite to prayer.

To remove erroneous impressions regarding the supposed nearness of the second advent, the apostle shows that before that great event there would be unfolded in the church a process of apostasy, and the tyrannical reign of an antichristian power, whose establishment would be effected by Satanic influence, and whose destruction would require an express interposition of the

F

Almighty. Portraiture of the papal antichrist. The perilous state of such as adhere to him. Those who are willing to slight the truth must fall under the power of error, and be undone.

St. Paul encourages the Thessalonians to persevere. He asks their prayers for himself and his associates in the ministry. He cautions them against an error in practice which some among them had fallen into, of relaxing their attention to the ordinary duties of life, on the supposition that the day of judgment was impending. He reminds them of his own example when among them, and directs that the disorderly and idle should be visited with salutary discipline. Yet discipline was to be wielded in the spirit of love; final excision from the church being regarded by the apostle as the last of earthly calamities. The reclaiming and restoration of offenders should be ever kept in view. (2 Cor. ii. 6—8; Gal. vi. 1, 2.)

THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY.

COMPARE Acts xiv. 5, 6, xvi. 1—3; 2 Tim. i. 5; iii. 15; 1 Tim. iv. 14; i. 18; iii. 14; 2 Tim. i.

6, 7.

This epistle was probably written from Macedonia, about A.D. 65, some short time after St. Paul's liberation from Rome.

1. One great purpose of his having been established at Ephesus was the preservation of the church from false doctrine, and especially from the superstitious teachings of the Judaizers.

The law which is fulfilled in love levels its terrors only against the wicked; and, regarded according to its true nature and design, is a good invaluable. This is the view which is taken of it in the gospel, of which the writer had been appointed an apostle. The matchless