2 Timothy 1 - The Biblical Illustrator

A preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.

I. A public preacher is one who may discharge his office ever in one and the same place.

II. An apostle goes about everywhere; but he would have fully satisfied the requirements of his apostolic office if he had once for all declared his message.

III. Teacher. Here we have in addition diligence and perseverance in teaching: from which arose suffering. (J. A. Bengel.)

The preacher a crier

It is an argument, that the preacher brings not stolen stuff nor bad commodity. He whose fruit is best, as we see in cities, crieth loudest. A low voice in the street argueth either an ill-commodity or a false way of obtaining it. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

Not to cavil with the preacher

Again, this must teach the auditors not to cavil with the crier, but to hear the words of exhortation patiently. Some, like Festus, tell Paul, if he cry aloud, that he is beside himself; reputing the preacher rude, indiscreet, passionate. Why? Can a bell have too shrill a sound? a hound too deep or bass a mouth? a piece give too great a report? or a crier extend his voice too high? Shall not the shepherd shout when the sheep are wandering, or ready to be devoured by the wolf? Will ye not ring the bells awake, when the city is on fire? Discharge the greatest cannon, when the ship is in distress, and in danger to be lost in the haven? And shall not the preacher cry, roar, and, as John, bellow like an ox (for so the word is read), when men sleep and sink in sin, and be in hazard to be drowned and devoured by Satan, that cruel wolf, and pirate of the soul? (J. Barlow, D. D.)

The servants of God take delight to dwell and discourse of good things

(Acts 20:7):--It’s no burden or wearisomeness to the saints to enlarge their speech on heavenly subjects. A traveller when he hath taken a view of the situation of many towns and countries, beheld the rare monuments that he hath met withal, rejoiceth to make relation thereof unto his friends after his return; and so is it with a Christian, who is a spiritual traveller: when he hath seen into the mysteries of religion, found out the great secrets therein contained, by the painful travel of his mind, he maketh it the joy of his heart largely to discourse thereof unto his brethren. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

Love makes teachers

But did they love the gospel they neither would or could be silent; for their word, like fire in straw, would burst forth. Will not the soldier speak of his wounds, the huntsman of his hounds, and the husbandman of his cattle and grounds? And shall we love the gospel and never make mention of it? No, no: this little speech of heavenly things argueth that the love of many is but cold. Love the word once, and say nothing of it, if thou canst. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

A gospel preacher

Bramwell was a plain preacher in the States, and to some extent an uncultivated preacher; but he was frill of faith and zeal, and his ministry was attended with marvellous power. He was preaching in a little village on one occasion, and the German minister, Trubner, was induced to go and hear him. Trubner was a very cultivated scholar, and a profound critic; and when some of Bramwell’s friends saw him there they said, “Alas! alas! for poor Bramwell, how Trubner will criticise him!” Precious little did Bramwell care for him, or for all the philosophers under the sun. He preached, and set before his audience the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ, and when Trubner went out of the church one of his friends said to him, “How did you like him? Don’t you think he wanders a good deal in his preaching?” “Oh, yes,” said the old Lutheran, “he do wander most delightfully from de subject to de heart.” (The Teacher’s Cabinet.)

I also suffer these things.

Pride in the profane causeth good men to suffer for well-doing

The Pharisees were zealous for the law and ceremonies, and Paul preached the gospel, called them beggarly and impotent rudiments; told that if they were circumcised Christ profited them nothing. Why, this so took down the pride of man, that he should not be justified by his own works, but by another’s, that Paul was persecuted, and hardly intreated of his own countrymen. If a skilful tailor take measure of a crooked and misshapen person, and fit the garment proportionable to the pattern, a proud piece of flesh will pout, swell, and wrangle with the workmen; so let the ministers and men of God do good, divide the Word aright, high and lofty spirits will be muttering, for they cannot endure the light, or to be told of their deformities. Thus Paul was reputed aa enemy for telling them the truth. A counterfeit and false glass is the fittest for old, withered, and wrinkled curtizans to view themselves in; for if it should show them their right shapes, all things to nothing, they split it against the walls. (Jr. Barlow, D. D.)

For I know whom I have believed.

The foundation of the Christian’s hope

I. One ground of the apostle’s assurance was a persuasion that Christ is able to keep the souls committed unto him.

1. It is implied that Christ is able to bring the soul into a state of salvation.

2. This persuasion of the apostle implied that Christ is able also to preserve the soul in a state of salvation. He added, as the other ground of his assurance--

II. A consciousness that he had himself committed unto Christ his own soul. However firmly he might be persuaded of Christ’s ability to save the souls committed to Him, he yet could not be assured that He would save his soul unless he felt conscious of the fact, that it was really committed unto Him. Let us now see what things this consciousness also implied.

1. It implied that he had knowingly given up all thoughts and hopes of saving himself by his own merits and doings.

2. It was further implied in it, that he now knowingly placed all his hopes and dependence on the sacrifice and mediation of Jesus Christ alone.

3. But it was also implied in it that, from the time in which he had thus renounced his own righteousness, and by faith had hoped in the righteousness of Christ, he had lived and acted consistently with such a faith and hope. (E. Cooper.)

The Christian’s confidence in Christ

The faith of the Christian is here seen.

I. In its object “I know whom I have believed.”

II. In its character. It is seen in many noble qualities and bearings, inseparably connected with each other in the triumphant profession made by the apostle.

1. Knowledge is here the foundation of faith “I know whom I have believed.” Yes, he knew by irresistible demonstration--such as extracted the venom of his heart against Jesus of Nazareth, and filled it with inextinguishable love and fervent devotedness to Him.

2. As knowledge is the foundation of faith, so faith is the reposing of an absolute trust--“I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.”

III. In its consummation--“against that day.” There is to be a consummation--when we shall receive “the end of our faith, even the salvation of our soul.” The province of faith is but for a season, and it shall give place to the vision and fruition of God. (W. B. Collyer, D. D.)

The internal evidence of experience

The evidences for revelation have been commonly divided under two heads, external and internal. Under the head of external evidence, we may class all those proofs, which, though relating to what is found in the Scriptures, are nevertheless exterior to the Word of God; such, for instance, as the authenticity of the Books of Scripture, and the genuineness of their authorship, the miracles by which the truths that the apostles delivered were attested, and the sufferings and persecution which they underwent. But then the internal evidence is not less important. We might, first, take the internal evidence of Scripture which we gather from the Word of God itself--the harmony of one portion of it with another, and the circumstance that in our investigation of its bright and blessed pages, they seem at once to commend themselves, as what we might expect to come from the God of truth. And then there is the internal evidence, which may be gathered from the Christian’s own experience--the attestation, so to speak, of a Christian’s own experience to the truths which he finds revealed in the Scriptures of God. Now we believe that it is to evidence partaking of this character that the apostle alludes in our text. There was no confounding of his principles; there was no putting down of the truth which he maintained; nothing was able to terrify him out of what he had embraced as the truth of God. “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” Now this class of evidence, we believe, will, more or less, be the evidence of every believer in the Lord Jesus.

I. The first point which is presented for our consideration is that the apostle believed the gospel. This is the first act of the sinner with respect to Jesus.

II. But the believer goes further. He does not rest with dependence upon the promise, that the Lord will be with him unto the end of the world; but he is assured of this, because he finds that so far as he had trusted the promise, God has actually been with him. He has found Him true to His word by positive experience.

III. The confidence which Paul had in the future gathered from his experience of the past. (H. W. McGrath, M. A.)

The believer’s confidence in the prospect of eternity

I. The awful period. It is not mentioned by name; but the apostle only calls it “that day.” What day? The day of death, when “the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it”? Or the day of judgment? Doubtless the day of judgment. This is often in the Scripture called “that day,” in order to show us that it is a very important, a very remarkable, a very distinguished day.

II. What the apostle did in the prospect of this period. He deposited something in the Redeemer’s hands; “that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” What, now, was this deposit? You evidently see it was something personal, in which he acted as a believer. And it is not necessary, as far as I know, to exclude anything from the transaction; but principally we are to understand the eternal concerns of his soul. And if this required any confirmation, it may be derived from the example of poor Stephen, who, when he was dying, said, “Lord Jesus receive my spirit”--and from the experience of David, who in an hour of danger said, “Into Thy hand I commit my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth!” It means, therefore, simply believing. The apostle’s representation of faith here will remind us of several things.

1. The committing our eternal all into His bands implies conviction. The man before was deluded by error and blinded by ignorance; but now “the eyes of his understanding” are opened.

(1) Now he is convinced of the value of his soul.

(2) He is now convinced of the danger of the soul.

(3) And now, too, he is convinced of his inability to save his soul.

2. And this act implies also a concern for its security and welfare.

3. The act of committing the soul to Christ also implies application to the Redeemer for the purpose of salvation.

4. It implies submission,

III. The satisfaction felt in the review of the transaction.

1. You see what the satisfaction is derived from: and, generally considered, you observe that it takes in the apostle’s acquaintance with the great Depository himself--“I know whom I have believed.”

2. You have seen the satisfaction generally expressed; but here is a particular reference with regard to it. “And I am persuaded,” says he, “that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” (W. Jay.)

Acquaintance with Christ the Christian’s strength

Since the same source from whence Paul had all his high attainments is as open in all its fulness to each of us, as it was to him, let us consider the way in which that inexhaustible fountain was made available to him to draw supplies according to all his need, whether for support under the discouragement of his trials, or for direction under the perplexity of his difficulties. One word of the text will open the whole of this to us: “I know”;--“I know whom I have believed,” says he. Knowledge was the substance of his power. Nay, then, says the unlearned Christian, it is too difficult for me. Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent. It is high, I cannot attain unto it. It is not for me. How discouraging! will the poor and busy man say. I have neither the leisure nor the means and opportunity of gaining it. How heartless the attempt, then, will the weak-minded and humble Christian say, conscious of his weakness. How can I ever hope to reach even a measure of that, when I feel my weakness and inability every step I take. But to the most unlearned, to the busiest, to the most feebleminded, I say, that this knowledge and all the power it contains is for you. Mark the text. The apostle does not say, I know the support I shall receive, or the direction that will be given me, for I am wise and experienced, but, “I know whom I have believed.” His knowledge was not of things, but of a person, and that but one.

I. Here is mentioned his knowledge of the trustee. Let us consider some particulars of the more obvious but important kind, wherein the apostle knew, and we should know Him.

1. He knew that He was faithful, therefore he believed Him.

2. He knew Him to be able.

3. He knew Him to be willing.

4. He knew Him to be all-wise, both to see his trouble, and the best way to get him out of it.

5. Nay, though clouds and darkness surrounded him, Paul staggered not at this, for he knew the ways of the Lord, that this is His method of dealing with His children. In a word he knew Him to be the sum of all happiness, the source of all strength, the pledge and faithfulness of all the promises, the depository of all power, the ruler of all events, the head over all things to His people, the Saviour both of soul and body.

II. What was it that the apostle committed to him? What was that deposit (as it is in the original), he was persuaded He was able to keep? I answer in one word, his treasure. But that would assume many forms under different circumstances.

1. When the guilt of sin would come upon his conscience, it would be the salvation of his soul.

2. When the power of temptation would come over him, it would be his integrity in serving God.

3. When personal dangers surrounded him, and left him no way of escape, it would be his self-preservation.

4. When assailed by the malicious insinuations of false apostles, and attacks upon his motives, as at Corinth, it would be his character.

5. When he heard of the entering in of grievous wolves into the flock he had fed so carefully, it would be the care of all the churches. Whatever it was, in short, that at the moment most occupied his thoughts and attention, that was what he had deposited for safe-keeping in the hands of Christ, and which he was persuaded He was able to keep against all assaults until that day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and every man shall have his praise of God. (G. Jeans, M. A.)

Grounds of confidence in the Saviour’s ability

We have here a strong expression of his confidence in the Saviour: let us consider, first, the nature, and then the ground of this confidence.

I. Its nature. Some suppose the deposit, which the apostle mentions as committed to him, to denote the gospel trust in general: and this view is favoured by the similar expression in the context, “that good thing, which was committed to thee, keep--hold fast the form of sound words.” But it seems more probable that he refers in the text to the interest of his salvation, the trust of his whole being, his body, soul, and spirit, which he had confidently committed to Christ, as Him who had “abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light.” In the near view of martyrdom, dissolution, and eternity, his confidence remained unshaken. This is a trust unfit to be reposed in any created arm. No potentate can hold back his own spirit, much less another’s, a moment from death no angel could under take such a trust; he would abjure it. Some portion of our interests we commit to others, but never think of committing our whole spirit to a creature. Hence we infer that Jesus Christ is truly God: else it were highly improper, and indeed accursed, thus to trust Him.

II. The grounds on which the apostle trusts the Saviour. He saw that in His character which warranted such confidence, and he had a conviction of His ability. There was some peculiarity in Paul’s case, to which we may advert, but which we need not anxiously separate from the general case of Christians.

1. The first ground, peculiar to Paul, is his vision of Christ at Damascus: this penetrated him with reverence and attachment for the glorious person then revealed: his heart was melted like wax, and he cried, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”

2. He was confirmed in his trust by his subsequent experience of the favour and power of Christ. His eyes were opened by Ananias at Christ’s command. Miraculous powers of great variety were conferred on himself; so that he did perhaps even greater wonders than Christ had done. He was inspired to preach with power and boldness: “the power of Christ rested on him.” In his soul such a renovation took place, as only Divine power could have effected: he was purified with humility and enlarged with love; his prospects were extended far beyond time: and all this was the effect of Christ’s ascension, and His gift of the Holy Spirit.

3. Jesus Christ had wrought the great salvation, and reconciled it with all the attributes of God.

4. The rank which Jesus Christ holds in heaven assures us that He “is able to keep that which is committed to Him.”

5. As Jesus Christ is the appointed Judge of all, so eternal life is at His disposal in His judicial character. (R. Hall, M. A.)

A funeral sermon

I. The sacred deposit which the apostle had made. All that concerned his soul, his hopes and his desires, his deliverance from guilt, and the enjoyment of the eternal favour of his God, comprised the whole amount of that deposit he had committed to the custody of his Redeemer. Now this transaction intimates--

1. The perfect consciousness of a separate and immortal existence.

2. A deep sense of the supreme value of the soul.

3. A powerful conviction of the awful nature of death.

II. The high satisfaction he felt with regard to its safety.

1. He knew Him in the power of His arm.

2. He knew Him in His sacred relation to the Church, as Prophet, Priest, and King.

3. He knew Him, in all the promises of His Word.

4. This persuasion was founded upon the certain return of the Saviour as the Judge of all. Hence he speaks of his soul being kept in safety against that day. (J. E. Good.)

The confidence of St. Paul

I. His knowledge expressed--he knew whom he believed. It was not in himself he trusted, nor on his own foundation that he built; he staked nothing on his own reason or imagination or self-begotten opinions; nor had he any reliance on his own merits, or a high notion of the worth of his exertions, even for the cause of his fellow-creatures, or for the glory of God. It was not the world or the world’s opinion that he trusted or followed, or any human judgment or conclusion that he rested upon, as apart from God’s revelation.

1. He knew Him as the revealed Saviour spoken of and promised from age to age.

2. He knew Him as the Almighty Saviour, the eternal Son of the Father, fully sufficient for the wants of fallen man, and entirely adapted to the very work of redemption which He came from heaven to fulfil.

3. And he knew and believed this on the personal experience of that power in his own heart; the presence of the Spirit of Christ in his own soul, having already revived and quickened him from the death of his former corrupt and blinded state.

II. The trust he reposed in the object of his faith--“I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.” There was a persuasion, or, as the original describes it, a full reliance and settled repose in his mind on the object of his faith--the Saviour whom he believed. It is perhaps here a question, whether the apostle meant to say in these words, that Christ could and would keep that which he had committed to Christ; or, that which Christ had committed to him. Doubtless there is an interchange, as it were, an intercommunion between Christ and the soul of the believer; so that something is committed from Christ to the soul of His servant, and something also committed from the soul to Christ; and both are kept by the power of Christ alone. Christ committed His truth, His word, His gospel to the apostle, to be received in the heart and proclaimed throughout the world; and the apostle committed himself, his all, to Christ. By His grace alone could the purity and perpetuity of Divine truth be upheld in the world; and by His Spirit alone could the apostle be himself upheld amidst the shocks of temptation and the inroads of time and the world, and conducted surely forward unto that day. It was in the former sense perhaps that, in a following verse, the apostle said to Timothy--“That good thing which was committed to thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” But take the text rather in the view given to us by our own translation, and we shall find that apostle had been persuaded, and not in vain, to entrust to Christ and His grace, his credit, his peace, his soul for ever.

1. His credit. He had to go forth truly, to Jew and Gentile, to preach what might seem a new religion--the one truth of God, hidden from ages and generations, and new made manifest by the gospel; and he had to pledge himself that it was true, and worthy their acceptance. He was persuaded Christ could keep the word he had given, and fulfil the promises he had made,

2. He committed to Christ his peace. Peace, such as the world valued and sought after, the apostle was not very likely ever to ensure: he had to meet danger and want, to face enemies and bear insult. Happiness under such circumstances must have been very different from what the world calls happiness: but it was not the less so for that, nor could he the less confidently trust his inward peace and even outward circumstances to Him who judged and maintained his cause, and who had said “Peace I leave with you; not as the world giveth give I unto you.”

3. To Him, in fine, the apostle committed, doubtless, his soul, his all, for time and eternity. He acted here in the full spirit of his fellow-apostle St. Peter (1 Peter 4:19). (C. J. Hoore, M. A.)

Faith illustrated

I. The grandest action of the Christian’s life. The apostle says, he committed himself into the hands of Christ. I saw the other day a remarkable picture, which I shall use as an illustration of the way of salvation by faith in Jesus. An offender had committed a crime for which he must die, but it was in the olden time when churches were considered to be sanctuaries in which criminals might hide themselves and so escape. See the transgressor--he rushes towards the church, the guards pursue him with their drawn swords, all athirst for his blood, they pursue him even to the church door. He rushes up the steps, and just as they are about to overtake him and hew him in pieces on the threshold of the church, out comes the bishop, and holding up the crucifix he cries, “Back, back! stain not the precincts of God’s house with blood! stand back!” and the guards at once respect the emblem and stand back, while the poor fugitive hides himself behind the robes of the priest. It is even so with Christ. The guilty sinner flies to the cross--flies straight away to Jesus, and though Justice pursues him, Christ lifts up His wounded hands and cries to Justice, “Stand back! stand back! I shelter this sinner; in the secret place of My tabernacle do I hide him; I will not suffer him to perish, for he puts his trust in Me.” The apostle meant that he did make a full and free surrender of himself to Christ, to be Christ’s property, and Christ’s servant for ever. I must add, however, that this act of faith must not be performed once only, but it must be continued as long as you live. As long as you live you must have no other confidence but “Jesus only.” You may take Him now to-day, to have and to hold through life and in death, in tempest and in sunshine, in poverty and in wealth, never to part or sunder from Him. You must take Him to be your only prop, your only pillar from this day forth and for ever.

II. The justification of this grand act of trust. Confidence is sometimes folly; trusting in man is always so. When I exhort you, then, to put your entire confidence in Christ, am I justified in so doing? “I have not trusted to an unknown and untried pretender. I have not relied upon one whose character I could suspect. I have confidence in one whose power, whose willingness, whose love, whose truthfulness I know. I know whom I have believed.” Paul not only knew these things by faith, but he knew much of them by experience. Our knowledge of Christ is somewhat like climbing one of our Welsh mountains. When you are at the base you see but little; the mountain itself appears to be but one half as high as it really is. Confined in a little valley you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks as they descend into the stream at the base of the mountain. Climb the first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath your feet. Go up higher, and higher still, till you stand upon the summit of one of the great roots that start out as spurs from the sides of the mountain, you see the country for sonic four or five miles round, and you are delighted with the widening prospect. But go onward, and onward, and onward, and how the scene enlarges, till at last, when you are on the summit, and look east, west, north, and south, you see almost all England lying before you. Yonder is a forest in some distant country, perhaps two hundred miles away, and yonder the sea, and there a shining river and the smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town, or there the masts of the ships in some well-known port. All these things please and delight you, and you say, “I could not have imagined that so much could be seen at this elevation.” Now, the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in Christ we see but little of Him. The higher we climb the more we discover of His excellencies and His beauties. But who has ever gained the summit? Paul now grown old, sitting, grey hair’d, shivering in a dungeon in Rome--he could say, with greater power than we can, “I know whom I have believed!”--for each experience had been like the climbing of a hill, each trial had been like the ascending to another summit, and his death seemed like the gaining of the very top of the mountain from which he could see the whole of the faithfulness and the love of Him to whom he had committed his soul.

III. The apostle’s confidence. “I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.” See this man. He is sure he shall be saved. But why? Paul! art thou sure that thou canst keep thyself? “No,” says he, “I have nothing to do with that”: and yet thou art sure of thy salvation! “Yes,” saith he, “I am!” How is it, then? “Why, I am persuaded that He is able to keep me. Christ, to whom I commit myself, I know hath power enough to hold me to the end.” Martin Luther was bold enough to exclaim, “Let Him that died for my soul, see to the salvation of it.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Assurance

I. THE OBJECT OF FAITH--“I know whom I have believed.” Well, now, whom have you believed? Have you believed Juggernaut? Have you believed the Hindoo Brahmins? The glorious covenant Head of His Church--I have believed Him. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not hath not life.” Where there is no believing of a saving description upon the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no salvation. It is in vain to tell me of all the excellencies of the creature, of all the attainments of moral philosophy, and of all the pride of superstition, it only just makes a pious road to hell for those who pretend to pursue it. There is no such thing as salvation, no such thing as safety, for time or for eternity, but by believing on the Son of God. “I know.” I beseech you to mark the positive nature of the assertion. It is not, “I hope, or trust”; it is not, “I can, or shall, or may, believe in Him”; but, “I know whom I have believed.” I do not like anything less than “I know,” even in things temporal. If I were to ask my servant whether such and such a matter is safe, or right, or done properly, and I were to receive for an answer, “I think so,” or “Probably it may be so”; “Do not tell me that,” I should say, perhaps somewhat angrily; “Do you know it? is it really so?” Surely, then, if I should require this in temporal matters, what should I look for in things spiritual You tell me God is merciful, and I shall do as well as others in the end. “I know whom I have believed.” The question might be put to the persons who make such an assertion, “What do you know of Him?” “Well, I will tell you. I know very well that He is truly, properly, essentially, eternally God. I know enough of Him to be quite sure that He is truly, and properly, and sinlessly man. I know for certain of Him, that He is, in His complex character, as God and man, Mediator, Surety, Daysman for His Church, in official standing.” Do you know all this? Do you know Him personally? Can you say, “I know that in His office He has accomplished all that is requisite for the salvation of His Church.” Look at the word “believe” before we quit this part of our subject. “I know whom I have believed.” What is believing? In the margin of our Bible we read “trusted.” Well, believing is trusting, and trusting is believing.

II. The nature of faith’s actings--“that which I have committed to Him.” There is something about this which enters at once into the daily experience of a child of God, and I think if it were more extensively practised in our experience, we should be happier Christians--the committing of everything to Him. I have committed to Him my soul’s concerns; I have committed to Him the affairs of time; and I committed to Him His visible Church, which neither legislators nor monarchs care anything about, but to distract and to destroy. Look at these things for a few moments. I have committed to Him my soul’s concerns. And these are of two descriptions; my soul’s concerns for security, salvation, eternal life; and my soul’s concerns in regard to spiritual existence, and spiritual prosperity, in my way to glory. I commit both to Him. Now the nature of faith’s actings is to commit all to Jesus, in both these respects. If the filthy effluvia of human nature’s risings annoy me, I shall cry, “Lord, subdue all my iniquity.” I commit them all to Him; cannot do anything without Him, and I am sure it is no good talking about it. “Lord, conquer my depravity. Lord, fulfil Thy promises, that ‘sin shall not have dominion.’“ Then go on to mark, that it is faith’s province to commit the affairs of this life to Him. They are not too little, they are not too mean for Him to notice, nor for Him to manage, and it may be viewed as the peculiar privilege of the Christian to carry to the throne of grace, and commit to Christ, every arrangement He may make, every bargain into which He may enter, every association He may form, and every companion He may choose. So with all His successes--to commit them all to Him, remembering that it is He who giveth power to get wealth. So, again, with regard to losses and crosses, painful events.

III. The expectation of faith. “He is able to keep “it; and that is the point which fixes upon my attention. Blessings on His name, that He is as willing as He is able! He is interested in it. But this statement implies great danger or difficulty, or the Divine keeping would not be necessary. It implies that our beloved Zion is surrounded with every description of enemies and dangers, or it would not be said that it needs Divine keeping. Moreover, there seems in this expectation of faith enough to nourish assurance itself. “He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.” Well, then, assurance may lift up its head, and say, “If it be the soul’s concerns, I have nothing to doubt--I trust it all in His hands. If it be the affairs of my family, or my business, I have nothing to harass me concerning them.” One word more. “Against that day.” We might mention the day of the termination of that trouble, the day of the accomplishment of that desire, the day of the consummation of a certain purpose or scheme in God’s providence, relative to our spiritual or temporal affairs; but I must hasten to that day the apostle had immediately in view, “that day” when Christ shall claim His own; “that day” when all the election of grace shall appear before Him, and be presented to the Father “a perfect Church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.” (J. Irons.)

