13. You fee here the great end of our faith in the gofpel. 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 faid to sleep in Jesus, or in fure expectation of his coming to raise the dead and judge the world, our life 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.

THE PARAPHRASE.

Being therefore exceedingly anxious for you, on account of the trying fituation in which I left you, I chose to remain at Athens, where I had no friends or acquaintance, and fent my fellow labourer Timothy to affist and encourage you, and especially to admonish you that the perfecution which hath befallen you, tho' grievious, was nothing that you ought to be furprized or much concerned at, as you had been fully apprized of it by us, and had feen myfelf and my companions expofed to it, and it is the will of God, for the best reafons, that his church fhould bear it. When I was with you I plainly foretold what has come to pass in this ref pect.

I was, however anxious, and uncertain about the event, left by fome means or other you should have been induced to abandon your faith in Chrift, and thus all ur past lab our in preaching to you had been lost.

you

But when I was informed by Timothy on his return that continued steadfast in the faith, in love to the brethren, and alfo in an affectionate remembrance of myfelf, it gave me fo much fatsfaction, that I was more than ever encouraged to bear up under all my owu difficulties in the farther propagation of the gospel. For my happinefs confiits in the fuccefs 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 inftruction you may fill

want.

I fhall rejoice if it be the will of God, and of our Lord Jefus Chrift who has the im nediate direction of the affairs of his church, that I fhould come into your parts again. But whether I return or not, it is my earneft with 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 refpects, approve yourselves unto God, even the Father, and be prefented, fpotlefs at the glorious coming of our Lord Jefus Chrift attend. ed by the angels of God, and all his faithful difciples at the last day.

Ch. IV. 1. The apostle having fufficiently expreffed his general good opinion of the Theffalonians, and his anxiety about their welfare, proceeds to give them fuch inftructions and advice as he apprehended they more. particularly food in need of. Thefe refpected that

open

open lewdness in which the heathens in general and, as we are informed, the Theffalonians in particular, lived, the obligation to labour rather than to be burthenfome to others, and a caution with refpect to thofe difmal la mentations which the heathens in general made over their dead, which gives him occafion to explain himself with refpect to the chriftian doctrine of the refurrection.

3. Those who have been educated in the pure principles of the chriftian religion have no idea of the abomi nable licentioufnefs of the heathens, and efpecially of the Greeks and Romans, with refpect to the commerce of the fexes. The philofophers themfelves went no far. ther than to condemn adultery, and fornication with free born women. The ufe of proftitutes, and of female flaves, was rather encouraged, and the moft horrid exceffes, and even unnatural pollutions, were practiced in their religious rites them felves, as all perfons acquainted with the ftate of things in thofe times well know. The heathens even thought it neceffary to allow fuch prae. tices in the rites of their religion, as they difcouraged upon other occafions. As the apoftle fays, it is a fhame to fpeak of those things which they do in fecret, that is, in the moft fecret rites or mysteries, as they were called, of their religion. In Egypt the rife of the Nile, which was neceflary for the fertilizing of the country, was thought to depend upon certain practices ufed by a fet of priests maintained for that purpofe, which are juftly punished with death in this country. Conítantine the great abolished this horrid cuftom, and to the furprize, no doubt of the heathens, the Nile was found to rife to its proper height without that ceremony, while

the christians as naturally imagined that it rofe better

than ever.

Without revelation men would not naturally confider any thing as a vice which had no obvious ill confequences with respect to fociety, and as to that purity of mind, and dignity of fentiment, which is the perfection of moral character, and which is debased by voluptuoufness and criminal pleasures, they had no idea of it, and were not folicitous about it. But as the apostle obferves, fleshly lusts war against the soul, and debase the mind. It is however, the utter and manifest inconfiftency of thefe vices with the christian character that gives many perfons of the prefent age a diflike to it. For in these respects the maxims of modern unbelievers are as loofe as thofe of the ancients.

6. As the apoftle is treating of lewdness, both before and after this verfe, it is probable that this should be fo tranflated as to refer to the crime of adultery, by which others are injured, and inftead of any matter, it fhould be this matter i. e. in refpect to the thing of which I am now treating.

We may be furprized that the apofle fhould think it neceffary to animadvert at all upon fuch vices as are recited in this addrefs to chiftians; but till men were apprized of the purity of the chriftian precepts, they had no idea of much blame in very grofs vices. You will fee marks of this in many of the epiftles, in which fuch exhortations are repeated. But in a fhort time after, fuch things were not heard of among chriftians. It is proper that these things fhould be obferved, in order to give us a just idea of the value of christianity, how great a blefling

a bleffing 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 poffible that fome idle perfons, more difpofed to talk about religion than to practice it, had taken advantage of the remarkable liberal difpofition of the richer chriftians at Theffalonica, to neglect their own business, and live at the expence of others. There are too many perfons of this difpofition in all places, and at all times. This the apoftle very juftly and feverely reproves, and indeed his own example in this very cafe carries a ftill stronger reproof along with it. 12. Reputably.

THE PARAPHRASE:

As you have been fully inftructed with respect to the great object of the golpel, viz. holiness in heart and life, as the only method of recommending you to God, I moft earnestly intreat you, as speaking in the name of Chrift, that you ftrictly conform to it, and endeavour to make greater proficiency in it daily. You cannot have forgotten what precepts and inftructions I gave you, as neceffary to be oblerved by all chriftians, and especially that you should abftain from all kinds of lewdness, to which your heathen neighbours are peculiarly addicted, that you should in all refpects preserve yourselves pure, as if you were veffels appropriated to facred uses, and not live in fuch licentiousness as the heathens, who are ftrangers to the true God, and the precepts of a pure B 4 religion,