The grounds of the believer’s confidence

What a noble picture have we here! Elsewhere we are told that the apostle was “in presence weak, and in speech contemptible”; but he does not appear so now. We see in him a courage and calmness more than human. “What though my departure from this world be marked by infamy, and violence, and scorn--what though friends forsake, and the world revile, and foes pursue me with unresting hatred, I have one treasure of which they cannot rob me, one refuge to which I can always fly, one Friend who ‘having loved me, will love me unto the end.’“

I. The terms in which the apostle makes this noble declaration of his confidence. The apostle does not say, “what I have believed,” as if his hope stood in his creed, which might be very exact--or in his Church, which might be Very true--or in his labours, which were incessant and self-denying--or in his life, which was without reproach and blameless; but he says, “The proper object of my confidence is a Person; my religion consists in having found a Friend--A Friend with whom all my interests for time and for eternity may be entrusted. I cleave to a living, infallible, Divine Protector. ‘I know whom I have believed.’” The expression, as you perceive, is in true keeping with the entire spirit of New Testament theology. When a sinner awakes to the first sight of his danger, the first words to be addressed to him are, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” This is a principle of the Divine procedure which would commend itself were it only for its beautiful and pure simplicity. When pressed with the terrors of a guilty conscience, when despair and fear seem to be coming in upon me like a flood, I want something to fly to at once; I want to he directed immediately to an altar of safety. Tell me not of things to be believed, or learned, or sought for, or done, but tell me of one simple act which shall bring me within reach of mercy. Do not lose time in considering how “life and immortality are to be brought to light”--take Him as “the life.” A convinced sinner cannot do better than embrace a theology of one article--“I know whom I bare believed.” Again, let us look at the word “believed.” In the writings of St. Paul the expression stands for the highest form of moral persuasion. It implies the strength of an all-pervading practical conviction--the reposing of a loving, perfect, and confiding trust. The advance of this upon a mere intellectual faith you will perceive--for not only is it believed that Christ came for man’s salvation, but that this salvation has become individually applied to ourselves. “I know whom I have believed.” My faith rests upon my knowledge, just as my knowledge reacts upon my faith. I am not making a plunge into eternity in the dark. I have looked to the soundness of my Rock to see whether it will bear me; I have “tasted that the Lord is gracious,” and therefore am “confident of this very thing, that He that hath begun a good work in me, will perform it unto the day of Christ.” The word points out to us the danger of taking our religion on trust; the duty of subjecting our opinions to a diligent and inquiring search. An uninvestigated faith can never be a happy faith. Christ’s work for us must be believed, but Christ’s work in us must be proved. Let us take the next words, showing to us the nature of the Christian’s deposit--“I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” To the trust here spoken of we can place no limit. How great the privilege of having this treasure locked up in safe Custody, feeling that whatever else is taken from us, our souls are enclosed in the sanctuary of heaven--that our Jesus puts His hand upon these and says, “These souls are Mine”--“Mine to be kept, Mine to be watched over, Mine to be purged from all dross and defilement, and to be rendered back each to his own,” at that day!” And the apostle mentions this day, in preference to the day of his death, because although the earlier period would abundantly vindicate the Saviour’s faithfulness, yet the other is the day when Christ shall formally give up His great trust--when, in the presence of all the intelligences of heaven, He shall show how carefully He has watched over souls, through the conflicts of life, through the terrors of death, through the tong repose of the grave, now to hold them up as His jewels, and reward, and crown at “that day.”

II. The grounds on which the apostle rests his confidence. These, as we should suppose, must consist in the personal qualifications of Him who was the subject of such trust, in the attributes of His holy nature, in the efficacy of His atoning work, in the virtue of His meritorious obedience, in the continued exertions of His resumed Divinity now that He is seated at the right hand of God. Thus, let us look at the attributes of His nature--at His power, for example; does He not say, “All things are delivered into My hand”; “all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth”; “I open, and no man shutteth; I shut, and no man openeth!” Who, then, can harm us, if we have secured such a Friend as this? But, further, we know Paul would have a ground of persuasion in the work of Christ, in the sufficiency of His obedience, in the infinite reach of His atonement. The apostle was one who felt painfully the greatness of his own deficiencies. His language ever was “‘In the Lord Jehovah have I righteousness and strength’ My only trust is ‘that I may be found in Him.’” But once more, the apostle would find a comforting ground of persuasion in the thought that the Saviour in whom he believed, lived for ever. It is a sad reflection with regard to our earthly friends, that however cherished or however tried, death will soon take them away. (D. Moore, M. A.)

A safe deposit

We sometimes believe in men whom we do not know. We think we know them; but we are mistaken. We may inquire; we may observe; we may ask for testimony and receive it: we may even put men to severe test: still we are sometimes mistaken and deceived, and we have to confess, “I did not know the man whom I trusted.” The case presented by the text is the opposite of that. In this instance we have trust leading to increased and enlarged knowledge--knowledge strengthening trust, and both producing the expression of full assurance. You observe that the language of the text is somewhat metaphorical. We have certain facts in the Christian life put before us here under the figure of a deposit--A depositor--A depositary, and the confidence of the depositor.

I. What is this deposit? Was it the soul of the writer? Was it the well-being of Paul in his persecution, the getting good out of his sorrow (1 Peter 4:19). Was it the work of his salvation--that work to which he himself refers, when, addressing some of his converts, he says, “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it”? Was it his future crown--the crown of righteousness? Was it his converts, for whom he was perpetually praying? Was it his apostolate? Was it the welfare of the Churches? Was it the truth, and the proclamation of the truth? The great care of a man on a dying bed is himself, and this should be our great care in life; yet to take charge of himself no man is capable. Whatever capacity a man may have had, or human nature may have had before the fall, the loss of capacity which sinfulness and transgression have occasioned is immense; and there is a fearful loss of position. The soul is guilty, and needs pardon, righteousness, and restoration. The spirit is polluted, and it is dark, dim, dull, and deathly, through its pollution--it wants light and life. A physician is needed to whom this soul, conscious of its guilt and of the disease of sin, may commit itself. A priest is needed, who can undertake the work of atonement; and an advocate, who can make intercession. Such an advocate, such a priest, such a physician, Paul had found in Jesus Christ; and to Him, who unites in His own person all that a sinner needs to find in a Saviour, Paul had given up himself.

II. The depositor. This is Saul of Tarsus. Did Gamaliel teach him this? Some of Gamaliel’s strongest and most prominent lessons were self-reliance. The tendency of his teaching was to lead the young Saul to depend upon himself, and he had, as we know, from the story of his life, an immense amount of self-confidence. There is nothing committed to God to keep--the man only talks of his own virtues and good deeds, comparing himself with another. This is not Saul the Pharisee, it is Saul the Christian. It is Saul, but it is Saul born again, it is Saul born from above, it is Saul a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new! New, this confidence in another; old, that self-confidence. “I can take care of myself,” would have been his language a few years ago; “my prayers and alms-giving, and good works will save me,” he would then have said; now, he is entirely changed, and he represents the state of his heart in writing, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” Saul of Tarsus took charge of himself, but Saul the Christian committed himself to another. And who is that other?

III. The depositary. Does Paul here refer to God, whose name he mentions in the eighth verse, or to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, whom he introduces to us in the tenth verse? We think he refers to our Saviour, Jesus Christ--not, of course, that we can separate God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ--because “God is in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” The depositary, mark, is Christ; the anointed Keeper of souls; one upon whom the unction of the Holy Ghost was poured out without measure, that He might take charge of souls; Christ--observe, Jesus Christ, the divine and devoted Keeper of souls. Now, to “Jesus Christ, our Saviour, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light”; to the “Word made flesh,” “God manifest in flesh,” “God over all blessed for evermore,” to Him did Paul commit himself. It is in vain that you try to mingle these things--taking the responsibility of life upon your shoulders and committing yourself to another. You cannot do this; you must either madly and vainly try to bear the burden alone, or you must commit the whole to your Saviour, and all then that you are responsible for is, doing what He tells you, and not doing that which He forbids you. But, as to the charge, the charge is His; and as to the responsibility, the responsibility is His; and as to the care, all the care is His. Is there any danger of your abusing these truths? Is it possible that any of you can say, “Well, if this be the case, I have certainly asked Christ to take the charge of my soul, and I may be as careless as I please.” When you put yourself into the hands of a physician, you feel that you are accountable for obedience to his instructions, and that his resources are made available to you just as you are submissive to his treatment. Just so with our Saviour Jesus Christ.

IV. The confidence of the depositor. “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” The confidence of Paul relates to four objects:--

1. The general character of the depositary. “I know what He is, and what He can do; I see and I appreciate all the attributes of His nature; I know that He has an eye that never slumbers nor sleeps, an arm that is never weary, a working hand that is stretched out still, a heart of love--the extent and energy of which surpass knowledge.

2. Then it rests in the ability of the depositary with respect to this particular trust. “He is able to keep”--able to keep. Few men had so seen the dangers of this world as Paul. God keeps some souls in a blissful, childish ignorance of their dangers, and they go through life with an amount of simplicity which is extraordinary, and which we cannot account for except upon the principle that God does literally hide them as in His pavilion. But there are others whose spiritual senses are so quickened, that they see almost every thing relating to their religious life--at least the many of the spiritual and evil influences to which they are exposed.

3. This confidence relates to the continuousness of the present assurance. “He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.” The fires of that day shall burn the wood, hay, stubble, and shall develop in grand contrast the gold, and the silver, and the precious stones. “Against that day. ‘He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.’ He knows what the test of that day will be, and against that day He is able to guard my trust, and nothing that I have committed to His hands, shall even in that day be lost.”

4. Further, you observe, the apostle rests very much in the accuracy, and in the soundness of his own experience. “I know,” he says, “whom I have believed.” And how did he know? Did he know through having received the testimony of the prophets, who all bore witness to the Saviour? Did he know simply through having listened to Christian teaching, or to the teaching of such an one as Ananias? No; from these sources he did derive information, but he knew through following Christ, that He was able to keep that which he had committed to Him--he knew through taking advantage of Christ, that He was able--just as you know what a physician can do, by his attendance at your sick bed, or as you may know what a legal adviser is able to do, by the counsel he gives you in some time of temporal perplexity, or just as you may know a friend by his aid in the hour of adversity. He had, again and again, put Jesus Christ to the proof, and the proof had shown that not even God’s words had fully described the Saviour. (S. Martin.)

Christian confidence

Let us look, first of all, at this persuasion, which I want you to be the subject of; and then we will see the ground on which it rested; and then the consequences of which it was productive.

1. “I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” You see, it amounts to a perfect persuasion of security here; here is absolute safety, and the experience of it. The word “persuaded” is as strong as possible. It was the deep inwrought conviction of his soul; it was not liable to be disturbed; it was a settled fact, as you dispose of a thing, and say, That is done, it is settled. It was the persuasion of his mind, that all was safe for eternity. Observe the remarkable use in this text of the word that by the apostle, which is very instructive. He says, “I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” He uses the word, you see, twice, with no antecedent in either case exactly, and no specific object mentioned to which it refers. There is something very striking about that. He takes for granted, that all will understand it; that no mistake can possibly exist about it; that no man will read the verse, and not at once interpret to what the word “that” refers in both instances. “Keep that!” Why, no child here doubts what he means. “My soul.” “Against that day!” No child can doubt what day--the great day of His own coming. They are the two things in comparison with which everything else sinks into absolute, utter insignificance. The beauty of this passage, I think, is in that word “commit.” As expressive and explanatory of the meaning of the word faith, I do not know any more beautiful term. People seem at a less to understand what is meant at last by faith. The best interpretation, I think, is to be found in the idea which that word “commit” conveys. You commit your goods to a person you can trust; you commit your body, your life, all you have got, exactly in proportion as you have grounds for trusting a man--your welfare, your character, your reputation, your honour. You say, “I can leave my honour in your hands.” That is exactly the meaning of the word here: “I have committed.” There is something very beautiful in it, and it seems practically to be this. I have put the matter out of my hands into His.” Now, I wish you would quietly enter into that idea, and thoroughly understand it. I do not know anything that could positively give real comfort to a man, like the certainty that he has put his soul’s interests out of his own hands into safe keeping. I think this word “commit” implies not only the apostle’s sense of the value of the soul, but a man’s practical inability to keep his own soul. Why do you commit your property to some one to keep? Because you feel that you cannot keep it yourself, for some reason--never mind what. Why do you commit your health into the hands of a physician? Because you feel that you cannot cure yourself. And so on with regard to anything else. You commit your child to an instructor, because you feel that you have more confidence in the instructor. So that the fact of committing anything to another supposes some inability on our part to do the thing. Just so with the soul. I dwell on that with unspeakable comfort. There is a relief to my soul in this idea, that with its tremendous responsibilities, with the awful destinies before it, I can hand it over into Jesus Christ’s keeping, and that He will keep that which I commit unto Him.

2. But on what ground did the apostle arrive at this supposition--because there must be some ground for it? For instance: if I were to say to you to-morrow, “Go and commit your property and your interests into the hands of some man,” you would say, “Why that man? On what grounds? I know nothing about that man.” But if I were to say, “That man that you know thoroughly well,” and you were thoroughly alive to his capability and power, what would you say? You would say, “Yes, I know whom you call upon me to believe; I am persuaded that he is able to keep that, if I do commit it to him.” You see, it would altogether depend upon the knowledge you have of the man. So Paul says here: “I know whom I believe; therefore I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” Now, then, what do we know about Him? What kind of knowledge is it that would warrant Paul, or that will warrant you and me, that we can commit all to Jesus Christ? There might be, of course, endless particulars specified. This is the reason why I call upon you so much to study the whole work and character of Christ. It is, depend upon it, being thoroughly acquainted with the work of Jesus Christ, it is having an intelligent understanding of all that He has done, that gives this kind of unqualified assurance and happy confidence. Therefore we read, “This is eternal life, to know Thee.” It is not just a sort of glimpse; it is not merely saying, “I believed Christ died”; but it is understanding and knowing these things. I often tell you, and I am persuaded of it, that throughout eternity our study will be the cross of Christ. “Against that day”--that is, right on from the present moment till that day comes. You will observe, that implies the state after death, as well as our present state. I have nothing to suffer in the intermediate state--no purgatory--no difficulties of any kind. He has kept me through life; He will keep me afterwards, for He will keep that which I have committed unto Him to that day. It runs on from the moment a man commits his soul to Christ. The expression is very striking here. It seems to teach us, and to prove by implication, that after that day there is no danger. Then security will not be a matter merely of promise, but of circumstances. When I am perfected in body and soul, where will be my danger? When I am in mansions where there is a gulf betwixt the mansions and hell where Satan is, and he cannot ferry it, all will be perfectly safe. Therefore we are to be as pillars in the temple of God, and to go no more out for ever.

3. Now, then, what was the consequence of it? “I am not ashamed.” Why was he not ashamed? Because he was the subject of that glorious persuasion that all was safe. And I want you to believe, that there is the closest connection between boldness in a Christian’s career and assurance in a Christian’s heart; that no man will take the walk of a Christian, and occupy the path as he ought to do, boldly and consistently and in a straightforward way, unless he feels that all is safe with regard to his everlasting state. He says, “For which cause I suffer.” For what cause? Because “I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles; for the which cause I suffer.” When Paul was first brought to God, what did the Lord say about him? He said, “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” It is very remarkable, He did not say, “I will show him what great things he shall do,” but “what great things he shall suffer.” If we are consistent followers of God, we must be sufferers. Having alluded to his sufferings, he says, “I suffer”; but he adds, “I am not ashamed.” “I stand manfully forward and confess Him.” Now, what is the ground? I have already mentioned it. It is because of that persuasion. That is the antidote. (C. Molyneux, B. A.)

The use and abuse of dogma

A good man at the present day, writing a letter, with death staring him in the face, to an intimate friend, would be likely to write, not, “I know whom I have believed,” but, “I know what I have believed.” It comes more natural to us to express our religious convictions so--to think more of the “what” than of the “whom”--to cling rather to the creed, or doctrinal system, than to the Living Person, to whom system and creed bear witness. Of course, the doctrinal system implies the Living Person; but the system is nearer to our thoughts than the Person. With St. Paul it was otherwise. To him the Living Person--God our Father, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour--was everything, was all in all; the system was nothing--nay, we may say, had no existence. Therefore it is, that, in view of death and judgment, and all that is most trying to human faith and courage, he writes, “Nevertheless I am not ashamed”--I feel no fear for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.” Now this is a matter which both requires and deserves the most careful elucidation. It has a very important hearing upon present difficulties and pressing questions of the day. St. Paul was trained up, as a boy and a young man, m an elaborate religious system, of which the Scribes were the expositors, and the Pharisees the devoted adherents. He was at one time, as he tells us, an enthusiastic votary of finis system himself. But the moment came at last when he found himself compelled to renounce this system utterly, to cast himself at the foot of the cross, and to consecrate his whole life to the love and the service of Jesus Christ. From that moment Christ was everything to him. Strictly speaking, he no longer had anything that could be called a religious system. All was Christ. Take one or two of his most expressive phrases, and you will feel how true this is: “To me to live is Christ.” “I am crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.” We, too, have been trained up, more or less carefully, in an elaborate religious system. Must we break with this system, as St. Paul broke with the religious system in which he had been educated, in order to find, as he found Christ? Must we learn to say with him, in the sense in which he said it, “What things were gain to me, these I counted loss for Christ”? Or is it given to us to travel by a road which was denied to him--to preserve unbroken the continuity of religious thought. Here we are in fact touching what I have called one of the most pressing questions of the day, the use and abuse of dogma. And here we find ourselves in presence of two conflicting tendencies--two tendencies which run absolutely counter, the one to the other; one, an impatience, a fierce intolerance of dogma; the other, an equally fierce insistance upon dogma, as almost the one thing needful for these latter days, and the sole antidote for their disorders. You know the battle-cries of the two contending parties; one, demanding definite, distinctive, dogmatic, Church teaching; the other, demanding not dogma, but religion. Observe, then, first of all, that it is impossible for us to put ourselves exactly in St. Paul’s position, or to get at his result precisely in his way. Eighteen centuries lie between us and him--eighteen centuries of controversy, of division, of development. Dogma is an inevitable growth of time, as every one may learn from his own experience. The opinions of any person who thinks at all, and in proportion as he thinks, pass with lapse of time out of a semi-fluid state into one that is fixed and solid. Such conclusions are to the individual thinker what dogmas are to the Christian Church. St. Paul had never formulated to himself the dogma of the Trinity in Unity: but in the lapse of centuries that dogma became a necessity of Christian thought. But then, this development of dogma--necessary as it is, beneficial as it may be--must never be confounded with the reality of spiritual worship--the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth. It moves along a lower level altogether--the level of the understanding, not of the spirit or of the soul. Herein lies the peril of that vehement insistance upon dogmatic teaching, which is so common in these days. Unless it be most carefully guarded, it leads straight to the conclusion that to hold the right dogmas is to be in the way of life. The light of life, the light which quickens, the light which is life, can be ours only on condition that we follow Christ. Dogmatic developments, then, are one thing; the religious or spiritual life of the soul is another thing. And the former may, certainly, be so handled and used, as to give no help to the latter. Yet there is, undoubtedly, a relation between the two; and the former may be made to minister to the latter, it we will. And the question is, What is this relation? and, How may the dogmatic development be made subservient to the spiritual life? Christ says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Life, eternal life, salvation, redemption, righteousness: such words as these express the first and the last thought of the gospel of Christ, the aim of which is ever to touch and quicken and heal the souls of men. First in the historical order, and first in the order of thought, comes the spiritual reality, “the word of life”; afterwards the dogmatic form and framework. The latter is, as it were, the body, of which the former is the soul. The words of Jesus are, as we should expect they would be, the purest conceivable expression of spiritual truth, with the slightest possible admixture of anything extraneous and unessential. For this very reason it is often exceedingly difficult to grasp their import--always quite impossible to exhaust their fulness. When we pass from the words of Jesus to the words of His apostles, we trace the first beginnings of that inevitable action of the human intellect upon spiritual truth, of which the growth of dogma is the result. It could not be other wise. The disciple could not be altogether as the Master. But though we may thus trace in the Epistles of the New Testament the development of the first “organic filaments,” out of which in time would be constructed the full-grown body of Christian dogma--the shooting of the little spikes of ice across the waters of life and salvation, which would eventually lead on to the fixity and rigidity of the whole;--yet are they so full of light, from proximity to the Fountain of all light, that the spiritual always predominates over the intellectual, and the spiritual elements of their teaching are visible on the surface, or scarcely below the surface, of the words in which it is couched. But, as time went on, the intellectual form began more and more to predominate over the spiritual substance; until, at last, it has come to be often no slight task to disentangle the one from the other, and so to get at that which is spiritual; and which, being spiritual, can be made food and refreshment and life to the soul. So far we have been dealing with the questions: “What is the relation of dogma to religion?” and “How may the dogmatic development be made to minister to the religious life?” And our answer to these questions may be summed up thus: Christ’s own words, first and before all, go straight to the springs of the religious life, that is, the life of faith and hope and love, of aspiration and endeavour; and, after these, the words of His apostles. Christian dogma grows out of the unavoidable action of the human intellect upon these words, and upon the thoughts which they express. In order to minister to the soul’s true life, such dogma must be translated back, by the aid of the Holy Scriptures, into the spiritual elements out of which it has sprung. When it becomes the question of the truth or falsehood of any particular dogmatic develop ment, the testing process with reference to it will take two forms. We shall ascertain whether, or no, it can be resolved or translated back into any spiritual elements--into any rays of that light, of which it is said, “I am the light of the world.” And, again, we shall ascertain, if possible, what are its direct effects upon human conduct and character. Does it tend, or not, to produce that new life, of which Jesus Christ is the pattern? If it does; then, unquestionably, there are in it rays of the true light, though mixed, it may be, with much error, and crossed by many bands of darkness. It must be our endeavour to disengage the rays of light from the darkness which accompanies them. Each generation of Christendom in turn has seen something of those riches, which was hidden from others. No one generation has yet seen the whole. Now, that this should be so, has many lessons for us; one or two of which we will set down, and so bring our subject to a conclusion. First of all, it devolves upon each generation in turn a grave responsibility; for each in turn may be put to the necessity of revising the work of its predecessors--such revision being rendered necessary by the peculiar circumstances of the generation in and for which the work is done. And whilst saying this, and claiming this our lawful liberty, we can also do full justice to the generations which have preceded us, and recognise the immense debt of gratitude which we owe to them. They have registered, for their own benefit and for ours, that aspect of the “unsearchable riches,” which it was given to them to see. Every succeeding generation is bound to take full and reverent account of the labours of its predecessors, on pain of forfeiting something--some aspect of truth--which it would be most perilous and damaging to lose. And this, last of all, teaches us a much-needed lesson of humility, charity, and tolerance. (D. J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Faith

In analysing those words I find three distinct ideas:--The faith of St. Paul expressed by the words, “I have believed”; the object of his faith which he recalls by saying whom he has believed; the certainty of his faith marked with so much strength and serenity by this expression, “I know whom I have believed.”

I. What is faith? Consult, on this subject the most widely spread opinion of this time and country. You will be told that faith is an act of intellectual submission by which man accepts as certain the teachings of religious authority. Faith would thus be to the intellectual sphere what obedience is to the practical. This idea early appears in the Church with the decline of Christian spirituality. Faith being thus understood, it resulted that the more numerous were the articles of faith which the believer admitted the stronger seemed his faith, and that the more difficult those articles were to admit it was the more meritorious. According to this way of seeing, he would be pre-eminently the man of faith who, refusing to know anything, to wish anything, to judge anything of himself, could say, “I believe what the Church believes,” and he would have no other rule but absolute submission, without reserve, to the authority speaking by the voice of his spiritual director. I ask you if you there recognise the teaching of Scripture, if that is the idea which it gives us of faith? You have read those admirable pages in which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews passes in review all the believers of the ancient covenant, all those men of whom the world was not worthy. Now, in all those examples, is faith ever presented to you as an abdication of the intelligence, as the passive acceptation of a certain number of truths? Never. I know, however, and God preserve me from forgetting, that there is an element of submission and of obedience in faith, but at the same time I affirm that all of faith is not included therein. Faith, according to Scripture, is the impulse of the soul grasping the invisible God, and, in its highest sense, the faith which saves is the impulse of the trusting soul apprehending in Jesus Christ the Saviour and the Son of God. Why talk to us of abdication? In the impulse of faith there is all the soul--the soul that loves and thinks, the soul with all its spiritual energies. It is said to us, one must be weak in order to believe. Are you quite sure? Take, if you will, one of the most elementary acts of faith, such as every honest man has performed in his life. Before you is easy enjoyment, but selfish and guilty; it is the pleasure which attracts you--go on, it is yours. But, just on the point of yielding, the cry of your conscience rouses you, you recover yourself and you assert your duty … What are you doing then? An act of faith, for you assert the invisible; for duty neither is weighed nor is touched, for, to him who denies it, there is no demonstration that can prove it. Well! is that always an easy victory? Is it promised to the feeble? Is it necessary to abdicate to obtain it? In this example faith is not raised above moral evidence; but do you penetrate beyond, into the sphere of spiritual realities? Imagine a life entirely filled with the thoughts of God, entirely illuminated with His light, wholly inspired with His love, in one word, the life of St. Paul; when you contemplate it, are you not struck by the heroism it contains? Is there in the faith which is the moving spring of it only a passive submission, an intellectual belief in a certain number of truths? No; in this assertion of the invisible world there is a force and a greatness which lays hold on you; never, perhaps, does the human soul wrest from you a sincerer admiration than when you see it taking flight into the unknown, with no other support than its faith in the living God. In showing what it is we also answer those who say, “Of what good is faith?”

II. Whom shalt i believe? To this question I reply with St. Paul, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ? and why? To believe, I have said, is to trust. The question is to know to where I shall trust the destinies of my soul. It is my whole future which I am to suspend on the word of a man; it is the inmost life of my heart, it is my eternal hopes. And if I am deceived, if it is found that I have built on the sand, if one day all this inward edifice of my life should fall to pieces! We must see clearly here. No illusion, no over-exciting of the imagination, no effervescence. Why? I will try and say it again in a few words. I will repeat what those millions of adorers, for eighteen centuries, have confessed, who have been able to say with St. Paul, “I know whom I have believed.” Whom shall I believe? I have said it in the depth of my darkness, and have seen rising up before me the Son of Man. Alone amongst all He said, “I know whence I come, and I know whither I go.” Alone, without hesitation, with sovereign authority, He showed the way which leads to God. He spoke of heaven as one who descended from it. Everywhere and always He gave Himself out to be the Sent of the Father, His only Son, the Master of souls. I have listened to His voice, it had a strange accent which recalled no other human voice; beautiful with a simplicity which nothing approaches, it exercised a power to which nothing can be compared. What gave it that power? It was not reasoning, nor human eloquence, but the radiance of truth penetrating the heart and conscience; in listening to it, I felt my heart taken possession of; I yielded to that authority so strong and sweet; in proportion as He spoke it seemed as if heaven opened and displayed itself to my eyes; I beheld God as He is, I saw man as he ought to be. An irresistible adhesion to that teaching rose from my heart to my lips, and with Simon Peter I cried” To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” Was it only my soul which vibrated at that speech? I looked, and, around me, hanging on the lips of Christ, I saw an ever-growing multitude assembled from all places, coming out from all conditions on the earth; there were poor and rich, ignorant and wise, children and old men, pure spirits and defiled spirits, and, like me, all were impressed with that word, all found, as I did, light, certainty, and peace. Can I let my whole destiny depend on a word of man, and have I not the right to ask Him who thus leads me on in His steps what entitles Him to my confidence, and how He can prove to me that He comes from God? “O Thou who callest Thyself the witness of God, Thou who speakest of heaven as if it had been Thy dwelling-place, Thou who enlightenest the mystery of death to our gaze, Thou who pardonest sin, show us that Thou art He who should come.” Jesus Christ has replied to this demand of our soul. We ask Him if He comes from God, and He has done before us the works of God; I do not speak of His miracles, although they are still unexplained in their simple grandeur, in their sublime spirituality, in that indescribable truth which marks them with an inimitable seal. Jesus has done more than miracles, He has revealed God in His person; He has given the proof of His Divine mission in His life. It is holiness before which conscience perceives itself accused and judged. The more I contemplate it, the more I experience a feeling of adoration and of deep humiliation; and when at last men come and try to explain this life, and to show me in it an invention of mankind, I protest, I feel that the explanations are miserable, I feel that the reality breaks all that framework. Then, by an irresistible logic, I feel that if Christ is holy, He must have spoken truly, and ought to be believed. Is that all? Yes, if I only needed light and certainty; but there is a still deeper, more ardent, more irresistible instinct in my soul: I feel myself guilty, I thirst for pardon and for salvation. St. Paul felt himself a sinner, condemned by his conscience; he sought salvation in his works, he was exhausted in that sorrowful strife; he found salvation only on the cross. There he saw, according to his own words, the Just One offering Himself for the unjust; the Holy One bearing the curse of the sinner. In that redeeming sacrifice, St. Paul found assuagement for his conscience; the love of God as he recognised it in Jesus Christ penetrated his heart and life; is it not that which overflows in all his epistles, in all his apostolate? Is it not that which inspires, which inflames all his life? Is it not that which dictated to him these words, “I know whom I have believed”? It is also that which makes the foundation of Christian faith; it is that which millions of souls, led, like Paul, to the foot of the cross by their feeling of misery, have found in Jesus Christ; it is that which has transformed them, taken them out of themselves, conquered for ever by Jesus Christ.

III. The certainty of faith! Do not these words rouse a painful sentiment in you? No one will contradict me if I affirm, that there is in our epoch a kind of instinctive neglect of all that is firm and exact in points of belief and Christian life. Let us examine it. We are passing through a time of grave crisis where all the elements of our religious faith are submitted to the most penetrating analysis, and whatever may be our degree of culture we cannot escape from it. So, something analogous to the artistic sentiment is made for the religious sentiment. In music, for example, no one, assuredly, preoccupies himself with truth. The most varied, the most opposed styles are allowed, provided that some inspiration and some genius are felt in them. One day, people will applaud a sombre and dreamy symphony; others will prefer a composition brilliant with force and brightness; others, again, the softened charm of a melody full of grace: as many various tastes as art can satisfy. Now, it is just so that to-day it is claimed religion should be treated. It is wished that man should be religious; it is said that he who is not so is destitute of one sense, as he to whom painting or music is a matter of indifference; but this religious sense should, it is said, seek its satisfaction there where it finds it. To some a stately worship is necessary, to others an austere worship; to some the gentleness of an indulgent God, to others the holiness of the God of the Bible; to some an entirely moral religion, to others dogmas and curious mysteries. Do I need to ask, what becomes with that manner of looking, of the certainty of faith and religious truth? Hence that sad sight of souls always seeking and never reaching to the possession of truth, always in quest of religious emotions, but incapable of affirming their faith, and, above all, of changing their life. Nothing is more contrary to St. Paul’s certitude, to that firm assurance which makes him say, “I know whom I have believed.” Can we be astonished that such a religion should be without real force and without real action? It could not be otherwise. It might be able, I acknowledge, to produce fleeting movements, vivid emotions, and sincere outbursts, but lasting effects never. I affirm, first, that it will convert nobody. And why? Because conversion is the most deep-seated Change in the affections and life of man, and he will never exchange the known for the unknown, real life with its passions, its pleasures, however senseless they appear, for the pale and cola abstractions of a belief with no precise object and for the worship of a vague and problematic God. To fight against passions and lusts and refuse the compensation of satisfied pride, to bend the will, to conquer the flesh, and to submit life to the austere discipline of obedience, that is a work which a vague, indecisive religion will never accomplish. Without religious certainty there is no holiness and, I add also, no consolation. Let us also add that a religion without a certainty is a religion without action, without progressive force. How can it advance? Will it lay the foundations of lasting works, will it know how to conquer, will it send its missionaries afar? Missionaries, and why? Is it with vague reveries and floating opinions that they set out, like the apostles, to conquer the world? The life of St. Paul is the best explanation of his faith. Supported by his example, and by the experience of all Christians, I would say to you, “Do you wish to possess that strong immovable faith which alone can sustain and console? Fulfil the works of faith. Serve the truth, and the truth shall illuminate you; follow Jesus Christ, and you will believe in Christ.” “There is no royal road to science,” said an ancient philosopher to a prince who was irritated at finding study so difficult; so in my turn I would say, “There is no demonstration of Christianity, no apology which dispenses with obeying the truth, and with passing through humiliation and inward renunciation, without which faith is only a vain theory.” The best proof of the truth of Christianity will always be a proof of experience; nothing will outvalue that irrefutable argument of St. Paul. (E. Bersier, D. D.)

Assured security in Christ

In the style of these apostolic words there is a positiveness most refreshing in this age of doubt. “I know,” says he. And that is not enough--“I am persuaded.” He speaks like one who cannot tolerate a doubt. There is no question about whether he has believed or not. “I know whom I have believed.” There is no question as to whether he was right in so believing. “I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.” There is no suspicion as to the future; he is as positive for years to come as he is for this present moment. “He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.” Where positiveness is the result of knowledge and of meditation, it becomes sublime, as it was in the apostle’s case; and being sublime it becomes influential; in this case, it certainly must have been influential over the heart of Timothy, and over the minds of the tens of thousands who have during these nineteen centuries perused this epistle. It encourages the timid when they see others preserved; it confirms the wavering when they see others steadfast. The apostle’s confidence was that Christ was an able guardian.

1. So he meant that Jesus is able to keep the soul from falling into damning sin.

2. But the apostle did not merely trust Christ thus to keep him from sin, he relied upon the same arm to preserve him from despair.

3. Doubtless the apostle meant, too, that Christ was able to keep him from the power of death.

4. The apostle is also certain that Christ is able to preserve his soul in another world.

5. Paul believed, lastly, that Christ was able to preserve his body. “I cannot talk like that,” saith one; “I cannot say, ‘I know and I am persuaded,’ I am very thankful that I can say, I hope, I trust, I think.’”

In order to help you to advance, we will notice how the apostle Paul attained to such assurance.

1. One main help to him was his habit, as seen in this text, of always making faith the most prominent point of consideration. Faith is twice mentioned in the few lines before us. “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.” Paul knew what faith was, namely, a committal of his precious things into the custody of Christ. He does not say, “I have served Christ.” No; he does not say, “I am growing like Christ, therefore I am persuaded I shall be kept.” No; he makes most prominent in his thought the fact that he believed, and so had committed himself to Christ.

2. The next help to assurance, as I gather from the text, is this; the apostle maintained most clearly his view of a personal Christ. Observe how three times he mentioned his Lord. “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.” He does not say, “I know the doctrines I believe.” Surely he did, but this was not the main point. No mere doctrines can ever be the stay of the soul. What can a dogma do? These are like medicines, but you need a hand to give you them; you want the physician to administer them to you; otherwise you may die with all these precious medicines close at hand. We want a person to trust to.

3. The apostle attained this full assurance through growing knowledge. He did not say “I am persuaded that Christ will save me, apart from anything I know about Him”; but he begins by saying, “I know.” Let no Christian among us neglect the means provided for obtaining a fuller knowledge of the gospel of Christ. I would that this age produced more thoughtful and studious Christians.

4. Once, again, the apostle, it appears from the text, gained his assurance from close consideration as well as from knowledge. “I know and am persuaded.” As I have already said, persuasion is the result of argument. The apostle had turned this matter over in his mind; he had meditated on the pros and cons; he had carefully weighed each difficulty, and he felt the preponderating force of truth which swept each difficulty nut of the way. How many Christians are like the miser who never feels sure about the safety of his money, even though he has locked up the iron safe, and secured the room in which he keeps it, and locked up the house, and bolted and barred every door! In the dead of night he thinks he hears a footstep, and tremblingly he goes down to inspect his strong-room. Having searched the room, and tested all the iron bars in the window, and discovered no thief, he fears that the robber may have come and gone, and stolen his precious charge. So he opens the door of his iron safe, he looks and pries, he finds his bag of gold all safe and those deeds, those bonds, they are safe too. He puts them away, shuts the door, locks it, bolts and bars the room in which is the safe and all its contents; but even as he goes to bed, he fancies that a thief has just now broken in. So he scarcely ever enjoys sound, refreshing sleep. The safety of the Christian’s treasure is of quite another sort. His soul, not under bolt and bar, or under lock and key of his own securing, but he has transferred his all to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, our Saviour--and such is his security that he enjoys the sleep of the beloved, calmly resting, for all is welt. Now to close, what is the influence of this assurance when it penetrates the mind? It enables us to bear all the obloquy which we may incur in serving the Lord. They said Paul was a fool. “Well,” replied the apostle, “I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed; I am willing to be thought a fool.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Assurance

It surely is evident that while justification is all that is necessary for safety, an assured knowledge of our justification on our own part must be necessary to give us the comfort and the joy of safety. Further, it is clear that the character of all our subsequent experiences must very largely depend upon such an assured knowledge; for I cannot feel, or speak, or act as a justified man unless I not only am justified, but know that I am justified. Nor can I claim my proper privileges, and enjoy the blessed results of my new relationship with God, unless I know certainly that this relationship exists. For our position is, that, though it be possible that you may be safe in God’s sight, and yet not be safe in your own, you cannot lead the life that God intends you to lead unless you know of this your safety. First, you cannot draw near to Him with the filial confidence which should characterise all true Christian experience, and enter into the closest relations of true and trustful love. Next, you cannot learn from the happy results of this first act of faith the great life-lesson of faith. Then again you lose those mighty motives of grateful, joyous love which should be the incentives to a truly spiritual life, and instead of these there is certain to be an element of servile bondage even in your very devotion, and you must forfeit the glorious liberty of the child of God; and last, but not least, there can be no power in your testimony; for how can you induce others to accept a benefit of the personal effects of which you yourself know nothing? If your religion leaves you only in a state of uncertainty, how is it ever likely that you will have weight with others in inducing them to turn their backs upon those “pleasures of sin for a season” which, although they may be fleeting and unsatisfactory, are nevertheless a certainty while they do last. On the other side, let me point out that this knowledge of salvation is the effect and not the condition of justification. It would be absurd to teach that men are justified by knowing that they are justified. Of course they can only know it when it has happened, and to make such knowledge the condition of justification would involve a palpable contradiction. Indeed it would be equivalent to saying you must believe what is false in order to make it true. Look at these words of St. Paul; they sound bold and strong; yet just reflect for a moment. Would anything less than such a confidence as is indicated here have been sufficient to enable him to lead the life that he did? Would he ever have been fit for his life’s work if his assurance of his own personal relations with God through Christ had been more dubious, and his standing more precarious? Would anything less than this settled conviction have enabled him fearlessly to face all the odds that were against him, and have borne him on through many a shock of battle towards the victor’s crown? But now let us look more closely into this pregnant saying, and endeavour to analyse its meaning. On looking carefully at the words you will find that in stating one thing St. Paul really states three. First, he tells us that he has assumed a distinct moral attitude, an attitude of trust towards a particular person. Next, that the assumption and maintenance of this attitude is with him a matter of personal consciousness; and next, that he is acquainted with and thoroughly satisfied with the character of the person thus trusted. Let us consider each of these statements severally; and turning to the first, we notice that St. Paul represents his confidence as being reposed not in a doctrine, or a fact, but a person. “I know whom I have believed.” Many go wrong here. I have heard some speak as if we were to be justified by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith. Let me say to such what common-sense should have let them to conclude without its being necessary to say it, that we are no more justified by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith than we are carried from London to Edinburgh by believing in the expansive force of steam. Knowledge of the laws of the expansion of vapour may induce me to enter a railway train, and similarly, knowledge of the doctrine of justification may induce me to trust myself to Him who justifies; but I am no more justified by believing this doctrine than I am transported from place to place by believing in the laws of dynamics. Others seem to believe that our faith is to be reposed upon the doctrine of the Atonement, and not a few upon certain particular theories which are supposed to attach to that doctrine. But surely it is clear that our views of doctrine may be never so orthodox and correct, and yet our hearts may not have found rest in Him to whom the doctrine witnesses. Once again, some seem to regard our salvation as dependent upon belief in a fact; but surely it is possible to accept the fact, and yet come no nearer to Him who was the principal actor in that fact. Faith rests on a person, not a doctrine, or a fact; but when we believe in the person, this undoubtedly involves faith in the doctrine (so far as it is necessary for us to understand it) and in the fact. For if I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in Him as God’s express provision to meet the case of fallen humanity, and this involves the doctrine. Once again, if I believe in Christ, I believe in Him as having accomplished all that was necessary to meet the case of fallen humanity, and this involves the fact. The doctrine and the fact both meet in Him; but apart from Him neither is of any real spiritual value to me. Nay, I will go so far as to say that my apprehension of the doctrine, and even of the fact, may be very inadequate and incomplete, yet if with all my heart I rest upon the person, my confidence can never be disappointed. Now let us consider this statement that St. Paul makes as to his moral attitude towards Christ. He tells us that he knows whom he has believed. The phrase is especially deserving of attention, and yet, curiously enough, it is generally misquoted. How commonly do we hear it quoted as if the words were, “I know in whom I have believed.” I fear that the frequency of the misquotation arises from the fact that men do not clearly discern the point to which the words of the apostle as they stand were specially designed to bear witness. The phrase, as St. Paul wrote it, points to a distinctly personal relation, and the words might, with strict accuracy, be rendered, “I know whom I have trusted.” The words, as they are misquoted, may be destitute of this clement of personal relation altogether. If I were to affirm of some distinguished commercial house in this city that I believed in it, that would not necessarily mean that I had left all my money in its hands. If I were to say that I believed in a well-known physician, that would not lead you to conclude that he had cured, or even that I had applied to him to cure, any disease from which I might be suffering. But if I stated that I had trusted that firm or that physician, then you would know that a certain actual personal relation was established between me and the man or the company of men of whom I thus spoke. How many there are who believe in Christ just as we believe in a bank where we have no account, or a physician whose skill we have never proved, and our belief does us as much good in the one case as in the other. But perhaps the true character of trust is, if possible, still more strikingly brought out by the word which St. Paul here employs in the original Greek. It is the word that would be used by any Greek to indicate the sum of money deposited, in trust, in the hands of a commercial agent, or, as we should say, a banker; in fact, the words used here simply mean “my deposit.” If you carry about a largo sum of money on your person, or if you keep it in your house, you run a certain risk of losing it. In order to ensure the safety of your property you make it over into the hands of a banker; and if you have perfect confidence in the firm to which you commit it, you no longer have an anxious thought about it. There it is safe in the bank. Even so there had come a time when St. Paul’s eyes were opened to find that he was in danger of losing that beside which all worldly wealth is a mere trifle--his own soul; for what indeed “is a man profited, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Nay, it was not only that his soul was in danger amongst the robbers, it was actually forfeited to the destroyer, and then it was that, in his helpless despair, he made it over into another’s hands--that other who had a right to preserve it and keep it alive, because He had ransomed it from the destroyer, and from that time forward there he had left it safe and secure, because He to whom he had entrusted it was trustworthy. Now have you done the same? Have you not only believed in Jesus, but have you trusted Him? Then this must lead us to the second of the three things that we saw St. Paul here affirms. Evidently St. Paul knew, and was perfectly sure, of his own moral attitude towards God; and here he explicitly asserts that his faith was a matter of distinct moral consciousness, for “I know whom I have believed” certainly contains within itself “I know that I have believed.” Now turn this over in your mind. Surely it is reasonable enough when we come to think of it; for if we have something weighing on our minds that seems a thing of great importance, surely if we make it over into the hands of another, and leave it with him, we can hardly fail to be conscious of having done so. The question sometimes may be asked--and indeed it often is asked--“How am I to know that I have believed?” I confess that it is not easy to answer such an inquiry; but there are a good many similar questions which it would be equally hard to answer if people ever asked them, which, however, as a matter of fact, they never do. If I were to ask you to-night, “How do you know that you hear me speaking to you?” the only answer you could return would be--one that may sound very unphilosophical, but for all that one that is perfectly sufficient--“Because I do.” If you answer, “Ah! but then that is a matter of sense,” I reply, “Yes, but is it otherwise with matters that don’t belong to the region of sense-perception at all?” If I were to ask you, “How do you know that you remember, or that you imagine, or that you think, or that you perform any mental process?” your answer must still be, “Because I do.” You do not feel either able or desirous to give any further proof of these experiences; it is enough that they are experiences--matters of direct consciousness. But we need not in order to illustrate this point go beyond this question that we are at present considering. You ask, “How may I know that I believe?” This question sounds to you reasonable when you are speaking of Christ as the object of faith. Does it sound equally reasonable when you speak in the same terms of your fellow-man? How do you know, my dear child, that you believe in your own mother? How do you know, you, my brother, who are engaged in commerce, that you believe in your own banker? You can only answer in each case, “Because I do”; but surely that answer is sufficient, and you do not feel seriously exercised about the reality of your confidence, because you have no other proof of it excepting an appeal to your own personal consciousness. Let us now notice, further, that he knew well, and was perfectly satisfied with, the character of the person whom he did believe. Herein lay the secret of his calm, the full assurance of his faith. You may have your money invested in a concern which, on the whole, you regard as a safe and satis factory one, yet when panics are prevailing in the city, and well-known houses are failing, you may be conscious of some little anxiety, some passing misgiving. You have faith in the firm, but perhaps not full assurance of faith. It is otherwise with the money that you have invested in the funds of the nation; that must be safe as long as Great Britain holds her place amongst the nations of the world. Clearly our sense of comfort in trusting, our full assurance of confidence lies in our knowledge of, and is developed by, our contemplation of the object upon which our trust is reposed--if indeed that object be worthy of it--and feelings of peace and calm will necessarily flow from this. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)

I know whom I have believed

“Whom” Paul says. Quite another thing from “what.” “I know what I have believed”; that is good. “I know whom I have believed”; that is better--best. Such believing has easily its advantages, several of them. When the thing we believe is a person, our believing, creed, becomes simple and coherent; the lines of our thinking all gather at a point, our creed is made one, like grapes growing in one cluster from one stem. I am interested on occasion to ask Christian people what their Christian belief is. It is instructive to note the wide divergence of answer. One believes one thing, another, another thing. “I know whom I have believed.” To be a Christian is to believe in Christ. And what is it to believe in Christ? We reach too high for our answers; necessary truth grows on low branches. The boy says--“I believe in my father.” All is told that needs to be told. Another thing about this creed with a person in it is, that it gives something for all our faculties to do. “I know what I believe.” Such a creed is only intellectual; it is an affair of thinking, reasoning, inference. Theological thought and discussion works so far only on the same lines as scientific. Mind only works; no heart, nothing volitional. A creed that gathers directly about person yields keen thinking, but yields much beside. It starts feeling, sets the affections in play, draws out the will and puts it to work. We each of us have one or more men that we believe in, with all our mind, heart and strength--men that are so far forth our creed; and they stir and stimulate us in every way, clearing our ideas, to be sure, but firing our hearts and making our resolutions sinewy and nervy. Christ made Paul a man of profound thinking, but a man of fervid passion and giant purpose--gave every faculty in him something to do. He was great all over. A third and consequent advantage in a personal creed is that it is the only kind that can produce effects, and work within us substantial alteration. I am not criticising creeds. It is an excellent thing to know what we believe, and to be able with conciseness and effect to state it. Paul does not say 1 know what I believe, but I know whom I believe, which goes wider and higher. Such a creed is not one that Paul holds, but one that holds Paul, and can do something with him therefore. No quantity of correct idea about the sun can take the place of standing and living where the sun shines; and standing and living where the sun shines will save from fatal results a vast amount of incorrect ideas about the sun. Belief in person works back upon me as an energy, alters me, builds me up or tears me down--at any rate never leaves me alone; it works as gravity does among the stars; keeps everything on the move. Such belief is not mental attitude, but moral appropriation; it is the bee clinging to the clover-blossom and sucking out the sweet. It is regulative and constructive. We are determined by thee person we believe in. Belief makes him my possession. Belief breaks down his walls and widens him out till he contains me. His thoughts reappear as my thoughts; his ways, manners, feelings, hopes, impulses, motives, become mine. I know whom I have believed. We make our ordinary creeds, and revise and amend and repeal them. Personal creeds make us, and revise, amend and repeal us. No picture of a friend can be accurate enough to begin to take the friend’s place or do the friend’s work. No idea of a person can ever be enough like the person to serve as substitute. Knowing what God is to perfection would never become the equivalent of knowing God. If we bring this to the level of common life, its workings are simple and manifest. It is in the home. The mother is the child’s first creed. He believes in her before he believes what she says, and it is by his belief in her that he grows and ripens. If we cannot tell it all out in words what this believing in a mother or father means, we feel the meaning of it, and the deep sense is worth more than the wordy paragraph, any time. Education is an affair of person--person meeting person. Pupils do not become wise by being told things. Wisdom is not the accumulation of specific cognitions. It is men that educate. Person is the true schoolmaster. Even an encyclopaedia does not become an educator by being dressed in gentlemen’s clothes. What best helps a boy to become a man is to have somebody to look up to; which is like our text--“I know whom I have believed.” And out on the broader fields of social and national life we encounter the same principle over again. The present wealth of a people depends largely upon its commerce and productive industries. The stability of a people and its promise for the future, depends quite as much upon the quality of the men upon whom the masses allow their regards to fix and their loyalty to fasten. “I know whom I have believed.” And believing in Christ in this way to begin with, issued in Paul’s believing a host of particular facts in regard to Christ, and Paul’s theology is his blossomed piety. No amount of faith in Christ’s words will add up into faith in Him. You must have noticed bow full all Christ’s teachings are of the personal pronoun “I.” Paul’s Christianity began on the road to Damascus. The only man that can truly inform me is the man that can form himself in me; that is what information means--immensely personal again, you see, as everything of much account is. And it is so everywhere. Religious matters, in this respect, step in the same ranks with other matters. The grandest convictions that we receive from other people are not constructed in us by their logic, but created in us by their personal inspiration. The gospel is not the Divine book, but the Divine Man, and a great many miniature copies of that gospel are around us, working still effects along personal lines. We make Christianity hard by crumbling it up into impersonal propositions. It is no part of our genius to like a truth apart from its flesh and blood incarnation in some live man. It is a hard and awkward thing for me to believe in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, for instance. I do not like the doctrine; my intellect abhors it. No logic could persuade me of its truth, and I should never think of trying to syllogise anybody else into a possession of it. But my father is immortal and I know it. Your mother is immortal, and you cannot start in your mind a suspicion to the contrary. From all this we gather that a man who gets called an unbeliever, and even calls himself such, may believe a great deal more than he suspects. Unconscious orthodoxy is a factor of the times that needs to be taken into earnest account. There are quantities of unutilised and unsuspected faith. You do not believe in immortality. Did you ever see anybody that you had some little idea had about him something or other that death could not touch? Let alone the abstract and come close to the concrete and personal, and let it work. You reject the doctrine of a change of heart; and it is a doctrine repugnant to our natures and a conundrum to our intelligence. Did you ever see anybody who stopped being what he had been and commenced being what he had not been? If you find it hard work to square your opinions with the catechism, see whether you do not draw into a little closer coincidence with men and women whose lives transparently embody the gospel, and then draw your inference. To another class of uncertain hearers I want to add, Do not try to get your religious ideas all arranged and your doctrinal notions balanced. There is a great deal of that kind that is best taken care of when it is left to take care of itself. There is no advantage in borrowing some one’s else opinion and no use in hurrying your own opinion. Begin with what is personal, as he did--“I know whom I have believed.” Try to know the Lord. Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” There is no other way of beginning to be a Christian but the old way--“Come unto Me.” And you and I, fellow Christians, owe it to these unsettled people among us and about us to help them to strong anchorage upon Christ; and our qualifications for the work will be our own thorough rest in and establishment upon Christ and an ineffable commixture of love and tact, and fact considered not as a natural talent, but as a heavenly grace. In our relations to these people, there is another thing fur us to remember of a more positive character, which is, as we have seen, that there is nothing that tells upon men and their convictions like life. Men believe in the personal. Truth pure and simple goes but a little way, except as it is lived. Abstractions are not current outside of the schools. The best preaching of a change of heart is a heart that is changed. These people are not going to he touched by anything that has not breath and a pulse. Living is the best teaching. So that if you and I are going to help these people to be conscious and pronounced Christians, we are not going to accomplish it by merely telling them about Christ and compounding before them feeble dilutions of Divine biography, but by being ourselves so personally charged with the personal Spirit of God in Christ that in our words they shall hear Him, in our love they shall feel Him, in our behaviour they shall be witnesses of Him, and in this way He become to them the Way, Truth and Life, all-invigorating power, all-comprehensive creed. (C. H. Parkhurst.)

Nothing to hold by

An infidel was dying, and his infidelity beginning to give way, was rallied by his friends, who surrounded his dying bed. “Hold out,” they all cried, “don’t give way.” “Ah!” said the dying man, “I would hold out if I had anything to hold by, but what have I?” (Anon.)

Confidence in Christ

I. The Christian has in his possession a treasure.

1. It is his greatest treasure.

2. At his own disposal.

3. Involves his whole welfare for ever.

II. The Christian has entrusted his treasure to the protection of Christ.

1. It is in danger of being lost.

2. Man cannot secure its safety himself.

3. Christ is the only Preserver.

III. The Christian has entrusted his treasure to Christ with unbounded confidence. Because of his faith in Christ’s--

1. Power.

2. Promises.

3. Prestige.

IV. The Christian’s consciousness of the safety of his treasure in Christ, is a source of great peace in the troubles of life.

1. Because the greatest interest is secured.

2. Because trials will farther this interest.

3. Because trials will soon end. (B. D. Johns.)

Knowledge conducive of assurance

This must move us all to get knowledge of God, if we would have faith in Him, yea, the best must grow herein; for the better we know Him the more confidently shall we believe in Him. For it is so in all other things. When I know the firmness of the land I will the better rest my foot on it; the strength of my staff, the rather lean my whole body upon it, and the faithfulness of a friend, put and repose my confidence in him. And we must know God. First, in His power, how that He is able to do whatsoever He will. This confirmed Abraham’s faith, and moved him to offer his son. Secondly, we must know Him in His truth and justice. Thirdly, we are to know God in His stability. How that time changeth not His nature, neither altereth His purpose. Fourthly, we are to understand that God is Sovereign Lord, that there is none higher than He; for if we should trust in an inferior we might be deceived. Fifthly, We must know God in Christ. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

It’s all real

A Bible class convert, who subsequently became a teacher, accidentally injured himself through lifting a heavy weight, and his sufferings in consequence were very severe. Yet, notwithstanding his pain and poverty, he was extremely happy, and clung to Christ with a triumphant faith. This poor fellow’s dying testimony was very striking, and one of his last desires has never been forgotten. When just about crossing the river of death, he broke out into this expression, “Oh, Mr. Orsman, I would like to get well again, if only for one day, just to go round to my old companions, and tell them it’s all real.” (Sword and Trowel.)

The love of Christ stronger than the terrors of death

At the conclusion of an evening service in a fishing village, a young man stood up, and with great earnestness began to address his fellows. He said, “You all remember Johnnie Greengrass?” There was a murmur of assent all over the gathering. “You know that he was drowned last year. I was his comrade on board our boat. As we were changing the vessel’s course one night, off the Old Head of Kinsale, he was struck by the lower part of the mainsail and swept overboard. He was a good swimmer, but had been so disabled by the blow that he could only struggle in the water. We made all haste to try and save him. Before we got seated in the punt, we heard Johnnie’s voice, over the waves beyond the stern, singing the last line of his favourite hymn, “If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.’ We made every effort to find him, but in vain. He was drowned; but the last words which we had heard from his lips assured us that the love of Christ had proved stronger ‘than the terrors of death. He knew that neither death nor life could separate him from the love of Christ, and so he sank beneath the waves, singing, ‘If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.’” (T.Brown, M. A.)

Venturing on Christ

The Rev. Dr. Simpson was for many years tutor in the college at Hoxton, and while he stood very low in his own esteem, he ranked high in that of others. After a long life spent in the service of Christ, he approached his latter end with holy joy. Among other ex pressions which indicated his love to the Redeemer, and his interest in the favour of God, he spoke with disapprobation of a phrase often used by some pious people, “Venturing on Christ.” “When,” said he, “I consider the infinite dignity and all-sufficiency of Christ, I am ashamed to talk of venturing on Him. Oh, had I ten thousand souls, I would, at this moment, cast them all into His hands with the utmost confidence.” A few hours before his dissolution, he addressed himself to the last enemy, in a strain like that of the apostle, when he exclaimed, “O death, where is thy sting?” Displaying his characteristic fervour, as though he saw the tyrant approaching, he said, “What art thou? I am not afraid of thee. Thou art a vanquished enemy through the blood of the Cross.”

Trusting Christ entirely

I have sometimes used the following experience as an illustration of salvation. For fifteen years I lived by the seaside, and was a frequent bather, and yet never learned to swim. I would persist in keeping one foot upon the bottom, for then I felt safe. But one day, in a rough sea, a great wave fairly picked me off my feet, and I struck out for dear life. I awoke to the fact that I could swim, that the waves would bear me up if I trusted them entirely, and I no longer clung to my own way of self-help. Even so does Christ save. How often the trying to help one’s self keeps from peace and rest! and when the soul first abandons all to Christ, ventures wholly on Him, that soul finds, to its own astonishment, that Christ indeed bears up and saves him. (H. W. Childs.)

Jesus sufficient

An old lady who lately died in Melbourne said to her minister, “Do you think my faith will hold out?” “Well, I don’t know much about that,” replied the man of God, “but I am sure that Jesus Christ will hold out, and that is enough for you. ‘Looking,’ not to our faith, but ‘unto Jesus.’” (T. Spurgeon.)

The safety of believers

I. The grounds upon which this comfortable persuasion is built.

II. The manner in which this pebsuasion is produced and promoted in the souls of true believers.

1. The knowledge of Christ, which is necessary to produce and promote the comfortable persuasion expressed in the text, is partly derived from testimony.

(1) God the Father has in all ages borne witness to the power and faithfulness of His own beloved Son, our blessed Saviour. This He did of old time by visions and voices, by prophecies and typical ordinances.

(2) Christ Himself likewise thus testifies concerning His own power and readiness to save (Matthew 11:28).

(3) Nor must the testimony of the Holy Spirit be forgotten. “It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.”

(4) All the saints who lived in former times, the whole company of the faithful, all the patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and martyrs, bear testimony to this interesting fact. They all died in the faith of its comforting truth.

(5) Our fellow-Christians, likewise, in the present day, may be produced as witnesses to the power and faithfulness of the Redeemer. They live in different and distant places; their cases are various, and their attainments unequal; but they all will unite in declaring that ever since they were enabled to commit their souls to Christ, they have found a peace and joy to which they were strangers before, and that not one word of all that He hath spoken hath failed to be accomplished.

2. That this knowledge is likewise in part derived from the believer’s own experience (see John 4:42).

Concluding reflections:

1. How much are they to be pitied, who have no interest in the Saviour, who have never been thoroughly convinced of their wretched condition as sinners, and who, consequently, have not committed the momentous concerns of their souls into the hands of Christ.

2. That we may abound more and more in this hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost, let us study to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Have we committed our immortal interests into the hands of Christ, and shall we not trust Him with all our lesser concerns?

4. Let us look forward with believing expectation to the day when it will appear with Divine evidence, how faithfully Jesus has kept all that has been committed unto Him. (D. Black.)

Nothing between the soul and its Saviour

When Dr. Alexander, one of the professors of theology in Princeton University, was dying, he was visited by a former student. After briefly exchanging two or three questions as to health, the dying divine requested his old disciple to recite a verse of the Bible to be a comfort to him in his death struggles. After a moment’s reflection the student repeated from memory that verse--“I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him unto that day.” “No, no,” replied the dying saint, “that is not the verse: it is not ‘I know in whom I have believed.’ but ‘I know whom I have believed.’ I cannot allow the little word ‘in’ to intervene between me and my Saviour to-day, I cannot allow the smallest word in the English language to go between me and my Saviour in the floods of Jordan.”

The folly of not trusting Christ

I was busy at work during the deep, still hush of a hot July noon, when my attention was suddenly drawn to a fluttering sound in the room where I was sitting. A little bird from the neighbouring woods had entered by the open window, and was dashing wildly to and fro in its frantic efforts to escape again. I did not move at first, unwilling to increase its alarm, and hoping it would soon find its way out. But when after a little I again looked up, I saw that the little creature was circling round and round in desperate alarm; and, moreover, that the low, whitewashed ceiling was being streaked all over with blood from its poor head, which it grazed incessantly in its endeavours to get farther away from me. I thought it was time for me now to come to its help, but all my endeavours only made matters worse. The more I tried to aid its escape, the more blindly and swiftly did it dash itself against the walls and ceiling. I could but sit down and wait till it fell helpless and exhausted at my feet. The water stood in my eyes as I took it up and laid it in a safe place, from which, when recovered, it could fly safely away. “Poor foolish thing,” I said, “how much alarm and suffering you would have been spared could you only have trusted me, and suffered me to set you at liberty long ago. But you have been to me a lively picture of the way in which we sinners of mankind treat a loving and compassionate Saviour.”

God a good Keeper

God hath all the properties of a good keeper. First, He is wise. Secondly, powerful. Thirdly, watchful. Fourthly, faithful. He hath given laws to be faithful, and then shall not He?

The certainty of salvation

When the soul is settled that person will be resolute in every good course. A faint-hearted soldier, were he resolved beforehand that he should escape death and danger, conquer his foes, and win the field, would he not put on his armour, gird his sword upon his thigh, and march furiously against his adversaries? And shall not then the Christian soldier, who is persuaded of victory, to have the spoil, and possess a crown of righteousness and glory, go on with an undaunted courage in the face of the devil, death, and hell? This doctrine reproveth those that for the most part never mind this duty. We see many who settle their houses on a good foundation, establish their trees that the wind shake them not, and by a staff to underprop their feeble bodies that they catch not a fall, the which we in its kind commend. But how few spend any time to have their souls settled in the certainty of salvation. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

Faith and feeling

Dr. Archibald Alexander, eminent for learning and for consecration, when asked by one of his students at Princeton whether he always had full assurance of faith, replied, “Yes, except when the wind blows from the east.” (T. de Witt Talmage.)

Christian faith

Christian faith is the faith of a transaction; it is not the committing of one’s thought in assent to a preposition, but it is the trusting of one’s being to another Being, there to be rested, kept, guided, moulded, governed, and possessed for ever. (H. Bushnell.)

Christian faith

is a grand cathedral with divinely-pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any. Nothing is visible but the merest outline of dusky shapes. Standing within, all is clear and defined, every ray of light reveals an array of unspeakable splendours. (J. Ruskin.)

Faith a personal relation to Christ

If the object of faith were certain truths, the assent of the understanding would be enough. If the object of faith were unseen things, the confident persuasion of them would be sufficient. If the object of faith were promises of future good, the hope rising to certainty of the possession of these would be sufficient. But if the object be more than truths, more than unseen realities, more than promises; if the object be a living Person, then there follows inseparably this, that faith is not merely the assent of the understanding, that faith is not merely the persuasion of the reality of unseen things, that faith is not merely the confident expectation of future good; but that faith is the personal relation of him that believes to the living Person its object, the relation which is expressed not more clearly, but perhaps a little more forcibly to us by substituting another word, and saying, Faith is trust. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Trust in Christ supported by cumulative evidence

I do not pretend to have a scientific knowledge of Divine things, or to rest my convictions upon a scientific demonstration; but I can venture to say that “I know whom I have believed.” Such a belief will be supported by collateral evidence, acquiring from age to age a cumulative and converging force; but its essential virtue will in all ages be derived from the vital sources of personal love and trust. (H. Wace, D. D.)

Character entrusted to God

When John Wesley was going over all the country proclaiming a crucified Saviour for sinners, the magazines and papers of the day slandered him as those of our day do God’s servants still, in one paper there was an article so abusive and slanderous that a friend determined to contradict it. He laid the article and its reply before Wesley, who said, “When I gave my soul to Jesus, I gave Him my character to keep as well. I have to do my work and have no time to attend to it.” Christians who are doing the Lord’s work should go on with it, leaving themselves and their character in His hands.

The soul entrusted to Christ

St. Paul says, “that which I have committed unto Him.” This meant his soul. Suppose you have a precious jewel worth fifty or a hundred thousand dollars. It is so valuable that you are afraid you may lose it, or that some one may steal it from you. And suppose you have a friend who has a safe that is fire-proof and robber-proof. You take your jewel to this friend, and say to him: “Please take charge of this jewel, and keep it for me in your fire-proof.” He takes it and locks it up there. And now you feel comfortable about that jewel. You know your friend is faithful, and your jewel is safe. Yen do not worry about it any more. You are ready to say about your jewel what St. Paul said about his soul, because you feel sure that it is safe. (Richard Newton.)

Knowing Christ

There are two ways in which we are used to know persons. Sometimes it means to know them through some other person. Sometimes it means to know them ourselves. There is evidently a world-wide difference between the two. Let me illustrate it thus: We all know our Sovereign, her character, her state, her prerogative, her powers. But very few know the Queen. Yet it is very evident that those who have been admitted to her presence, and who have actually spoken and conversed in friendship with her, will have very different feelings towards her, and repose in her, and that their whole hearts will go out to her immensely more than those who know her only at a distance, and through the ordinary public channels. It is so with Christ. Some of you know Christ by the education of your childhood; some by the testimony of others; some by the reading of your Bible. Others have felt His presence. They have communed with Him. They have presented petitions, and they have had their answers from Himself. They have laid burdens at His feet, and He has taken them up. He has accepted their little gifts and smiled at their small services. They have proved Him. Isn’t He another Being, isn’t He another Christ to that man? They know Him. And what do they know of Thee, O blessed Jesus? They know Thee as the most loving and the loveliest of all--all grace, full of tenderness and sympathy, stooping to the meanest, and kind to the very worst. Our Brother, our Light, our Life, our Joy--who has taken away all our sins and carried all our load. That knowledge can never begin but in one way--by a certain inner life, by a walk of holiness, by the teaching of sorrow, in the school of discipline, from heavy leanings, by acts of self-abandonment, by goings down into the dust, by the grand influence of the Spirit, by Jesus revealing Himself. But once known--and from that moment it will be as hard not to trust as it is now difficult to do; as impossible for the heart to doubt as it is to that poor, prone heart now to question everything. If you really know, you cannot help believing. “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, ‘Give Me to drink,’ thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.” But there is a truth in St. Paul’s words which I am very anxious to press upon you. See where the great apostle, the aged believer, the ripe saint, found all his argument and all his stand, as it were. Not--and if any man might he might--not in anything which had been worked by him; not in anything in him; not in his acts; not in his feelings; not in his faith; not in his conversion, however remarkable; not in his sanctification, however complete; but simply and absolutely and only in God. “I know”--as if he cared to know nothing else, all other knowledge being unsatisfactory or worse--“I know Him whom I have trusted.”’ It may seem a strange thing to say, but it is really easier to know God than it is to know ourselves. It is remarkable that the Bible tells us a great deal more about God than it does about our own hearts. The great end of reading the Bible is to know God. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Confidence and concern

I. First, observe what Paul had done.

1. He had trusted a person--“I know whom I have believed.”

2. Paul had gone farther, and had practically carried out his confidence, for he had deposited everything with this person. A poor idiot, who had been instructed by an earnest Christian man, somewhat alarmed him by a strange remark, for he feared that all his teaching had been in vain. He said to this poor creature, “You know that you have a soul, John?” “No,” said he, “I have no soul.” “No soul!” thought the teacher, “this is dreadful ignorance.” All his fears were rolled away when his half-witted pupil added, “I had a soul once, and I lost it, and Jesus found it; and so I have let Him keep it.”

II. The next thing is, what did Paul know? He tells us plainly, “I know whom I have believed.”

1. We are to understand by this that Paul looked steadily at the object of his confidence, and knew that he relied upon God in Christ Jesus. He did not rest in a vague hope that he would be saved; nor in an indefinite reliance upon the Christian religion; nor in a sanguine expectation that all things would, somehow, turn out right at the end. He did not hold the theory of our modern divines, that our Lord Jesus Christ did something or other, which, in one way or another, is more or less remotely connected with the forgiveness of sin; but he knew the Lord Jesus Christ as a person, and he deliberately placed himself in His keeping, knowing Him to be the Saviour.

2. Paul also knew the character of Jesus whom he trusted. His perfect character abundantly justified the apostle’s implicit trust. Paul could have said, “I know that I trust in One who is no mere man, but very God of very God. I have not put my soul into the keeping of a priest, like unto the sons of Aaron, who must die; but I have rested myself in One whose priesthood is according to the law of an endless life--A Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. He upon whom I confide is He without whom was not anything made that was made, who sustaineth all things by the Word of His power, and who at His coming shall shake both the heavens and the earth, for all fulness of Divine energy dwells in Him.”

3. But how did Paul come to know Christ? Every page of Scripture, as the apostle perused it, revealed Jesus to him. This book is a royal pavilion, within which the Prince of peace is to be met with by believers who look for Him. In this celestial mirror Jesus is reflected. Paul also knew Jesus in another way than this. He had personal acquaintance with Him; he knew Him as “the Lord Jesus, who appeared unto him in the way.” He knew the Lord also by practical experience and trial of Him. Paul had tested Jesus amidst furious mobs, when stones fell about him, and in prison, when the death-damp chilled him to the bone. He had known Christ far out at sea, when Euroclydon drove him up and down in the Adriatic; and he had known Christ when the rough blasts of unbrotherly suspicion had beaten upon him on the land. All that he knew increased his confidence. He knew the Lord Jesus because He had delivered him out of the mouth of the lion.

III. Thirdly, let us inquire--what was the apostle persuaded of?

1. Implicitly Paul declares his faith in our Lord’s willingness and faithfulness.

2. But the point which the apostle expressly mentions is the power of Christ--“I am persuaded that He is able.” He that goes on board a great Atlantic liner does not say, “I venture the weight of my body upon this vessel. I trust it to bear my ponderous frame.” Yet your body is more of a load to the vessel than your soul is to the Lord Jesus. Did you ever hear of the gnat on the horn of the ex which feared that it might be an inconvenience to the huge creature? Oh, friend! you are but a gnat in comparison with the Lord Jesus, nay, you are not so heavy to the ascended Saviour as the gnat to the ox. You were a weight to Him once, but having borne that load once for all, your salvation is no burden to Him now. Well may you say, “I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him.”

3. What was this which Paul had committed to Christ? He committed to Him everything that he had for time and for eternity; his body, his soul, his spirit; all fears, cares, dangers, sins, doubts, hopes, joys: he just made a clean removal of his all from himself to his Lord. Those of you who are acquainted with the original will follow me while I forge a link between my third division and my fourth. If I were to read the text thus it would be quite correct--“I am persuaded that He is able to keep my deposit against that day.” Here we have a glimpse of a second meaning. If you have the Revised Version, you will find in the margin “that which He has committed to me”; and the original allows us to read the verse whichever way we choose--“He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him”--or “that which He has committed unto me.” This last expression, though I could not endorse it as giving the full sense of the text, does seem to me to be a part of its meaning. It is noteworthy that, in the fourteenth verse, the original has the same phrase as in this verse. It runs thus--“That good deposit guard by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” Inasmuch as the words are the same--the apostle speaking of “my deposit” in the twelfth verse, and in the fourteenth verse speaking of “that good deposit”--I cannot help thinking that one thought dominated his mind. His soul and the gospel were so united as to be in his thought but one deposit; and this he believed that Jesus was able to keep. He seemed to say, “I have preached the gospel which was committed to my trust; and now, for having preached it, I am put in prison, and am likely to die; but the gospel is safe in better hands than mine.” The demon of distrust might have whispered to him, “Paul, you are now silenced, and your gospel will be silenced with you; the Church will die out; truth will become extinct.” “No, no,” saith Paul, “I am not ashamed; for I know that He is able to guard my deposit against that day.”

IV. This leads me on to this fourth point--what the apostle was concerned about. The matter about which he was concerned was this deposit of his--this everlasting gospel of the blessed God. He expresses his concern in the following words--“Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.”

1. He is concerned for the steadfastness of Timothy, and as I think for that of all young Christians, and especially of all young preachers. What does he say? “Hold fast the form of sound words.” I hear an objector murmur, “There is not much in words, surely.” Sometimes there is very much in words. Vital truth may hinge upon a single word. The whole Church of Christ once fought a tremendous battle over a syllable; but it was necessary to fight it for the conservation of the truth. When people rail at creeds as having no vitality, I suppose that I hear one say that there is no life in egg-shells. Just so; there is no life in egg-shells, they are just so much lime, void of sensation. “Pray, my dear sir, do not put yourself out to defend a mere shell.” Truly, good friend, I am no trifler, nor so litigious as to fight for a mere shell. But hearken! I have discovered that when you break egg-shells you spoil eggs; and I have learned that eggs do not hatch and produce life when shells are cracked.

2. The apostle was anxious, not only that the men should stand, but that the everlasting gospel itself should be guarded. “That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” It were better for us that the sun were quenched than that the gospel were gone. I believe that the moralities, the liberties, and peradventure the very existence of a nation depend upon the proclamation of the gospel in its midst. How are we to keep the faith? There is only one way. It is of little use trying to guard the gospel by writing it down in a trust-deed; it is of small service to ask men to subscribe to a creed: we must go to work in a more effectual way. How is the gospel to be guarded? “By the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” If the Holy Spirit dwells in you, and you obey His monitions, and are moulded by His influences, and exhibit the result of His work in the holiness of your lives, then the faith will be kept. A holy people are the true body-guard of the gospel. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Hold fast the form of sound words.

Systematic knowledge of the gospel

While Paul was passing through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the Churches, he came to Lystra, where he found a certain disciple, named Timothy, who was highly esteemed by the Christian brethren in that city. This recommended him to the notice and acquaintance of the apostle; who being fully persuaded of his unfeigned piety and promising talents, determined to take him with him, and prepare him by proper instruction to preach the gospel. Timothy gratefully received and wisely improved this precious privilege, made great proficiency in theological knowledge, and soon became acquainted with the whole scheme of religious sentiments which the apostle embraced and taught. This form of sound words, or rather this system of sound doctrines, the apostle taught Timothy, and exhorted him to hold fast as a necessary and indispensable qualification for the gospel ministry. The opinion and practice of the apostle in this instance naturally leads us to conclude that a systematical knowledge of the gospel is still necessary to qualify other pious young men as well as Timothy for the same sacred office.

1. Young men who are preparing for the ministry should understand the harmony and connection which run through all the peculiar and essential doctrines of the gospel. These are so intimately connected that they cannot be clearly understood separately considered.

2. A systematical knowledge of the principal doctrines of the Bible is necessary in order to understand and explain the true meaning of the Scriptures in general.

3. Young men who are preparing for the ministry should have a systematical knowledge of the gospel, that they may be able to guard themselves against the religious errors to which they are peculiarly exposed.

4. It is necessary that those who are preparing for the ministry should have a systematical knowledge of the gospel in order to be able to refute as well as to avoid religious errors.

5. A systematical knowledge of the gospel is no less necessary in order to qualify pious young men to preach both the doctrines and duties of Christianity in the most plain, instructive, and profitable manner.

It now remains to point out some things which seem naturally to flow from the subject.

1. The first thing suggested by the subject is that there can be no reasonable objection against all human systems of divinity. It is said that systems of divinity tend to promote religious controversies, which are highly prejudicial to practical religion. But it is very evident that they do not give rise to religious disputes, because religious disputes have always given rise to them. It is said that systems of divinity tend to prevent men from forming any real opinions of their own and to infringe upon their right of private judgment. No man can be said to have a real opinion upon any subject which is not derived from evidence; and if it be derived from evidence, it is totally immaterial whether he derives the evidence from his own investigation, or from conversation, or from reading, or from public or private instruction. It is said that systems of divinity are often the engines of designing men, and intended to propagate error instead of truth. It is not denied that theological systems may have been designed and employed to serve such an evil purpose. But it must be acknowledged, on the other hand, that they may have been designed and employed to counteract the baneful influence of error and to promote the cause of truth.

2. If the leading sentiment in this discourse has been sufficiently supported, we must conclude that it is generally improper for those to undertake to preach the gospel who have never acquired a systematical knowledge of it. In the next place, it appears from what has been said, that both an academical and theological education is highly necessary to qualify pious young men for the work of the ministry.

3. The whole train of the observations which have been made in this discourse now converge to a single point, and unitedly press the important duty of assisting pious and promising youths to furnish their minds with that literary and theological knowledge which is indispensably necessary to prepare them for the gospel ministry. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

The form of sound words

The numerous and conflicting creeds, confessions of faith, and systems of divinity which are spread over the religious world are but of human authority. What volumes of needless controversy, what angry passions, what words of strife, and what deeds of violence had the world escaped by attention to this simple, obvious, all-important principle! But does it follow from this statement that we ought to have no system of religious opinions whatever; or that, having a system, it is a matter of indifference what that system is? By no means. We are not indeed to assume infallibility, either for ourselves or for the peculiarities of our creed; but it does not follow we should have no fixed creed at all. He who has no creed has nothing which he believes; and he who has nothing which he believes is an unbeliever, an infidel. The evil lies not in having a creed, but in having a wrong one; or in holding and propagating that which we have with tempers that are unkind and by measures that are unchristian. What we design at this time is a brief and plain summary of those religious principles avowed by the community of professing Christians with which we are more especially connected. If, on examination, the form of words we lay before you should be proved “sound,” we may be allowed to admonish you in the words of the apostle to “hold it fast.”

1. There exists an Infinite Being, the great first cause, whom we call God. There is but one God; but this one God subsists in three personalities or modes, commonly distinguished as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

2. The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient and authorised rule of faith and practice. It is not intended to be affirmed that nothing is true but what is made known in the sacred writings; but that what is not there revealed cannot be required as an article of faith.

3. Man came out of the bands of his Creator in a state of perfect rectitude, holiness, and felicity. But man was at the same time constituted a moral agent; that is, he was put under a command or law which he had the power and liberty to obey or disobey. He disobeyed; and in consequence of that act of infidelity and rebellion fell from his primeval excellency; his nature became morally defiled; and that moral defilement he transmitted to all his posterity.

4. But mankind were not left to perish in this fallen, sinful, and wretched state: a great plan of redemption and salvation has been originated, and is now in actual existence and operation. This plan took its rise in the boundless benevolence of the eternal Jehovah; and the execution of it was laid on one that is mighty--on our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

5. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind and the founder of our holy religion, is very God. Rut for us men and for our salvation the eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so that the Saviour of the world is Man as well as God, or, in the style of the Scriptures, “God manifest in the flesh.”

6. The sufferings and death of the man Christ Jesus are a proper and full satisfaction and atonement for the sins of mankind.

7. In that form of words which this Christian community has embraced, it is essential, not only that the blessed Jesus died for sin, but also that He died for the sins of all men; that in the design and appointment of Almighty God, the blood of the covenant extends its saving efficacy wide as the human race; and that, in consequence of the shedding of that blood, salvation is actually put within the grasp of every human soul.

8. We are justified before God and accepted into His favour, not by works of righteousness that we have done, but through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and through that alone.

9. It is the privilege of all who are thus accepted of God to have the assurance of it by the witness of the Spirit in their hearts.

10. As the nature of man is corrupt and sinful, before he can be admitted into the everlasting abodes of purity and bliss, he must undergo a great moral change--A change of disposition and desires--A change of heart and soul. This spiritual, happy revolution we are accustomed to express by such terms as “regeneration,” “conversion,” “the new birth,” etc.

11. This regeneration and whatever else is necessary to the holiness and spiritual life of the soul is effected through the interposition and agency of the Holy Spirit.

12. The soul of man is immortal.

13. Perhaps no discovery of revelation is more stupendous or more consolatory than the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

14. “God hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.”

15. Finally, the solemnities of that great and final day of God will issue in the eternal blessedness and glory of the righteous, and in the endless punishment and misery of the wicked. Having thus submitted to you “the form,” the plan, draught, or outline, as the word signifies, of what we consider “sound words,” we solemnly request that it may be examined by that only proper test of religious truth, the Word of God. If it accord not with that standard, reject it; but if it do, then attend to the admonition in our text, and “hold fast the form of sound words.”

In the meantime, on this general admonition of the apostle, we may venture to establish the following exhortations.

1. Beware and do not exchange “the form of sound words” for the uncertainties and delusions of infidelity.

2. Beware of error in your religious doctrines. The mode of faith, the class of doctrines we espouse, cannot be a matter of indifference; for, as truth exerts an influence holy and happy, so the tendency of error is impure and destructive.

3. Finally, beware of holding “the truth in unrighteousness.” Truth itself is of no value only as it influences to an upright, holy, and benevolent practice. (J. Bromley.)

The sconce of the Scriptures

In these words there is--

1. The character of Scripture-doctrine; it is sound words--sound and pure in itself, and sound in its effect, being of a soul-healing virtue (Ezekiel 47:9).

2. The sum of it, faith, showing what we are to believe; and love, what we are to do (1 John 5:8; John 14:15). This love has a particular relation to Christ, all our obedience being to be offered unto God through Him, as our faith fixes on God through Him. This was what the apostle preached.

3. Our duty with respect to it; to hold fast the form of sound words. This signifies--

(1) To have a pattern of the doctrine in our minds, to which all that ministers teach must be conformable.

(2) To hold it fast; to cleave to, and keep hold of it, without flinching from it, whatever dangers or difficulties may attend the doing so. Both these senses are implied in the words.

I. Let us consider the nature of that faith and obedience which the scripture teaches, with the connection betwixt the two.

1. As to faith. Divine faith is a believing of what God has revealed, because God has said it, or revealed it. People may believe Scripture-truths, but not with a Divine faith, unless they believe it on that very ground, the authority of God speaking in His Word. And this Divine faith is the product of the Spirit of God in the heart of a sinner, implanting the habit or principle of faith there, and exciting it to a hearty reception and firm belief of whatever God reveals in His Word. Hence we may infer--

(1) That there can be no right knowledge of God acquired in an ordinary way without the Scriptures (Matthew 22:29).

(2) That where the Scriptures are not known, there can be no saving faith.

(3) That there is nothing we are bound to believe as a part of faith but what the Scripture teaches, be who they will that propose it, and whatever they may pretend for their warrant.

2. As to obedience, it is that duty which God requires of man. It is that duty and obedience which man owes to God, to His will and laws, in respect of God’s universal supremacy and sovereign authority over man; and which he should render to Him out of love and gratitude.

(1) That there can be no sufficient knowledge of the duty which we owe to God without the Scriptures.

(2) That there can be no right obedience yielded to God without them.

(3) That there is no point of duty that we are called to, but what the Scripture teaches (Isaiah 8:20). As to the connection of these two, faith and obedience are joined together, because there is no true faith but what is followed with obedience, and no true obedience but what flows from faith. Faith is the loadstone of obedience, and obedience the touchstone of faith, as appears from James 2:1-26.

II. I proceed now to consider the manner of the scripture’s teaching.

1. The Scripture teaches some things expressly in so many words; as, “Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” etc.

2. The Scriptures teach but externally. It is the Spirit that teaches internally.

III. I come now to consider the sense of the scripture. The sense of the Scripture is but one, and not manifold. (T. Boston, D. D.)

The credenda of Christianity

I. Let us consider the object of tenacious preservation: “the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me.” What is this form of sound words?

1. I should answer explicitly, and without hesitation, in the first place, the whole of God’s inspired truth, contained in the writing of the Old and the New Testament. In the Scriptures are contained all things necessary to be known and practised; and, therefore, this Book must be held with a firm and a tenacious grasp.

2. By “the form of sound words,” in the next place, it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that the apostle might intend a certain formulary, or system of Divine truth, which he might have given to Timothy, his “son in the faith,” and a younger teacher in the Church.

I say some formulary, or system of Divine truth, in which the great principles of the gospel might be condensed and epitomised. We have warrant in Scripture for such formularies, both in the Old Testament and in the New; and though, indeed, as composed by mere human minds, they are not the object of a Divine faith, any farther than they are found in strict coincidence with the Holy Scriptures; yet they are, nevertheless, profitable and desirable.

1. In the first place, it is of great advantage to have a concise, harmonious, connected view of the truth as it stands revealed in Holy Scripture.

2. In the next place, order is known to be a powerful assistant of the memory.

3. In the third place, it is well to have a summary of Christian truth, in order that our testimony among our fellow creatures may be clearly understood and explicitly declared.

4. And finally, that those who are enemies either to the truth or the practice of Christianity, may have that which can be lifted up as a standard against them, so that they cannot mutilate, corrupt, or destroy, “the truth as it is in Jesus.” It cannot be doubted but that these systems and formularies of Divine truth, rightly exhibited, and sustained by Holy Scripture, have proved in every age a mighty bulwark to the faith of the Christian Church.

II. The duty which the Christian owes to the object which we have considered: to hold it fast with a firm and with a determinate grasp. And this implies the following things--

1. An accurate acquaintance with the truth which they embody and exhibit. The understanding must be employed in ascertaining the sense and meaning of Holy Scripture, in comparing evidence, in deducing just conclusions from authentic premises, in tracing the harmony, the connection, and the bearing of one truth upon another, so that the various links of the chain may be held in their unbroken connection.

2. There must be a full persuasion of the truth.

3. Finally, there should be a conscientious determination to preserve the truth of the gospel at all hazards, and whatever consequences may possibly ensue with respect to ourselves, or our worldly interests.

III. The manner and the spirit in which the tenacity of the truth is to be attempted. It is added, “in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.” For there is always some danger lest human passion and infirmity should mix themselves even with our conscientious regard to the truth of God. We have to guard against the wrath of the angry polemic; the bitterness of the prejudiced bigot; visionary and fanatic wildness of the enthusiast.

1. First, we are to hold fast the truth in faith, because faith is the only ground upon which we receive and retain the truth. We do not receive it by tradition from our fellow-men; we do not receive it upon the authority or credit of any merely human teacher, however much that teacher may be valued by us; but we receive it on the ground of God’s authority. He has revealed it. We find it in His Book; a book of which the evidences fully substantiate the Divine original. Then we have a witness which is more valuable, in point of fact, than ten thousand theories, or ten thousand merely speculative arguments. This is the inward evidence which every real Christian derives from his own state of mind, his feeling, his character, his conduct; and by which he is able to demonstrate the truth of the blessed gospel. Then we are to maintain the truth in love--“love which is in Christ Jesus.” I must show this determined and this courageous attachment to the truth, first, for the love of Jesus Christ, who came into the world both to reveal and to confirm it. I must maintain it from love to my own soul. Love to the souls of others should impel me to this courageous maintenance of the truth of the gospel. Could we conceive of a readier method of destroying the entire population of a city than by poisoning the aqueduct, or the fountain, from which they were supplied with their daily drink? What should we think of the guilt of that man who would knowingly drop poison into a living spring, that all who went to quench their thirst, instead of meeting with refreshment and health, should meet with their bane and their destruction? And I never can suppose that man to be under the influence of a candid, generous, and benevolent spirit, who sacrifices the truth, and fails to maintain that which is of infinite importance to God’s honour, to the salvation of the soul, and to the existence of Christ’s kingdom amongst men, based, as they are, upon the everlasting and immutable truth of the gospel. (G. Clayton, M. A.)

The form of sound words

I do not suppose that by this it is intended that Paul ever wrote out for Timothy a list of doctrines; or that be gave him a small abstract of Divinity, to which he desired him to subscribe his name, as the articles of the Church over which he was made a pastor. If so, doubtless that document would have been preserved anti enrolled in the canons of Scripture as one of the writings of an inspired man. I can scarce think such a creed would have been lost, whilst other creeds have been preserved and handed down to us. I conceive that what the apostle meant was this:--“Timothy, when I have preached to you, you have heard certain grand outlines of truth; you have heard from me the great system of faith in Jesus Christ; in my writings and public speakings you have heard me continually insist upon a certain pattern or form of faith; now, I bid you, my dearly beloved son in the gospel, Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”

I. What is a “form of sound words”? Ten thousand persons will quarrel upon this. One will say, “my creed is a form of sound words”; another will declare that his creed also is sound, if not infallible.

1. We will not, therefore, enter into all the minutiae which distinguish creeds from each other, but just simply say, that no system can be a form of sound words unless it is perfectly Scriptural.

2. But since it is said that texts may be found to prove almost everything, we must remark that a form of sound words must be one that exalts God and puts down man.

3. We think, also, that we may judge of the soundness of doctrine by its tendency. We can never think a doctrine sound, when we see plainly upon its very surface that it has a tendency to create sin in men.

4. We shall, perhaps, be asked, what we do regard as a form of sound words, and what those doctrines are which are Scriptural, which at the same time are healthful to the spirit and exalting to God. We answer, we believe that a form of sound words must embrace, first of all, the doctrine of God’s being and nature, we must have the trinity in unity, and the unity in trinity.

5. Now, we hold, that a form of sound words must look upon man aright as well as upon God aright; it must teach that man is utterly fallen, that he is sinful, and for his sin condemned and in himself altogether hopeless of salvation.

6. And next, we think that a doctrine that is sound must have right views of salvation, as being of the Lord alone,

II. Now let me show you the necessity of holding fast this form of sound words, and keeping it for your own sake, for the church’s sake, for the world’s salve.

1. First, for your own sake, hold it fast, for thereby you will receive ten thousand blessings; you will receive the blessing of peace in your conscience.

2. “Hold fast the form of sound words,” because it will tend very much to your growth. He who holds fast the truth will grow faster than he who is continually shifting from doctrine to doctrine.

3. I would beseech you to hold it fast for your own sakes, from a remembrance of the great evils which will follow the contrary course. If you do not “hold fast the form of sound words,” listen to me while I tell you what you will do. In the first place, every deviation from truth is a sin. It is not simply a sin for me to do a wrong act, but it is a sin for me to believe a wrong doctrine. If it be a sin of ignorance, it is nevertheless a sin; but it is not so heinous as a sin of negligence, which I fear it is with many.

4. “Hold fast the form of sound words,” because error in doctrine almost inevitably leads to error in practice. When a man believes wrongly, he will soon act wrongly.

5. And now, for the good of the Church itself, I want you all to “hold fast the form of sound words.” Would you wish to see the Church prosperous? Would you wish to see it peaceful? Then “hold fast the form of sound words.” What is the cause of divisions, schisms, quarrels, and bickerings amongst us? It is not the fault of the truth; it is the fault of the errors. There would have been peace in the Church, entire and perpetual peace, if there had been purity--entire and perpetual purity--in the Church. Going down to Sheerness on Friday, I was told by some one on board that during the late gale several of the ships there had their anchors rent up, and had gone dashing against the other ships, and had done considerable damage. Now, if their anchors had held fast and firm, no damage would have been done. Ask me the cause of the damage which has been done to our Churches by the different denominations, and I tell you, it is because all their anchors did not hold fast.

6. Keep to your faith, I say again, for the Church’s cake, for so you will promote strength in the Church. I saw lying between Chatham and Sheerness a number of ships that I supposed to be old hulks; and I thought how stupid Government was to let them remain there, and not chop them up for firewood, or something else; but some one said to me, those ships can soon be fitted for service; they look old now, but they only want a little paint, and when the Admiralty requires them, they will be commissioned and made fit for use. So we have heard some people say, “There are those old doctrines--what good are they?” Wait; there is not a doctrine in God’s Bible that has not its use. Those ships that you may think are not wanted, will be useful by-and-bye. So it is with the doctrines of the Bible. Do not say, “Break up those old doctrines, you can do without them.” Nay, we want them, and we must have them.

7. “Well,” says one, “I think we ought to hold the truth firmly; but I do not see the necessity for holding the form of it; I think we might cut and trim a little, and then our doctrines would be received better.”

8. Again, I say, “hold fast the form of sound words,” for the world’s sake. Pardon me when I say that, speaking after the manner of men, I believe that the progress of the gospel has been awfully impeded by the errors of its preachers. I never wonder when I see a Jew an un-believer in Christianity, for this reason, that the Jews very seldom see Christianity in its beauty. For hundreds of years what has the Jew thought Christianity to be? Why, pure idolatry. He has seen the Catholic bow down to blocks of wood and stone; he has seen him prostrating himself before the Virgin Mary and all saints; and the Jew has said, “Ah I this is my watchword--Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord; I could not be a Christian, for to worship one God is the essential part of my religion.” So the heathen, I believe, have seen a false system of Christianity, and they have said, “What! is that your Christianity?” and they did not receive it.

III. And now, let me warn you of two dangers. One is, that you will be very much tempted to give up the form of sound words that you hold, on account of the opposition you will meet with. But the greatest obstacle you will have is a sort of slight and cunning, trying to pervert you to the belief that your doctrine is the same with one which is just the very opposite.

IV. I am to tell you of the great holdfasts, whereby you are to hold fast the truth of the gospel,

1. If I might be allowed to mention one or two before coming to those in the text, I should say, in the first place, if you want to hold fast the truth, seek to get an understanding of it. A man cannot hold a thing fast unless he has a good understanding of it. I never want you to have the faith of the collier who was asked what he believed; he said he believed what the Church believed. “Well, but what does the Church believe?” He said the Church believed what he believed, and he believed what the Church believed; and so it went all the way round.” Let me exhort you, parents, as much as lieth in you, to give your children sound instruction in the great doctrines of the gospel of Christ. I believe that what Irving once said is a great truth. He said, “In these modern times you boast and glory, and you think yourselves to be in a high and noble condition, because you have your Sabbath-schools and your British schools, and all kinds of schools for teaching youth. I tell you,” he said, “that philanthropic and great as these are, they are the ensigns of your disgrace; they show that your land is not a land where parents teach their children at home. They show you there is a want of parental instruction; and though they be blessed things, these Sabbath-schools, they are indications of something wrong, for if we all taught our children there would be no need of strangers to say to our children, ‘Know the Lord.’“ I trust you will never give up that excellent puritanical habit of catechising your children at home. Any father or mother who entirely gives up a child to the teaching of another has made a mistake.

2. But then, Christian men, above all things, if you hold fast the truth, pray yourselves right into it. An old divine says, “I have lost many things I learned in the house of God, but I never lost anything I ever learned in the closet.” That which a man learns on his knees, with his Bible open, he will never forget.

3. But the two great holdfasts are here given--faith and love. If ye would hold the truth fast, put your faith in Jesus Christ, and have an ardent love towards Him. Believe the truth. Do not pretend to believe it, but believe it thoroughly. And then the second holdfast is love. Love Christ, and love Christ’s truth because it is Christ’s truth, for Christ’s sake, and if you love the truth you will not let it go. It is very hard to turn a man away from the truth he loves. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Service of the Church of England.

I. Of the system of Divine truth which Timothy was, and, consequently, all faithful ministers of the gospel are, to “hold fast,” we remark, in the first place, that it is called a form. The great truths of revelation are scattered over the whole of the oracles of God; and in order to present those truths in a comprehensive manner to the bulk of mankind, who have neither time nor inclination to seek them out themselves, the Church has, in all ages, retained a summary of Christian doctrine like that which we call the Apostles’ Creed. The apostles themselves knew well, that if they had left the doctrines of Christianity unguarded, or had depended on oral traditions to convey those doctrines uncorrupted to future generations, the Word of God would have been lost in an ungodly world, as was well-nigh the case with the Jews, who had made the Word of God void by their traditions. As it is, the truths of the gospel have had (if we may so speak) a narrow escape from the polluting hands of men. If our Reformers had not rescued the “form of sound words” from the errors of ten preceding centuries, we should not now be exhorting you, with St. Paul, to “hold fast the form of sound words which you have heard of us in faith and love.” But whilst we see in the writings of St. Paul an authority for forms, we are far from attaching, any importance to a form as such. To recommend itself to the heart and conscience of a believer, it must not be a mere form of words, but it must be a “form of sound words”--“sound speech that cannot be condemned.” In different places, and at different times, forms have been obtruded on the Church, framed according to man’s device, and some peculiar interpretations of God’s truth. But for a form to be worthy of being called “sound,” it must be of sound words. We set up no standard of truth but the pure Word of God; but we do think that a form of doctrine taken from that Word is the readiest mode of preserving the faith; and the best and most precious legacy we can leave to our children is that sound form of words, in which we have been instructed--that sound form of worship, which, after all, is the glory of our land, and a powerful means of upholding Christianity amongst us.

II. On what principle, and in what spirit our adherence to our forms is to be maintained. Timothy was to “hold fast the form of sound words” heard of Paul, on the principle of faith, and in the spirit of love, “that is in Christ Jesus.” The strongest objection we have ever heard against forms, even admitting them to be of “sound words,” is, that they are liable to impart a false security to the worshipper, and to become lifeless to the greater number of those who profess adherence to them. We cannot deny but that there is a danger here: we must admit, that the very best system which could ever be devised for maintaining God’s truth will be sure to have something in it to object to. But this is not owing to the form: we are always too ready to find the blame that belongs to us in anything but our own hearts. A man who holds fast a form, merely because it is respectable, and that other persons may be assured of his orthodoxy, does not hold fast the form on a right principle. He should hold it in faith. It should be something that has life, and not a mere body without a form. Unless we get to that which is within the ark, it matters but little to look at the bending cherubim. Unless our faith is exercised upon the object of all our hope, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, our forms will but serve to condemn us. But, lastly, we speak of the spirit in which we should adhere to our forms. They are not to be held fast in the spirit of bigotry and exclusion. This is not the spirit in which St. Paul taught Timothy to “hold fast the form of sound words”: he was to maintain his principles and his system of doctrine “in love”; in love no doubt to his Saviour who had loved him to the death, but of charity towards all those who might differ from him on certain points. (R. Burgess, B. D.)

The Prayer-book a ready help in drawing near to God

The Book of Common Prayer, which has guided the devotions of so many millions, in all lands, to-day, and which has been the comfort of a great multitude which no man can number, in ages past, has been welt described as “The Sanctuary of our Faith and our Language.” Its words are familiar in every ear, and its ancient forms hallow our daily life. The Prayer-book speaks to us most tenderly of birth, baptism, marriage, and death. Forms of prayer and praise were used in the Jewish Church, by God’s own appointment, and liturgies have given shape and permanence to the worship of the Christian Church since apostolic times. Our own Prayer-book is especially rich in its ancient treasures, from the fact that it embraces the choicest selections from those heirlooms of the past. It was not the work of a day, nor of a generation, but the legacy of saints and martyrs and confessors; and the words now uttered by God’s children in this distant age were once spoken by those who faced the rack and the devouring flames, and whose only abiding-places were the dens and caves of the earth. The Communion Service, by itself, is a compact and complete summary of the Christian’s belief, and a powerful and persuasive sermon enforcing holiness of life. In our every-day, struggling, checkered existence, the Prayer-book bears an important part. When Archbishop Cranmer had resumed his manly courage, and was ready to seal with his blood his faithfulness to the truth of God, he reverently began his dying testimony by reciting the Apostles’ Creed. John Rogers, as he was led in handcuffs through weeping crowds, to be burned at the stake, chanted, with loud and unfaltering voice, the thrilling words of the Miserere. The gentle and gifted Lady Jane Gray nerved herself to lay her head upon the fatal block by reciting the same sweet words, exchanging, in a moment, the earthly crown, with its thorns and trials, for an immortal diadem of glory. St. Augustine and St. Ambrose rise up before us when the grand Te Deum recalls the memorable baptism at Milan. Recent as are the historical records of the Church in this Western world, they are by no means lacking in interest and significance. On the sultry August day in 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert landed on the craggy shores of Newfoundland, to take possession of the continent for England’s queen, the Cross of Christ was set up, and the solemn offices of the Prayer-book were duly celebrated. Well may we rejoice that this Book of Common Prayer, so powerful for good, has been preserved, by God’s kind providence, as the heritage of His people! The morning sun, as he rises successively on the nations of the earth, is ever followed by these prayers and praises of martyred saints, and he sinks, at close of day, behind no mountain nor plain nor ocean wave where these holy offices are not heard. After even so brief a summary of what might be said concerning this, the only meet companion volume for the Holy Bible, does not every one among us feel disposed to yield cheerful obedience to the apostle’s direction concerning the preservation of the casket of sacred truth, “Hold fast the form of sound words”? The dying Hammond, amidst the most excruciating pains, stopped his friends, who were praying for him in irregular and unpremeditated words, saying, “Let us call on God in the voice of His Church!” When the saintly George Herbert was asked what prayers should be offered in his death-chamber, he answered, With warmth, “The prayers of my mother, the Church of England; there are no prayers like them!” Hannah Moore records her testimony that “never, in the most rapturous moments of the saintliest minds, have they failed to find in the Prayer-book their most soaring and sustaining wings.” The most devoted Churchman is not disposed to place the Prayer-book above the Bible, but, like the moon in the heavens, it is only a satellite of the Church, borrowing all its light from Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. (J.N.Norton.)

The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England

The words which I have chosen for the text intimate to us the great importance of the words by which our religious ideas are expressed. The Scriptures, indeed, as indited by the Spirit of God, contain words, of all others, the soundest and the best, by which to express such truths as are necessary for mankind to believe or know. The great God being the author, He has, without doubt, expressed everything there, in a manner of all others the most fit and proper. Nothing else would be consistent with infinite wisdom and goodness, and whatever words we employ, are either true or false, sound or corrupt, as they agree or disagree with the words of the Scriptures. But still there never has been any error, or heresy, or schism in the Church, but its authors have pretended to ground it on the Scriptures. In this all heretics, Greek and Latin, old and new, agree. They all plead Scripture for what they say, and each one pretends that his opinion, be it never so absurd and ridiculous, is in accordance with the words there used. This at first may seem strange, but on further reflection it is not to be so much wondered at; it arises partly from the Scriptures being written in different languages to those with which most men are familiar; so that, if in the translation (admirable as that translation on the whole is) there be any word that seems to favour an erroneous opinion to which men may be inclined, it is too readily concluded that the Scriptures favour it. This arises partly again from the circumstance, that though others are acquainted with the original languages in which the Scriptures are written, they yet are not so fully acquainted with them as to clearly understand the full meaning of every expression. Then again, the rites and customs of countries far distant, and ages far remote, were so different to our own, that they occasion difficulties and obscurities. A large part of the Bible is also written in the highest poetical language, and abounds with metaphors and figures. All classes of individuals have therefore been agreed on the desirableness of some form of sound words, based on the Scriptures. Every one of the foreign churches, I believe, possesses such a form of its own; and those who in our own country left our own Church, also had such a form drawn up for themselves by the assembly of divines at Westminster, and still employ it as their catechism. There is, therefore, no difference of opinion as to the propriety of this--the necessities of the Church have established the approval of it. There are three especial excellencies in the articles, which deserve to be noticed, and which, perhaps, render them pre-eminent among all formularies of faith which have yet been drawn up. They are most eminently evangelical, moderate, and protestant. Evangelical in doctrine, moderate in discipline, and protestant in ceremonials. (J. Garwood, M. A.)

The morning exercise methodised

“Hold fast”--Greek, Εχε. The word hath a double signification, namely, “to have,” and “to hold,” and both of these the apostle commends to Timothy, namely--

1. To have such a form or collection of gospel-doctrines, as a type or exemplar to which he should conform in his ministry.

2. To hold it, that is, to “hold it fast,” not to swerve from it in the course of his ministry, but pertinaciously to adhere to it, not to suffer it to be corrupted by men of erroneous principles, nor to part with it upon any terms in the world, but to stand by it, and own it, against all opposition and persecution whatsoever. Doctrine

I. Methodical systems of the main and special points of the Christian religion are very useful and profitable both for ministers and people. In the managing of the doctrinal part of this observation, I shall only give you two demonstrations:

1. Scripture-pattern;

2. The usefulness of such modules.

Demonstration 1. Scripture-pattern. The whole Scripture is a large module of saving truth. The Word of God is full of such maps and modules of Divine truths necessary to salvation. The whole gospel, in general, is nothing but the great platform or standard of saving doctrine. But now, more particularly, we may observe that, beside this great universal map or synopsis of Divine truth, there are to be found in Scripture more compendious abstracts containing certain of the main heads and points of saving doctrine, methodised into lesser bodies and tables, for the help of our faith and knowledge; and we find them accommodated, by the penmen of the Holy Ghost, to two special ends and purposes.

1. To inform the Church in the principles of religion. The Ten Commandments, a brief abstract of the whole law. Three modules delivered by Christ in His first sermon. The first module contains the beautitudes; a list of particulars wherein man’s true and chiefest happiness doth consist (Matthew 5:3-11). The second module contains a list of duties; things to be done by every one that would be saved. This our Saviour doth by asserting and expounding the moral law (Matthew 5:17-48), confuting and reforming the false glosses which the scribes and Pharisees had put upon the Ten Commandments, thereby “making the law of God of none effect.” (Matthew 15:6). And these we may call the facienda, “things to be done.” The third module contains a list of petitions, which (Matthew 6:9-15) He commends to His disciples, and in them to all succeeding generations of the Church, as a form or directory of prayer. The holy apostles tread in our Saviour’s steps. You may observe in all their epistles, that in the former part of them they generally lay down a module of gospel-principles, and in the latter part a module of gospel-duties.

2. A second sort of modules, or a second end and design of such modules, is to obviate errors, and to antidote Christians against the poison and infection of rotten, pernicious principles: for no sooner had the good husbandman sowed his field with good seed, but the envious man went out after him, and began to scatter tares (Matthew 13:25). In opposition whereunto, the apostles in their several epistles were careful to furnish the Churches with such modules and platforms of truth as might discover and confute those “damnable heresies” (2 Peter 2:1).

Demonstration 2. The advantages of such modules. Advantage

1. For the ornament of the truth. Whether it be delivered from the pulpit or from the press, in such systems and platforms the hearer or reader may, as in a map or table (sometimes of one sort, sometimes of another) behold Divine truths standing one by another in their method and connection, mutually casting light and lustre upon each other.

2. Such types and exemplars of Divine truths are of great help to the understanding. As the collection of many beams and luminaries makes the greater light, so it is in the judgment, a constellation of gospel-principles shining together into the understanding, fills it with distinct and excellent knowledge.

3. Such patterns and platforms, whether of larger or of lesser compass, are a great help to memory. In all arts and sciences, order and method is of singular advantage unto memory. We do easily retain things in our mind, when we have once digested them into order.

4. Such modules serve to quicken affection. Sympathy and harmony have a notable influence upon the affections.

5. It is a marvellous antidote against error and seduction. Gospel-truths in their series and dependence are a chain of gold to tie the truth and the soul close together.

6. Growth in grace is one blessed fruit of such systems and tables of Divine truths. When foundations are well laid, the superstructures are prosperously carried on.

Uses.

1. In the first place, it serves to justify the practice of the Churches of Jesus Christ, which have their public forms and tables of the fundamental articles of the Christian faith drawn up by the joint labour and travail of their learned and godly divines, after much and solemn seeking of God by fasting and prayer; in the solemn profession whereof they all consent and agree.

2. It serves to show us the benefit and advantage of public catechisms.

3. Hence also I might commend to young students in divinity the reading of systems and compendious abstracts and abridgments.

4. It serves to commend methodical preaching.

5. It commends (not least) constant and fixed hearing. Especially when people sit under a judicious and methodical ministry. “Loose hearing may please, but the fixed will profit,”; skipping hearing, for the most part, makes but sceptical Christians.

6. From hence give me leave to commend to you the benefit and advantage of “the morning exercise.” (T. Case, M. A.)

Keep

There is a fourfold keeping of this pattern, and all here meant. The first, in memory, not forgetting. Secondly, in faith, not doubting. Thirdly, in affection, not hating. Fourthly, in practice, not disobeying. And there can be none of the four without the first. Some read have; others, hold the pattern: all one in effect. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

The pattern

It is by some termed the true pattern, or perfect pattern, or form. It seems to be a word borrowed from a painter, who first draws but after a pattern, or from a carpenter that works by rule. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

Of sound words

A thing may be said to be wholesome or sound four ways. First, when it’s sound in itself. Secondly, when it works soundness in another thing; or thirdly, preserves it being wrought; and fourthly, when it is a sign of soundness (John 3:12). And all these be in the words of this pattern. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

Wholesome doctrine

For if the words be not sound, the pattern cannot but be unsound. When poison is mixed with good meats and wines it spoils all; so when the words be not wholesome, the pattern and form of doctrine is defective. One rotten post maketh a weak building. We must be transformed into the doctrine; and as the spirit in the meat we eat is turned into ours, so must the word we read or hear be converted into us (Romans 6:17). And if our spiritual food be not wholesome, our souls will grow sick and die. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

“I pray you to fasten your grips”

This sentence I met with in one of those marvellous letters which Samuel Rutherford left as a priceless legacy to the Church of God in all ages. Truly he hath dust of gold. I thought it would make a capital text for a prayer-meeting address, and so I jotted it down. It gripped me, and so I gripped it, in the hope that it might grip you, and lead you “to fasten your grips.” But do not imagine that I have taken a text from Rutherford because I could not find one in the Bible, for there are many passages of Scripture which teach the same lesson. As for instance, that exhortation, “Lay hold on eternal life,” or that other, “Hold fast that thou hast,” or that other, “Hold fast the form of sound words.” The things of God are not to be trifled with, “lest at any time we let them slip.” They are to be grasped, as Jacob seized the angel, with “I will not let thee go.” Faith is first the eye of the soul wherewith it sees the invisible things of God, and then it becomes the hand of the soul, with which it gets a grip of the substance of “the things not seen as yet.” A man has two hands, and I would urge you to take a double hold upon those things which Satan will try to steal from you. Take hold of them as the limpet takes hold upon the rock, or as the magnet takes hold of steel. Give a life grip--A death grip. “I pray you to fasten your grips.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith in the minister

Whatever is held forth in the palsied hand of unbelief is itself made to quiver. Scepticism is a smoking lamp, which, while it gives no light, loads the atmosphere with a thick darkness, if not with a stench. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Creed and life

I have heard people say that it cannot matter much what a man believes, so long as he lives up to right moral principles. They might as well remark that it does not matter if the beams of a house are rotten, so long as the door-plate is bright. Where will be the doorplate when the house falls? A hazy creed means a mazy life. A man’s faith is the mainspring of his actions. He who believes nothing will do nothing, till the devil finds him work. I record as my own experience that when the foundations of faith rocked the superstructure of practice reeled. (Edwd. Garrett.)

Men of unsettled creed

“I shape my creed every week,” was the confession of one to me. Whereunto shall I liken such unsettled ones? Are they not like those birds which frequent the Golden Horn, and are to be seen from Constantinople, of which it is to be said that they are always on the wing, and never rest? No one ever saw them alight on the water or on the land; they are for ever poised in mid-air. The natives call them “lost souls,” seeking rest and finding none. Assuredly men who have no personal rest in the truth, if they are not unsaved themselves, are, at least, very unlikely to save others. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith and love

So that faith is necessary to keep the pattern; for it purifieth the heart inwardly, and is the true ground of all outward and acceptable obedience. And for love, that’s needful also. For love helpeth attention, strengtheneth the memory, setteth the will at work, uniteth to God and man, and therefore it is rightly said that by love we fulfil the law, for without this affection our best actions neither please the Creator, nor be profitable to the creature. Would we then practise the apostle’s doctrine? then let us strive for faith and love. These two support the estate of a Christian, as the two pillars did the house of the Philistines. If these be removed, the foundation of our obedience and salvation fail and fall. He that would soar to heaven wanting either of these may as soon see a bird mount on high and take her stand who wanteth one wing. Faith, like the hand, takes hold on Christ, and love, like the feet, must carry us to Him. Thou wilt say, how may I know when an action is done in faith and love? If it be done in faith: First, Thou must be in the faith, that is, in Christ, and Christ in thee (2 Corinthians 13:5). Secondly, It must be guided by the rule of faith (2 Peter 1:19). Thirdly, It must be done with faith, not doubtingly (Romans 14:23). Fourthly, It must be done to the object of our faith, viz., in obedience to God in Christ, and for His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). If an action be done in love: First, It is done so freely that there is not the least expectation of any future recompense (Genesis 23:15.) Secondly, So secretly that (if possible) none might ever come to the knowledge thereof. Thirdly, So cheerfully, as there is equal (or rather greater) joy in the doing, than receiving of the like favour. Fourthly, so affectionately, that the more good we do to any, the more we find our hearts enflamed with the love of that person. Which is in Christ Jesus. From the fourfold interpretation we may note so many doctrines.

I. That faith and love are given to man of God through Christ Jesus.

II. That faith and love in Christ should stir us up to keep the pattern.

III. That the object of faith and love is Christ Jesus.

IV. That faith and love are comprehended in Christ Jesus.

And whereas our apostle hath now brought in this phrase five several times in this short chapter, we may note divers things worthy our instruction.

I. That we are hardly brought to believe that all grace and mercy come through Christ Jesus. Divine truths are not easily believed.

II. That the best things may often, for good ends, be mentioned.

III. That when we speak of any grace or favour received, we should consider through whom it is conveyed to us, viz., Christ Jesus.

IV. That the often repetition of the same thing is profitable.

V. That what the people most naturally are prone to doubt of, that is principally and often to be preached.

VI. That a holy heart is not weary in writing on speaking the same things often. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

That good thing which was committed unto thee.

The sacred trust

I. The charge,--the truth, the Word of God, which--

1. Unfolds the true God.

2. Proclaims life and salvation through the Redeemer.

3. Brings life and immortality to light.

II. The duty. We should have--

1. A correct knowledge of the Word.

2. A devoted attachment to it.

3. A desire to preserve it in its integrity.

4. A willingness to communicate it freely to others.

5. An abiding sense of its responsibility.

III. The assistance.

1. Our necessities are connected with the Holy Spirit’s ability.

2. Rejoice in His readiness to help. (A. Reed, D. D.)

Good things

Here are those reprehended who never had any care to possess these worthy things. Nothing in man, or out of him, that is of greater worth, and nothing less regarded. We do count that person blessed that hath his house hung with rich arras, his chests full of gold, and his barns stuffed with corn; and yet we never have esteem of these excellent and rare things. Truly, the least degree of faith is more worth than all the gold of Ophir; a remnant of true love than all the gay garments in the world. Hope of heaven will more rejoice the heart of David than his sceptre and kingdom. But men do not think so, neither will they have it so; yet the day of death, like an equal balance, shall declare it to be so. Are they worthy things? Then put them to the best uses, and abuse them not. And, in the last place, seeing these be worthy things, let us all labour to possess them, for of how much more value a thing is, by so much the more we should strive to obtain it. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

Grace once gotten is to be preserved

Because, if grace grow weak, the pattern will not be practised. When all the parts of the natural body be in a consumption, can we walk and work in the duties of our particular callings? And if the new man wax pale, and pine away, the paths of God’s commands will not be run or trodden. For, as all natural actions proceed from the body’s strength, and the purest spirit, so do all spiritual from the vigour of grace and the new man. When men have got some competency of wealth, they lie long in bed, and will not up to work, and so their riches waste. In like manner it falleth out with God’s children; for when they have attained to some competency of gifts, they are highly conceited, grow idle, neglect the means, and so are over taken with spiritual poverty, than the which what greater loss? We must then learn here, not only to get grace, but to keep it. We will mourn if we lose our money, grieve if we be deprived of our corn, natural strength and earthly commodities. And shall the loss of grace never pinch us, pierce us? Shall Jonah be so dejected for his gourd, and we never be moved when grace is withered, ready to perish? Shall the earthworm sigh at the loss of goods, and we never shrink at the shipwreck of heavenly gilts? No greater damage than this, none less regarded, more insensible. Let our plants begin to pine, our hair wax grey or fall, it will make some impression. But grace may decay, the spirit faint, and few be wounded in heart. Yet to such a time shall come of great mourning. Then get grace, keep grace; so shall corruption be expelled, extenuated, and the pattern of sound words observed, practised. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

The Holy Spirit dwells in man

But He is infinite, therefore in all persons. True, yet He is in the faithful in a peculiar and special manner, both by His working and presence. Secondly, He is incomprehensible, notwithstanding, as we may say the sun is in the house, though a part of the beams be but there; so the Spirit is said to be in man, although He be not wholly included in him. We account it a fearful thing to pull down or batter a prince’s palace, it is death to wash or clip the king’s coin, and shall we not tremble to wrong and injure this building, for such cannot escape the damnation of hell. This is for the comfort of the faithful. For what greater honour than this, to have the high God to dwell in our hearts? Should our sovereign but come into a poor man’s cottage, he would rejoice, and good reason, for that all his life long. And shall the King of Glory dwell with the sons of men make His chamber of presence in their hearts, and they want hearts to solace themselves in the remembrance of that? And here let man learn a lesson and wonder. Is it the spirit of God in Paul and others, where the spirit of all uncleanness not long before ruled? Admire His humility that would descend so low as to dwell in so mean a habitation. He that dwells in that light that none can attain unto, now dwelleth where was a palpable darkness. Thirdly, where He takes up His lodging there is holiness. This fire purifieth the heart, cleanseth the inward man, though never so full of filthiness in former time (1 Corinthians 6:11; Ephesians 5:18). Thou wilt say, Sir, by what way may I come to this thing? Why, thou must get a new heart, for He will never lodge in the old, for that’s naught. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit

I. The author of life.

1. Before Be dwells in us He quickens us (Ephesians 2:1; John 3:5-6; John 6:63).

2. Believers are temples of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16).

3. True of all believers (Romans 8:9).

4. Christ’s promise respecting it (John 14:16-17).

II. The source of unity.

1. His indwelling makes that unity a fact (Ephesians 4:4; 1 Corinthians 6:17; 1 Corinthians 12:13-20).

2. That fact to be recognised and cherished (Ephesians 4:3).

3. One building inhabited by one Spirit (Ephesians 2:22.)

III. The pledge of glory.

1. The salvation bestowed and the salvation yet to be revealed. Grace and glory (2 Timothy 1:9; 1 Peter 1:5; Psalms 84:2).

2. The indwelling Spirit the earnest of our inheritance (2Co 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:5; Ephesians 1:14).

3. Recognise His presence.

4. Honour and obey Him (Ephesians 4:30). (E. H. Hopkins.)

Real Christianity

The providence of God requires all Christians and all Churches to show what Christianity really is. Christianity is a larger and better thing than Christendom yet knows. Still the Holy Spirit dwells in the apostolic succession of the whole true Church of Christ, showing it what the things of Christ are, and helping it realise them in Christianity. How, then, are we to understand what the Christianity is, which we are still called to make real on earth?

I. The Christianity which the world needs probably transcends any single definition of it which we shall be likely to give. Philosophers have tried many times to define the simple word “life,” and at best they have had only clumsy success with their definitions of what every one knows by his own healthy pulse-beatings. The definition is not made easier when we prefix the adjective Christian to the word “life.” If we labour to define in words so large and divine a reality as Christianity, we shall be sure to narrow it in our verbal enclosures, and we can hardly fail to leave whole realms of Christianity out when we have finished our fences of system and denomination.

II. Christianity is a larger thing than any one particular aspect or exemplification of it which men may be tempted to put in the place of it. Christianity, as a whole, is greater than the parts of it which men have hastily seized upon, and contended for as the faith of the saints. Christianity is that good thing which all the Churches hold in common, and it is greater than all. The Christianity of Christ is that good thing committed unto us, which is large enough to comprehend all the ideals of Christian prophets, and prayers of devout hearts, as well as the works of faith which have been done on earth. It would be easy to illustrate from current life and literature the natural tendency of the human heart to substitute some favourite part of Christianity for the divine whole of it. And the unfortunate contentions and hindrances to the gospel which follow from this mistake are all around us. Thus one class of persons are called to benevolent works by the Divine charity of Christ, but in their zeal for man they may not realise sufficiently that the charity of God is the benevolence of universal law, and the Christ is the Life because He is also the Truth. Others, on the contrary, impressed by the order and grandeur of the truths of revelation, repeatedly fall into merely doctrinal definitions of Christianity; and, even while defending from supposed error the faith once delivered to the saints, they narrow that faith into a theological conception of Christianity which may have indeed much of the truth, but little of the Spirit of Christ.

III. Christianity is that good thing which we have received from Christ. In other words, Christianity is not a spirit merely, or idea, or influence, which we still call by the name of Christ, but which we may receive and even enhance without further reference to the historic Christ. Christianity is more than a spirit of the times, more than a memory of a life for men, more than a distillation in modern literature of the Sermon on the Mount, more than a fragrance of the purest of lives pervading history and grateful still to our refined moral sense. Jesus once said before the chief among the people, “I receive not honour from men”; and the patronage of culture cannot make for our wants and sins a Christ from the Father. Christianity is the direct continuation of the life and the work of Jesus of Nazareth in the world. Hence, it would be a vain expectation to imagine that the world can long retain the influence of Christ, the healing aroma of Christianity, and let the Jesus of the Gospels fade into a myth. Christianity, uprooted from its source in Divine facts of redemption, would be but as a cut flower, still pervading for a while our life with its charity, but another day even its perfume would have vanished. The Christianity of Christ is a living love.

IV. Christianity is a changed relationship of human souls to God through Christ. Go back to the beginning of Christianity to find out what it is. It began to exist on earth first upon the afternoon of a certain day when the last of the Hebrew prophets, looking upon Jesus as He walked, said, “Behold the Lamb of God.” And two of his disciples beard him speak, and they followed Jesus. These men are now like new men in another world; in Christ’s presence all Divine things seem possible to them; they are changed from the centre and core of their being; they are verily born again, for they live henceforth lives as different from their former lives before they came to Christ as though they had actually died out of this world, and come back to it again with the memory in their hearts of a better world. After a few years in Jesus’ companionship, after all that they had witnessed of His death and resurrection, they are themselves as men belonging to another world, citizens of a better country, sojourning for a brief season here. “Old things are passed away,” says the last-born of the apostles; “Behold, all things are become new.” This, then, is Christianity--Peter, and John, and other men, living with Christ in a new relationship to God. It is a happy, hopeful, all-transfiguring relationship of human souls to God. Christ giving His Spirit to the disciples, disciples witnessing of the Christ--this, this is Christianity. What, then, is Christianity? It is, we say, the doctrine of Christ. What is the doctrine of Christ? Men sound in the faith; men made whole, men living according to Christ. The doctrine of Christ is not a word, or a system of words. It is not a book, or a collection of writings. He wrote His doctrine in the book of human life. He made men His Scriptures. His doctrine was the teaching of the living Spirit. The doctrine of Christ--lo! Peter, the tempestuous man, strong one moment and weak another, become now a man of steady hope, confessor, and martyr--he is the doctrine of Christ! The son of thunder become the apostle of love--he is the doctrine of Christ! The persecutor becomes one who dies daily for the salvation of the Gentiles--he is the doctrine of Christ!

V. Christianity is the company of disciples in new relationship with one another, and towards all men, through Christ. The new redeemed society is Christianity. A man cannot be a Christian, at least not a whole Christian, by himself alone. To seek to live a Christian life by one’s self, in the secrecy of one’s own heart, is an endeavour foreign to the original genius of Christianity. Christianity, when it is finished, will be the best society gathered from all the ages, the perfect society of the kingdom of heaven. How can a man expect to fit himself for that blessed society by neglecting here and new to enter into the fellowship of believers who seek to prepare themselves for that final society of the Lord by meeting and breaking bread together at His table? To be a Christian, therefore, is to be actually a follower of Christ with His disciples. And to make real and not merely nominal work of it We shall need often with deliberate resolution to give ourselves up to our own faiths, to throw ourselves manfully upon their current, and to let them catch us up and bear us whither they will. (N. Smyth, D. D.)

A sufficient endowment

“The influence of Mr. Moody is wonderful,” said a lady to her minister; “he is not intellectual, nor eloquent, nor learned, and his appearance is not prepossessing.” “Ah!” replied the minister, “but he has the Spirit of God in him.” “Yes,” she responded, “and that is all.” “All!” exclaimed the minister; “is not that everything?”

An essential provision of Christianity

Is not this power of God, through the Holy Ghost, an essential provision of Christianity? Could the Word of God be “a living Word” without it? We can no more conceive of Christianity as destitute of this Divine influence than as destitute of Christ. We look upon the face of nature and perceive that all its external forms are based upon one common principle of life; and were this withdrawn all things must die. So in like manner, looking upon external Christianity--its doctrines, its Sabbaths, its worship, its points of holiness, joy, and moral excellence, produced in perfect uniformity in all ages and amongst all classes--we perceive that there must exist beneath the surface some uniform power; and what can this be but the power of God through His Holy Spirit? And this belongs to the system, is inherent, permanent, certain. By the impulses of this power the “Word of God” effects its glorious triumphs; and, when it is withdrawn, Christianity sinks into the condition of an empty form. (J. Dixon, D. D.)

All they which are in Asia be turned away from me.

To revolt and turn from our former profession is a foul fault and great offence

For Paul doth complain against it, and sets it down as a sin to be abandoned of all men (John 6:66; 1 Timothy 1:19; 1 Timothy 5:11-12). For in so doing we dishonour God; yea, no way more. For will not profane men judge that there is no profit or comfort in serving the Almighty when such forsake their profession? For thus they will reason: if that religion had been good, they and they would never have cast it off. Again, we weaken, as much as in us lies, the Church of Christ; for cut off a member, will not the body be the less powerful? And it gives the devil and his instruments the more encouragement. What? and may such cedars shake, totter, and fall? Then let the weak willows and poplar take heed of the wind. For blessed is he whom other men’s harms do make to beware. And it shall not be amiss here to lay down some causes of falling away. And they be either, first, inward, or, secondly, outward. The inward be four especially.

1. Weakness. Thus many have fallen of infirmity.

2. Some affection not mortified. For one such a Jonah in the ship will unsettle all.

3. Infidelity. When men want faith, they are unstable in all their ways.

4. Want of experience of that secret comfort which the Lord enfuseth into the hearts of such as stand resolutely for His truth in an evil time.

The outward causes are principally these:

1. Persecution. This hath turned millions backward, who in the days of peace had their faces to Sion-ward.

2. Some wrongs or injuries.

3. Scandal, or offences taken at some doctrine. “From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him” (John 6:66).

4. The example of great men. Doth any of the rulers or pharisees believe in Him? This is a cord that pulleth thousands from the true path and rule (John 7:48).

5. When men have expected great promotion, but seeing their hopes frustrate, they turn aside. This is a great loadstone to draw an iron heart from the path to heaven.

6. Too much familiarity with men unsettled in the truth. Fearfully have some fallen by this stumbling-block. These be some of the main causes, both inward and outward, that have moved many to become back sliders. So that he that will go on constantly and with resolution must have an eye to all these things. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

Fickle friendship

What is sweeter than a well-tuned lute, and what more delightful than a faithful friend--one who can cheer us in sorrow with wise and affectionate discourse? Nothing, however, is sooner untuned than a lute, and nothing is more fickle than human friendship. The tone of the one changes with the weather, that of the other with fortune. With a clear sky, a bright sun, and a gentle breeze, you will have friends in plenty; but let fortune frown and the firmament be overcast, and then your friends will prove like the strings of the lute, of which you will tighten ten before yea will find one that will bear the tension and keep the pitch. (Christian Age.)

Turncoats

The flounder is an ill-looking, dark-coloured, flat fish, which creeps close along the bottom, and frequents, for the most part, banks of mad, from which it is almost indistinguishable. Mr. Agassiz has experimented upon young flounders and their power of changing colour. Placing them upon blackish tiles, they quickly turned mud-colour; moved thence to the “sand” tiles, only a few minutes elapsed before their leaden skins had paled to dull, yellowish white; transferred to the mimic “sea-weeds,” in less than five minutes a greenish hue overspread their skins, which would have served well in their native element to keep them unobserved against a mass of algae. (H. O. Mackey.)

Necessity of constancy

Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world. (Addison.)

Great wicked men fall by couples

(1 Timothy 1:20; 2 Timothy 2:17):--For the devil in all things seeks to imitate the Lord. If God have a Moses and an Aaron, he will have a Jannes and a Jambres. If Christ send out His true disciples by two and by two, Antichrist will do the like. We read of Joshua and Caleb, and of Sanballat and Tobiah: of Paul and Timothy, and of Philetus and Alexander. Because one will toll on and tempt another; for sin uniteth sinners, as grace doth the godly; and by couples they seem to be the less faulty, the more able to defend their false cause. Learn we hence to rise by couples; turn we and allure others to return. For woe to him that is alone when two strong men oppose him or a true cause. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus.

Onesiphorus of Ephesus

The man who now steps upon the scene does not reappear. One Epistle only mentions him, and in the Acts his very name is unrecorded. Let us mark, however, what letter it is which contains these references. It is the last of all the Epistles of Paul, written during his second imprisonment, and not long before his death. He is again at Rome, but not, as on the former occasion, in his own hired house, with liberty to receive whom lie will, and to speak all that is in his heart. Cold, and worn, and ill, Paul the aged lies in his prison cell; and, of all his many companions, only Luke is with him now. So it happens that the very epistle which is full of the moat, heroic confidence in Divine protection, is marked by the tenderest yearings after human sympathy; and the heart of the apostle is swayed like the sea before the rough wind of unkind desertion, and again under the soft breeze of faithful solicitude and care. Onesiphorus, it is clear, was an Ephesian; for Timothy was at this time resident at Ephesus, and there this man’s household dwelt. There, then, Paul and he had made acquaintance, during the long-continued campaign of the apostle in the city, now ten years ago. That earlier time is not, forgotten. Every one knew, and Timothy had often heard, of what value his friendship had been. His house was one of the many which had opened to Paul and made him welcome. Children were there, now grown to manhood, who were taught to run to the door at his approach and to draw him joyfully in. Years passed, and they had not met. Business of some kind brings Onesiphorus at last to Rome. Paul is at Rome too, a prisoner, in close confinement, and it is not easy to get access to him. “No man stood by me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it be not laid to their charge.” This good Ephesian, however, is made of sterner stuff. He applied to the brethren, and, to his astonishment, they have nothing to tell about the apostle. He goes to the government offices and inquires there; there information is scornfully refused. He makes his way, nothing daunted, to the prisons, and gets referred from one jailer to another, till he is almost tired out; but he perseveres, and at last here is a man who can tell him. But does he know the risk to his own liberty, perhaps to his own life? He knows; he is prepared to face it, if only he may see Paul. “He sought me out very diligently, and found me”--found the solitary old man with the chains on his hands, and the damp, dark prison walls round him. What a meeting must that have been! Sunshine pouring into the mouth of a cave is a poor emblem of what the sight of that brave and cheerful countenance must have been to Paul. It was not, then, in vain, that Jesus had left the word on record for His disciples, “I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.” Christian sympathy will find a way through every difficulty, and a key for every prison door. Paul has no silver or gold to give; he is so poor that he cannot buy a cloak to keep off the cold; but he has something to be prized far more--A good man’s prayers. Those prayers he offers both for Onesiphorus himself and his family. “The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus.” “The Lord grant it unto him.” Nor is it Onesiphorus alone for whom Paul would pray. Let his household, too, be saved. Those sweet children, to whom he had so often spoken of the love of Jesus; those faithful servants, who had their master’s example to guide them; the kinsfolk, who came to visit him; may they all be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord their God! See how great the blessing is of belonging to a godly home. Onesiphorus has been abundantly recompensed in time and in eternity for all that tie had done and dared for Paul. Need we fear to be overlooked? We have the servants’ prayers, We have the Master’s promise. “Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” (W. Brock.)

The brother born for adversity

A good man in these verses counts up what his friend had done for him, and then, to the best of his ability, he makes a payment.

I. What had Osesiphorus done for Paul?

1. “When he was in Rome he sought me out very diligently.” We cannot tell what it was that took Onesiphorus to Rome. Perhaps he was a merchant, and went there to buy and sell. Perhaps he was a scholar, and went there to listen to its poets and orators, and to acquaint himself with its works of art. But whatever he went for, he resolved to see his friend. It is possible that he was not at once successful. But he grudged no time, he spared no effort. And at length he succeeded. He found Paul. Some, perhaps, had they been in the place of Onesiphorus, would have been equally well pleased not to have found Paul. They would have reported to the Church, at their return home, that they had made various efforts, and had failed, and that probably the apostle was either dead or had been removed to another city. Their consciences would have been quieted, and perhaps their friends satisfied. But Onesiphorus was not anxious merely to quiet his conscience. What had Onesiphorus done for Paul? He had gone to see him not once, but many times. “He oft refreshed me.” Perseverance in sympathy or in active kindness is more difficult than the being once sympathising, or once kind. Yet, though difficult, how valuable it is I

2. There is one characteristic of Onesiphorus’ visits to Paul which is well worth noticing. The apostle was refreshed by them. “He oft refreshed me.” Visits to the sick and the poor may be very depressing. We may go to tell them our own troubles instead of listening to theirs, or we may go to chide and scold--to tell how that, if we had been in their places, debts would not have been contracted, nor sicknesses taken, or we may go and “talk good,” and that by the hour, while the weary or the bereaved one listens in submission. And the intention in all this may have been very kind. We went--for we felt it was our duty to go--and we did our best. But, alas! our visits healed no wound--they brought no sunshine. Yet how refreshing are the visits of some, and among them those of Onesiphorus. “He oft refreshed me.” Do the words suggest to us any other visitant who comes in dark moments with “thoughts of peace and not of evil”? Is there not One who says, “Come unto Me, all ye that travail, and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.”

3. Further, says the apostle, “he was not ashamed of my chain.” If our friends are under reproach, our going to visit them, or in any manner permitting their names to be associated with our own, is a proof of our constancy. Most men are willing enough to worship the rising sun. If we hear of any one, with whom we have a casual acquaintance, becoming suddenly distinguished by a literary production, or a work of art, or an act of heroism, we are very swift to put forth our claims to recognition or companionship. But if a friend become poor, how prone we are to “cut” him, or, if he be dishonoured, to deny him. Onesiphorus despised the shame.

4. And be it observed that what was now done at Rome had been done elsewhere. For, says the apostle, “In how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.” Perhaps at Ephesus the apostle had slept under his roof, had eaten, and that oft, at his table, had been helped by his purse, his time, his money. And now he shows that he had not become wearied in well-doing. And so he illustrated Solomon’s proverb, “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

II. And now we will look at the payment the apostle rendered. “The Lord,” says he, “give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus.” May children, and wife, and servants--all who dwell within the house or cluster round it--share the Divine bounty. May mercy engirdle its walls and canopy its reel May it fall each night upon them that dwell therein as the soft dew. May it rise on them each morning as the blessed sun. In each breast may it settle like a gentle bird; in each car may it ring like the chime of church bells. May mercy take the ham] of each and guide him, and watch over the plans of each and prosper him, and light up the prospects of each and cheer him. And, at last, may mercy make the pillow of caeca soft and easy, and enable each to close his eyes in the conviction that all beyond is well; that the strange land to which he is going is still a land of mercy, and that in it there is a welcome waiting from Him who is the “Father of mercies and the God of all consolation.” But a particular period is named to which the apostle’s prayers pointed. “The Lord grant that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day.” How blessed will it be to find mercy of the Lord in that day, and to find it as the kindly recompense for deeds done in days gone by. Who would have thought that there was any connection between those visits paid by Onesiphorus to a lonely man in irons in a gloomy prison, in a gloomy street, in the capital of the Caesars, and the transactions of that period when the throne should be set and the books opened? What thread of connection is there between these? Only this: that seed bears its appropriate crop, that certain consequences follow certain antecedents to the end of time--yes, and after time! (J. F. Serjeant, M. A.)

Onesiphorus

Onesiphorus comes into view as a ship appears upon the ocean when she crosses the pathway of the moon. Very little is known of his life before or after this brief contact with the life of Paul. The radiance which the apostle casts upon the page of history makes Onesiphorus visible. In this light the beauty of a noble character, whose gentle ministrations were the solace of one of God’s servants, is evident. The moon discovers the model of a ship, and also her course; and an acquaintance is formed with a stranger of the ancient time because he stands near to, and sympathises with, a notable man. So true is it that life depends for its efficiency and its estimate upon the relations which it sustains, and that obscurity and fame are determined by the perspective. The apostle was a prisoner in a Roman dungeon. The comforts of “his own hired house” were no longer his. Nero was the Emperor. Christianity had been charged with political designs. The sword of the persecutor was red with blood. There was little hope of a favourable verdict at the bar of Caesar. One companion after another had found it convenient to leave Paul. “Only Luke is with me,” was the sad announcement which Timothy read when he opened the last letter of his honoured friend. It was not safe to visit such a prisoner. He was a marked man. The caprice of the Emperor was ready to seize upon any protest. His spies filled the city. A single word from his lips meant instant death. He had determined to hold Christianity responsible for a great disaster which befell Rome upon the 19th of July, in the year 64. For then a fire broke out in a valley between the Palatine and Caelian Hills, and marched steadily on its downward course for six days and seven nights. Some one must be punished, and Nero selected the Christians as the victims of his wrath. While Christianity was thus enduring persecution, Onesiphorus, an Ephesian, who had befriended Paul in his own city, reached Rome. He learned that the apostle, aged now and infirm, was in prison and in chains. He determined to go to his relief. His courage was equal to his sympathy. As we read these few sentences of Paul’s letter to Timothy, we are impressed with the unfailing courtesy of the apostle. He appreciates the attentions of his friends, and he never fails to acknowledge them with great delicacy. His letters are models of correspondence, so dignified, so sincere, so frank, so affectionate! They are filled with personal allusions, which exhibit the social character of this eminent man. “The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day!” How heart-felt! How genuine! How delicate! This sturdy soldier of the cross, whose valour has been displayed upon many a battlefield, commends the truth of the gospel by his courtesy. He does not repel men, but wins them. One of the wise sayings of Hillel, the distinguished Jewish Rabbin, was this: “Be thou of Aaron’s disciples, loving peace and seeking for peace, loving the creatures and attracting them to the Law!” Hillel himself was a beautiful illustration of his own teaching. His gentleness of manner was associated with firmness of principle and strength of conviction. Paul, as a Pharisee, must have been familiar with the many traditions which were current among the Jews concerning the renowned teacher, and his own character must have been somewhat affected by his admiration for one whose virtues were praised in the schools of Jerusalem. “Let a man be always gentle like Hillel, and not hasty like Shammai,” was an oft-repeated injunction. Gamaliel, the teacher of Saul of Tarsus, was the grandson of Hillel, and the school which the future apostle entered was pervaded with aa atmosphere of courtesy. Then, when our Lord taught that zealous Pharisee, and led him to realise the sinfulness of his mistaken zeal which had made him a persecutor, and gave him a new appreciation of the excellence of humble service and gentle ministrations, he advanced to a new recognition of the duty and the opportunity of courtesy. I regard courtesy as one of the efficient graces of the Christian life. It is the polished mirror which reflects the most light. Bluntness, coarseness rudeness, are not evidences of strength. The courtesy of Lord Chesterfield is not the courtesy of Paul. For Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, exhibits his lack of sincerity, his want of principle. His courtesy is only a thin veneer, which has received constant rubbing until it is worn out. Paul’s courtesy is the real wood, which is solid down to the heart. The Christian heart is always ready to sustain the Christian manner; and the Christian manner is Christ’s manner. He commended truth by his address. Can you wonder that such courtesy as his secured him many friends among the poor and suffering? Does it seem strange that a similar courtesy has led mankind as with magnetic power? And yet we carry too little of it with us into the practical work of daily life. There is many a man whose business hours never hear a single kind word--A “thank you,” an “if you please.” Service becomes drudgery. The rich and the poor draw apart. Hostile camps are organised. Men who should be friends look angrily at one another. There is a better way for the home, the shop, and the counting-room. It is Christ’s way, and Paul’s way, and the way of all who manifest with them the true spirit of love. There is something very fine about this conduct of the large-hearted Ephesian. He was evidently a man of substance, for he had the means at his command which enabled him to help Paul in Ephesus and in Rome. Yet, when he visited the imperial city, where a money value was placed upon almost everything, he went about through the streets and among the prisons to find a despised Jew--one Saul of Tarsus--whose name had become a by-word and a reproach. Social life needs an illustration such as this. We are apt to forget--alas! we are apt to despise--the poor. Yet but for the poor--God’s own poor--social life would perish in its corruption. It is well for us to appreciate the intimacy of this dependence which it obtains. Spiritual treasures are to be regarded as wealth. We must traffic more. Gold and silver must be exchanged for sympathy and prayer. The material blessings of this life are to be distributed just as the spiritual blessings are. The rich are to live for the poor, and the poor are to live for the rich. The man whose talents qualify him to command armies is to be the protector of the weak, aim the man whose appreciation is sensitive is to be the teacher of the ignorant; the man who has this world’s goods is to supply his brothel’s need, and the man who can prevail with God is to realise his responsibility in prayer. The ministrations of Onesiphorus exhibit the watchfulness of God, which is exercised through His servants. The poor saints understand this better than the rich saints can. Their poverty affords many occasions for the manifestation of special providences. And in their lives these special providences are very numerous. God feeds them, as He did Elijah by the brook Cherith. There is a wonderful adaptation of supply and demand. Nor should we fail to discover the dignity which is ours when we are selected by God as His messengers. Subjects always appreciate the preference of a sovereign. God honours us if He makes us His almoners. Let us appreciate the honour, and let us seek to discharge such duties with considerate love. “Blessed,” says the Psalmist, “is he that considereth the poor.” This is something more than giving; for it includes the manner of the giving. England has forgotten many of the leaders of fashion who were in favour thirty years ago, but she will never forget that cultured woman who went as nurse to the soldiers of the Crimea. Florence Nightingale once wrote that “the strong, the healthy wills in any life must determine to pursue the common good at any personal cost, at daily sacrifice. And we must not think that any fit of enthusiasm will carry us through such a life as this. Nothing but the feeling that it is God’s work more than ours--that we are seeking His success, and not our success--and that we have trained and fitted ourselves by every means which He has granted us to carry oat His work, will enable us to go on.” Christianity waits for such service. When Onesiphorus came into helpful contact with the life of Paul, he secured an unconscious immortality. His is not a principal figure in the Scriptures. He is of secondary rank or importance. But he has secured a grand immortality, while other men, greater, wiser, more conspicuous then than he, are forgotten; and this immortality was secured by self-forgetfulness on the part of Onesiphorus. If we cannot work unless we are sure of a recognition, we shall have no part in the sweet charities which make life tolerable. We must learn of the coral insect, whose instinct teaches it to build until it dies, and which, by building, slowly lifts an island out of the seas, upon which flowers may bloom, and trees may wave, and man may find a home. This, my friends, is our immortality, sure and blessed. “We are labourers together with God.” It may be that we can do but little. Never mind. We will do what we can. (H. M. Booth, D. D.)

Was Onesiphorus dead?

The only ground for the hypothesis of the death of Onesiphorus appears in the further reference to his household, rather than to himself, in the final salutations (2 Timothy 4:19). This might easily be explained on another supposition, as well as on that made by the advocates of the “prayer for the departed.” If Onesiphorus of Ephesus had business in Rome, he may have had reasons for “visiting Corinth, or Thessalonica, or Alexandria, or Spain, and may have been at too great a distance to receive personally the apostle’s salutations. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)

The balance of probability is decidedly in favour of the view that Onesiphorus was already dead when St. Paul wrote these words. There is not only the fact that he speaks here of “the house of Onesiphorus” in connection with the present and of Onesiphorus himself only in connection with the past; there is also the still more marked fact that in the final salutations, while greetings are sent to Prisca and Aquila, and from Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia, yet it is once more “the house of Onesiphorus,” and not, Onesiphorus himself, who is saluted. This language is thoroughly intelligible if Onesiphorus was no longer alive but had a wife and children who were still living in Ephesus; but it is not easy to explain this reference in two places to the household of Onesiphorus, if he himself was still alive. In all the other cases the individual, and not the household, is mentioned. Nor is this twofold reference to his family, rather than to himself, the only fact which points in this direction. There is also the character of the apostle’s prayer. Why does he confine his desires respecting the requital of Onesiphorus’ kindness to the day of judgment? Why does he not also pray that he may be requited in this life? that he “may prosper and be in health, even as his soul prospereth,” as St. John prays for Gaius (3 John 1:2)? This, again, is thoroughly intelligible if Onesiphorus is already dead. It is much less intelligible if he is still alive. It seems, therefore, to be scarcely too much to say that there is no serious reason for questioning the now widely accepted view that at the time when St. Paul wrote these words Onesiphorus was among the departed. (A. Plummer, D. D.)

Sympathy

Like the sea anemone, which feels the first returning wave upon the rock, and throws out all its tendrils, so the tender nature of some individuals will give forth all its sympathies at the slightest intimations of woe. (J. Everett.)

Sympathetic men

What a blessing are rest-giving men and women! People upon whose strong sense and deep and delicate sympathy we can fling ourselves as on to a welcome couch! People into whose presence the worries and irritabilities of life seem afraid to enter! Cathedral-like souls, full of softened lights and restful shadows! Oh, what a refreshment to meet with such! Large, deep natures which have found for themselves rest in God, and whose very presence brings over others what Christ’s word brought over the Sea of Galilee--A great calm. Souls that are like a vast forest, rich and cool, filled with speaking silences and peopled solitudes, where one can recline for hours or wander for days a stranger to the heat that wearies and withers outside! Such, in some measure, we can all be, and the need for such service to humanity is not sufficiently insisted on. (J. Dawson.)

Prison fellow ship

Who has not read the story of Picciola; how the prisoner knelt down and nursed the little flower which sprung up between the flagstones in his walk--how, in his loneliness, he talked to it as though it had a soul that could speak hack to him--and how, at length, the strong heart was broken within him, when, with the heat of the sun, it at last withered and died? Or that stranger illustration of the prisoner of the Bastille who knit his affections to a spider, weaving his web in a corner of the cell, and then wept, as one weeps for his first-born, when it was killed through the wanton cruelty of the gaoler? Far beyond this is the joy we have in the fellowship of our own kind.

Religious friendship

Onesiphorus means “bringing profit.” The man’s life was true to his name. He brought profit to himself, others, God. A model minister’s friend.

I. Religious frieindship is eminently practical in its service.

1. Invigorating. “Refreshed me.” Like dew to shrivelled grass and drooping flower.

2. Painstaking. “Sought,” etc.

3. Courageous. “In Rome.” “Not ashamed of my chain.” False friends are swayed by the signs of the times. Like a shadow, they leave us when we pass out of the sunshine. True friendship, based on character, not circumstances, hence unalterable.

4. Continuous.

5. Personal.

6. Proverbial. “Thou knowest very well.” The true man loves to recount deeds of kindness.

7. Immortal. Kindness is undying.

II. Religious friendship is highly distinguished in its reward.

1. It gained for him the influence of the mightiest Christian power.

2. It gained for him the influence of prayer for the best blessing “Mercy.”

(1) The most needed blessing.

(2) Involves every other.

3. It gained for him the influence of prayer for the best blessing on the most momentous occasion. “That day”--the judgment--the day of destiny--the final day of mercy. (B. D. Johns.)

Refreshing the poorest

And here the best may be taxed for omitting of the present occasion, or poor man’s necessity. We are prone to commit sin instantly, and to put off good and charitable duties from time to time, and to do them lingeringly. But, beloved, this should not be so; we gather fruit when it is the ripest; cut down corn when it is the hardest; let blood when it groweth rankest; and shall we not refresh our brethren being poorest? (J. Barlow, D. D.)

The needy not to be neglected

We may run from the poor, and his homely bed and cottage; but God and His swift curse will one day overtake us. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

A welcome visitor

“I have read recently that in one of the English prisons there was at one time an underground cell, which was used as a place of punishment. Its remoteness, loneliness, and darkness made it a place greatly dreaded. Among the prisoners there was a man of refinement and nervous temperament, to whom the horror of this penalty was a fright that haunted him day and night. At length there was some alleged offence against the prison discipline, for which he was sentenced to four and twenty hours in this dungeon. He was led by the wardens to the place; the door was opened and he had to go down the stairs into its depths. The door was shut. The steps of the wardens died away in the distance; the outermost door was heard as its slamming echoed in the hollow places. Then all was still--A stillness that oppressed with terror amidst a darkness that could be felt. Nervous and full of imagination, the man sank down paralysed with fear. Strange and hideous shapes came out of the gloom, and pointed at him. His brain throbbed as with fever, and mocking voices seemed to come from all sides. He felt that before long the terror must drive him mad. Then suddenly there came the sound of steps overhead; and in a quiet tone the chaplain called him by name. Oh, never was any music so sweet! ‘God bless you,’ gasped the poor fellow. ‘Are you there?’ ‘Yes,’ said the chaplain, ‘and I am not going to stir from here until you come out.’ The poor man could not thank him enough. ‘God bless you,’ he cried. ‘Why, I don’t mind it a bit now, with you there like that.’ The terror was gone; the very darkness was powerless to hurt while his friend was so near--unseen, but just above.” And so beside us all ever is the unseen yet loving presence of our Master and Friend, and darkness and danger have no longer any power to frighten us. (G.R. Dickenson.)

Was not ashamed of my chain.

Chains worth wearing

Here was Paul, in that large, grand company of men who, in all the ages, have been the victims of great ideals, of noble inspirations, of truth, of virtuous impulses, of high and generous purposes that reach out and beyond him; and there were a thousand men of all sorts coming against Paul’s life, who appreciated his nobility, his gifts, his eloquence, his scholarship, his Judaism; and they saw nothing else in Paul or upon Paul but his chain, and then they walked away half ashamed and so sorry that so good a man as Paul had to wear a chain. There never was such jewellery in all the ages as that chain of Paul’s. Never did any goldsmith melt together the rarest pieces from the mines and put them in such delicate and beauteous relationships with one another, as did the Providence of God, when, through countless years and by various circumstances, the prophecies worked out that chain for Paul. Here is a mother, and if she is really a mother she is far more certainly chained than the woman by her side who tosses her little head, for such heads are always small, and has no thought of responsibilities and cares; no thought about those relationships of life which ought to be the most sacred in the world. Here is a young man who has started out to make himself intelligent. He has only a few hours in which to do it. He takes those hours and by all the severe exactions of his noble spirit he is bound so to that ideal that he cannot do this, and he has not an evening for that, and he hurries to his work a chained man, but oh, how grand! Here is a girl who thinks, perhaps, that tomorrow she will begin to sew again, wearily but happily, chained to her work, because yonder in some lowly place in this city her mother is working and waiting, prayerfully doing what she can, for death to take her. But this brave girl is carrying that aged mother upon those weary arms as once the mother carried her, chained, but not with a chain bought at a jewellery store. She has not the kind of jewellery upon her that sparkles upon you at the great reception. No, her jewellery is made by Almighty God; it was mined in the vast secrets of goodness; it was brought out by the heat and fire of that eager life; and God has given her this chain as the mark that she belongs to that grand race of aristocrats. And I care not whether that girl lives in a garret, or lives in a mansion, she belongs to the aristocracy of heaven. In what contrast to these chains appear the chains that have rattled as you came here, my friend; for there are other chains of the most coarse and ignoble kind that bind us. Here is a man who comes and feels, when he sees the picture of that young man earnestly trying to become intelligent, that he is ignorant, and he never knows how much of a chain there is attaching itself to him. Other people do. His smartnesses are simply exhibits of his chain; every time he tries to perpetrate a joke the chain rattles and people see how bound he is to utter ignorance. Here are men and women bound by chains of selfishness. To save your life you cannot conceive of a noble inspiration, The other day, when somebody told you of some one giving some money to a great cause, you sneeringly measured your own soul when you thought you were measuring his, and you said: “Well, he wanted to be advertised!” You know that is the way you would feel under the circumstances. Your chain rattled, and it rattled so awfully that those who were round about you saw the awful depths of selfishness into which you were about to fall. Here are men who are chained by habit. To save your life, you can’t get home without feeling the pulling of a chain which you would rather break than to accomplish anything else in the world. But how different are these chains from the ones which Paul wore, as he stood there in the face of Israel and the whole world! That chain was rattling when he spoke, and he uttered that word with such eloquence that it has resounded through the centuries. “For the hope of Israel,” he said, “I am bound with this chain. Other men have been bound to the past; I am bound to the future. Other men have been bound to iniquity; I am bound to righteousness. Other men have been bound to low ideals; I am bound to lofty ideals. Other men are in slavery, abject slavery, to those carnal purposes of life that debase; I am in slavery which is sublime, to the true and lofty ideals that exalt. For the hope of Israel, I am bound with that chain.” (F. W. Gunsaulus, D. D.)

The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day.

St. Paul’s prayer for Onesiphorus

I. Mercy is a word we are often using, especially in our prayers. But there are some of us, perhaps, who have no very clear ideas of what mercy is. I must remind you again, that it is not mere kindness or goodness. To ask God to show us mercy is not simply to ask God to do us good. Such a petition includes in it a confession of our wretchedness and our guiltiness; for observe, misery is the proper object of mercy. Mercy, in the strict sense of the word, is kindness exercised towards the wretched; but then there is another use of the term and a more common one. Because our guilt is our greatest misery, mercy often signifies in Scripture pity shown to the guilty; in other words the forgiveness of our sins. In some respects mercy resembles goodness. It is indeed the very same thing, only its object is different. God is good to all, and always has been so; but He was never merciful, till misery appeared needing His compassion. He is good in heaven; every angel there feels and proclaims Him such: but there is no mercy in heaven, for there is no guilt there or wretchedness. And then again mercy is closely allied to grace. If it differs from it at all, it is in this--when we speak of grace, we have respect chiefly to the motive of the giver; when of mercy, to the condition or character of the receiver. Look at God, and then we call mercy grace; look at a man, poor, abject, guilty man, and then we call grace mercy. You see, then, that mercy is the perfection of the Divine goodness. It is that branch or exercise of it, which goes the farthest and does the most. It is goodness blessing us when we merit cursing, and saving us when we are well-nigh lost. Hence, God is said in the Scripture to “delight in mercy.” His goodness can expand itself in it. He finds in it the freest scope, the largest indulgence, of His benevolence. It is not merely the work, it is the enjoyment, the feast and triumph, of His love. And you see also here another fact, that no man can ever deserve mercy. We often put these two words together, but we ought not to do so; there is a positive contradiction between them. Mercy is grace. It is kindness towards one who has no claim whatever to kindness and is totally undeserving of it.

II. Let us pass on now to the day the apostle speaks of. And observe--he does not describe this day; he does not even tell us what day he means: but there is no misunderstanding him: he means the last great day, the day when God will raise the dead and judge the world.

1. The apostle’s thoughts were often dwelling on this day; it was a day very frequently in his contemplation. His mind had evidently become familiar with the prospect of it, and so familiar, that he could not help speaking of it as he would of any well-known and much thought of thing. And so it seems really to have been in the early ages of the Christian Church. We put the day of judgment far from us; we regard it as a day that will certainly come, but after so great an interval of time, that the thought of it need not press on us; but not so the first believers. Their minds were fastened on this day. They “looked for” it; that is, they were like men looking out anxiously in the east for the first dawn of some long wished for day, like men climbing the lofty mountain to get the first sight of the rising sun on some festal morning. They “hastened unto” it; that is again, they would have met it if they could. But there is something else implied in this expression.

2. It intimates also that this day is a most important one. There is the idea of pre-eminence contained in his language. We feel as soon as we begin to think, that we cannot estimate as we ought the importance of this day. It will affect every body and every thing on the face of the earth, and to the greatest possible extent. Other days are important to some, but this wilt be important to all.

III. Turn now to his prayer. He brings together in it, you observe, the mercy and the day we have been considering. We cannot enter into the spirit of this prayer, unless we keep in mind throughout the character of this Onesiphorus. He was evidently a real Christian. And these kind offices, we may fairly presume, he rendered to the apostle for his Master’s sake. This kindness under such trying circumstances, this steadfastness and boldness in the face of shame and danger, were the fruits of his faith in Jesus. They are evidences that he was not only a sincere believer in the gospel, but a man of extraordinary faith and love. The inference, then, that we draw from this prayer is this obvious one--our final salvation, the deliverance of even the best of men in the great day of the Lord, will be aa act of mercy. It is sometimes spoken of as an act of justice, and such it really is, if we view it in reference to the Lord Jesus. Before he made His soul an offering for sin, it was promised Him that this stupendous sacrifice should not be made in vain. And the Scripture speaks of our salvation as a righteous thing in another sense--the Lord Jesus has led His people to expect it. But look to the text. The apostle implores in it mercy in that day for his godly friend; and what does he mean? If he means anything, he means this--that after all it must be mercy, free and abounding mercy, that must save that friend, if he is ever saved. He can talk of justice and of righteousness as he looks at his Master on His throne, and remembers what He has done and promised; but when he looks on a fellow-sinner, he loses sight of justice altogether, and can speak of mercy only. And observe, too, how this is said. It is not cold language. It is language coming warm from a most tender and deeply grateful heart. The good works of this man were all before Paul at this time--his boldness in Christ’s cause, his steadfastness, his kindness; the apostle’s mind was evidently filled with admiration of him, and his heart glowing with love towards him; yet what in this ardour of feeling does he say? The Lord recompense him after his works? No; he sees in this devoted Christian of Ephesus a miserable sinner like himself, one going soon to Christ’s judgment-seat, and his only prayer for him is, that he may find mercy there.

1. We all still need mercy. There is a notion that a sinner once pardoned, has done with this blessed thing; that he may cease to seek it, and almost cease to think of it. It is error, and gross error. We can never have done with mercy As long as we are in the way to heaven; or rather, mercy will never have done with us. And notice also this remarkable fact--in all his other epistles, the salutation of this apostle to his friends is, “Grace unto you and peace”; but when he writes to Timothy and Tiros, men like himself, faithful and beloved, eminent in Christ’s Church, he alters this salutation. As though to force on our minds the point I am urging--A conviction that the holiest of men still need God’s mercy--he adds this word “mercy” to the other two. In each of these epistles his salutation runs, “Grace, mercy, and peace.” (C. Bradley, M. A.)

Paul’s prayer for his friend

To the Christian mind the painful feelings occasioned by the recollection of violated friendship become unspeakably more poignant and intense, when we discover that the claims of friendship and the obligations of religion have been cast off together--that he whom we loved has made shipwreck at once of his faith and of his affection--of his duty to his God and to his friend. An affecting instance of this kind is recorded at the fifteenth verse of the chapter. Was it wonderful, therefore, that from the cold, cruel, and treacherous conduct of these men, he should turn with such a glow of kind and grateful emotion to the faithful and affectionate Onesiphorus?

I. There is a day coming, which, from its transcendent importance, merits the emphatic designation of “that day.” And does not this day deserve the emphatic mention which is here made of it? Compared with every other period in the history of the universe, does it not stand out in unparalleled importance? There are days in the life of every one which, from the event s that transpire in them, are invested with great and merited importance to the individual himself--such as the day of his birth, and of his death. But there is something in the day of final and universal retribution that sinks into obscurity any other eventful period in the history of man. The day of our birth introduces us into a scene empty and shadowy, both in its joys and sorrows, and proverbially brief and transitory in its duration; that day ushers us into a state of being, in which we shall be conversant no more with the dreams only, but with the living realities of perfect felicity or woe, and conversant with them through a duration endless as the reign of the Eternal itself. The day of our death is chiefly interesting to ourselves, and to the little circle who have been connected with us by the ties of kindred or love; the day of judgment is supremely interesting to any rational being who has lived and breathed on the face of our world--A day when the eternal destiny of the whole human race shall be determined with unparalleled publicity and solemnity. How important are those days, in the opinion of men, which have witnessed the fall or the rise of empires. How important was the day that dawned on the tribes of Israel marching from under the yoke of their Egyptian bondage--A day that ever afterwards was held sacred to commemorate their deliverance! How eventful that day that rose on the fall of the Assyrian monarchy, and beheld the empire of the East pass from Belshazzar and his impious race into the hands of the mild and virtuous Cyrus! How painfully memorable, at least to the nation immediately concerned, was the day that beheld the final destruction of Jerusalem, and the rejection and dispersion of its devoted race! How important to these lands of our nativity, and how worthy to be held in grateful remembrance, that day which witnessed the consummation of the glorious struggle that terminated in the vindication and establishment of our civil and religious liberties! But do you not feel that all these days, whether of transient or permanent importance, are so utterly insignificant, when viewed in relation to that day, that the comparison involves in it a kind of incongruity, and is truly a lowering of the awful dignity of the subject? There are but two periods in the history of the world that can be consistently compared, in point of importance to men, with that day--the day that dawned on the creation of our race, which was hailed by the sweet acclaim of the angelic hosts and the day that shone on the birth of the Son of God. In every aspect in which we can view them, these were days big with consequence to the human family; but they were only the introductory scenes to the consummation of the mightiest drama that ever was, or will be, performed on the theatre of the world.

II. On that day the mercy of the lord will de regarded by all as unspeakably precious. The mercy of the Lord is, in this world, regarded in a very different light by the various classes of men, if we may judge of their sentiments and opinions from their uniform practice. The great mass of mankind demonstrate by their conduct that, whatever may be their occasional fears and desires, the prevailing habit of their mind is an utter indifference either to the mercy or vengeance of God. But there are a few who are honourably distinguished by different sentiments, who avow it as their opinion, and evince their sincerity by a corresponding practice, that they esteem everything under heaven as utter vanity compared with the mercy of the Lord. And they who have practically esteemed the mercy of the Lord so highly in this world, will value it the more at that terrible day. With all their successful efforts, by the grace of God, to prepare their souls to meet the Lord in peace, and to be found without spot and blameless at His coming, they will impressively feel themselves still to be the objects of His mercy. Yes, and at that day Paul and his fellow-believers will not be singular in prizing the mercy of the Lord. Much as sinners have despised the mercy of the Lord here, they will then despise it no more.

III. In the mind of a Christian, that day possesses tremendous consequence, and towards it his eye is habitually directed. Such consequence did this day possess in St. Paul’s view, that the importance of everything on earth was estimated by its remote or immediate relation to it. Did he, from the hour of his conversion, despise all distinctions of wealth and honour when brought into competition with the knowledge of Christ? It was, that by any means he might attain to a blessed resurrection on that day. Did he practise the most painful and persevering self-denial; or, to use his own words, did he keep under his body and bring it into subjection? It was, that he might not be found disapproved on that day. Was he not ashamed of the sufferings he endured for the gospel? It was because he knew in whom he had believed, and was persuaded that He was able to keep that which He had committed unto him against that day. Did he labour in season and out of season, warning every man, and teaching every man? It was that he might present every man perfect in Christ on that day. Did he muse on the number and steadfastness of his converts? He thought of them as his hope and joy and crown of rejoicing in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coining at that day. Did he engage in prayer for his converts? It was that the Lord might make them to increase and abound in love, to the end that He might establish their hearts unblameable in holiness at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all His saints, on that day.

IV. Enlightened Christian affection is especially solicitous about the eternal well being of its objects. Deeply did the grateful and generous heart of Paul feel the kindness of Onesiphorus. There is no doubt he loved him before as a disciple, and very likely as a personal friend; but his conduct, when he visited Rome, awakened still deeper emotions of gratitude and affection towards him in the bosom of the apostle. And how did he express this sense of the kindness of Onesiphorus? Did he employ all his influence to improve the temporal fortune of his benefactor? Did he request his noble converts in the palace--for some such there were of the emperor’s household--to exert their power to procure for Onesiphorus some post of honour and emolument in the civil or military establishment of Rome? Or did he write to the Ephesian Church, to which this person probably belonged, enjoining them to prepare some temporal reward, to be given to their deserving countryman for his kindness to himself? No; Paul attached too much importance to the solemnities of the last day and its immediate consequences; he was too much influenced by the scenes of the world to come, to ask for his beloved comforter so poor, so miserable a recompense. He loved him too well to solicit for him a fading, when he might ask for him an unfading crown. He knew too well the worth of his soul, the importance of an eternal well-being, to overlook these for the trifles for an hour, in his desire to reward him.

V. Genuine saints have it ever in their power to reward their benefactors. Looking at Paul as a poor despised prisoner in Rome, accused before the emperor of heresy and sedition, befriended by none but by a proscribed and despised sect, which was everywhere spoken against, with all the prejudice of the emperor, and the influence of the Jewish nation strenuously exerted against him--looking at Paul in this light one would speedily conclude, on the principles of the world, that he was a very unlikely person richly to reward his benefactors. But ten thousand times rather would I have laid this poor and apparently helpless captive under obligations to me by kindness to him, than have merited, by the most splendid civil or military services, the gratitude and reward of him who wore the imperial purple. What could Nero, even with a world at his nod, have conferred upon me? He might have lavished upon me all the favours of the imperial court. He might have made me the idol of fortune, and the envy of the proudest of the Roman nobility. He might have given me the conduct of the most honourable expeditions. He might have invested me with the command of the richest of the provinces. Paul had no imperial power or influence; he had even no imperial favour; but he was a favourite in a higher court, where he was every day, almost every hour, an acceptable visitant. He was one of those whose effectual fervent prayer reached the heavenly temple, and, through the channel of the atonement, drew down eternal blessings on his soul, and on the souls of those for whom he interceded. In conclusion, there is one inference very naturally suggested by the last remarks: If these statements are true, how wise it is, setting aside the pure love of benevolence altogether, to be kind to the people of God, especially to the pious poor! (J. Mc Gilchrist.)

Mercy in that day

I. That there is a day coming, in which to find mercy of the Lord, will be our only consolation and security.

1. The day here meant is the day so frequently mentioned in Scripture; and in which we are all most deeply concerned. It is described by many different names, as “the Day of Judgment,” “the Day of the Lord,” “the Last Day,” “the Day of Wrath,” “the Day in which God will judge the world.” In that day, then, what will be our only consolation and security? The text reminds us, “To find mercy of the Lord.” Mercy is another word for grace. It is an act of free and unmerited favour. Men sometimes say that such a person deserves to have mercy shown to him! But this is a very incorrect and careless way of speaking. A man can never deserve mercy. There may be some circumstances in his case, which may make him more particularly an object of compassion. When a criminal by his offence has forfeited his life, and is condemned to die; the king, from pity to the offender, or from some other consideration best known to himself, may grant a pardon and remit the sentence. Here is mercy, an act of free, unmerited grace to the undeserving and the guilty. But to say that there could be anything in the criminal which gave him a claim to mercy, would be to talk absurdly. The very idea, then, of mercy naturally shuts out all idea of merit. These two things are totally contrary to each other, and can never exist together. It is to be feared that many, when they talk of hoping to find mercy, mean in fact to say that they hope to find justice in that day; and that their hopes of being favourably received then are built not on God’s free mercy, but on their own merits, and on their secret claims to reward.

II. That there will be some who in that day will not find mercy of the Lord. St. Paul, when he prays that Onesiphorus may find mercy in that day, clearly intimates it to be possible that he may not find it. And if it were not certain that Onesiphorus would find it, it is not certain that others will find it. Indeed, the Scriptures plainly tell us that all will not find it. We are expressly told that in that day some will say, “Lord, Lord, open to us”; to whom He will say, “Verily, I know you not.” Let us see what the Scriptures teach us concerning those who will find mercy of the Lord in that day.

1. They are now seeking mercy, and seeking it in that one way, in which alone God has promised to bestow it.

2. They are duly affected and properly influenced by the views and hopes which they have of the rich mercy of God in Christ. There is a sad propensity in man to abuse the Divine mercy, and to take occasion, from this most glorious perfection of the Almighty, to run the farther and continue the longer in sin. How differently did a sense of God’s mercy work on the pious David! Hear what he says, “O Lord, there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.” He felt that the goodness of God led him to repentance. The rich mercy of the Lord, far from hardening his heart, softened and overcame it. (E. Cooper.)

Mercy in that day

Let us consider the language of the text as showing that the exercise of mercy towards us, especially in the proceedings of the final day, is an object of highest desire and hope.

1. The very nature of the occasion shows it to be so: the day of the end of the world. This will differ from all other days. On numbers of the days that are past, our eyes were never opened; they appeared to our forefathers, but fled away ere we had our being; while the days which we behold, they do not witness, for the darkness of death and the grave overshadows them. Thus different in their importance, ordinary days may be to different persons. The day of one man’s prosperity may be the day of another man’s adversity. For ancient days we are not responsible, and yet those days were concerned in the accountability of millions who have no concern with our own. But the day referred to in the text will be common to all the sons of Adam. If, then, we consider the period which it occupies, both as to what it follows and what it precedes, how manifest the need of mercy at that day. What recollections of time, what apprehensions of eternity will fill the mind!

2. As it will be the period when God will display the effects of His probationary dispensations, the worth of mercy will then particularly appear. Such effects will be strictly discriminative of character and condition. Events will have reached their issues; moral consequences will be brought together in vast accumulation, and will bear with all their weight upon the mind. Fruits will be reaped in kind and in degree, according to what we have sown. And while these effects will be so concentrated at that day, they will also be looked upon in their character of perpetuity.

3. As it will be the period when the Lord will reward His servants for all they have done in His name, the apostle could entreat mercy for his friend at that day.

4. It is also to be observed that the importance of an interest in Divine mercy at that day appears in the fact that if it be not then enjoyed the hope of it can be cherished no more. (Essex Remembrancer.)

Mercy in “that day”

I. Whence arises our need of mercy?

1. Our need of mercy arises from our guilt, for mercy is kindness or favour shown to those who are undeserving of it. Our guilt arises from our personal disobedience to the Divine law. We inherit a depraved nature, but it is not for this that God holds us responsible. We are responsible not for what we have inherited, but for what we have done, and therefore it is not by our depraved nature but by our actions we shall be judged.

2. Guilt exposes to the retributive justice of God. There is always the feeling that sin deserves punishment at the hands of God. We know indeed from Scripture that it does so. Nothing could be plainer or more solemn than its statements, than the sinner is even now under the curse of the law which he has broken, and that hereafter he will come under a righteous retribution. But it is not to Scripture that I would now appeal. A man who has violated the laws of his country knows that he deserves to suffer their penalties. It is right, he says, I have sinned, and must bear the punishment. So the sinner against God feels that he deserves to be condemned, and that if God’s justice were to deal with him he could not escape. From this indissoluble connection between sin and punishment arises our need of mercy. Therefore it is, that the prayer of the publican is the universal prayer of poor, sinful, and perishing humanity. Therefore it is, that in the presence of God’s holiness, or confronted with His law, or in the near prospect of an eternal world, we shrink back appalled at the consciousness of our guilt.

II. Whether it is possible to obtain mercy? This is a question of grave importance; easily answered with the Bible in our hands, but, apart from it, filling us with strange perplexity.

1. Without a Divine revelation, we do not know that God is merciful at all. Granting that there is much to excite our hopes, there is as much to awaken our fears. We are ready to say, “God is good--His tender mercies are over all.” But when the pestilence is abroad in the city, and the tempest in the field--when the rivers overflow their banks, and the mildew blights the precious fruits of the earth--when the crimson tide of war rolls through a land--when men’s faces are black with famine--when the sea is strewn with wrecks--then we are filled with alarm, and say, “When I consider, I am afraid of Him.” Think again: What are the conceptions which have been formed of God by those who are destitute of revelation? One of the best and wisest of the heathen doubted whether it was possible for “God to forgive sin.” The sceptre of the Supreme God was a thunder-bolt--He was cruel, harsh and vindictive Again: When we reflect on the nature of moral government, we perceive serious difficulties in the way of the exercise of mercy. Certainly this is not the end of government. The great object for which it exists is the administration of justice; that it may “render to every man according to his works.” If mercy, not justice, be its ruling principle, it is not easy to understand why it should exist at all. The highest praise that can be given to an earthly ruler is, that he is “the terror of evil-doers and the praise of them that do well.” Now apply this to the Divine government. Why does it exist?--whence its language and its laws? Is it not for the maintenance of order?--for the well-being of the creatures whom God has made? And, as far as we have an opportunity of observing, are not the laws of this government strictly carried out--in every case, sooner or later, exacting penalties from the disobedient? If you violate a physical law, there is no mercy for you.

2. But when we turn to the Scriptures, the subject is presented before us in a different light.

(1) We learn, in the first place, that God is merciful in Himself.

(2) We learn that this mercy is displayed to sinners through the atonement of Christ.

III. Why is it that at the day of judgment we shall especially require the exercise of mercy? It is the day that will terminate this world’s history. Whenever it dawns, time will cease, the world will be burnt up, the heavens will pass away, there will be “no more sea.” Wonderful was the day of creation, when God called things that were not as though they were, and His Spirit moved over the chaos, and light dawned, and the earth appeared. But more wonderful still will be that day when the purpose for which the world has been created shall have been accomplished, and, like a faded vesture, it shall be folded up. Then the world’s history will end--its sad tragedies of sorrow, its scenes of suffering; and its works of nature, its wonders of art, the monuments of God’s power, the trophies of man’s skill, shall pass away.

1. Its absolute certainty.

2. Its scrutiny will be so strict. God will set our iniquities before Him--our secret sins in the light of His countenance. And that which we had forgotten shall be remembered; that which appeared to us but trivial shall assume a magnitude which will fill us with profound alarm; that which we supposed none had witnessed shall be proclaimed.

3. The award will be just and final.

4. It will come unexpectedly. All the representations given of the judgment-day describe it as a sudden and unlooked-for event. But what shall we say of the worldly, the ungodly, the profane? What sudden, destruction will overtake them! Where Pompeii was disinterred, there was discovered in the buried city the remains of those who still preserved the very attitude in which death had overtaken them. There was a skeleton before a mirror, another behind a counter; in the theatre, in the forum, in the temples, at a banquet, in every attitude and position they were found. It was the work of a moment, the burning lava fell, and they died. You are looking forward to many years of life, but the Judge may even now be standing at the door. Who then will find mercy? Those who have sought it and found it now--those who have confessed and forsaken sin--those who humbly rest on the merits of the Saviour’s sacrifice. (H. J. Gamble.)

Paul’s good wish on behalf of Onesiphorus

I. Men are all advancing towards a solemn and momentous period.

II. At that period men will stand in need of mercy. When the apostle expresses a wish that his friend may receive mercy, it must be evident to every one that of course he needs it--that without its communication it is impossible that he can be happy. Another inference to be dragon from this principle is, that, in consequence of this transgression by which we are characterised, we are, of course, in danger of punishment by that great Almighty Being whom, in this manner, we have offended. But now, you must at once perceive the whole force of the statement from which these particulars have been deduced. For the purpose of escaping the condemnation of the last great day, there must be a communication of the mercy of the Lord.

III. The mercy of God is diligently to be sought in the present world.

1. A portion in the provision of Divine grace ought to be sought by you as a matter of intense and impassioned desire.

2. A portion in the full provision of Divine grace should be sought in the spirit of fervent and importunate prayer. We must remark--

IV. To receive mercy is to possess the enjoyment of a vast and incalculable blessing. I scarcely dare venture for a single moment to occupy your time by attempting to describe the blessed consequences of having the Judge for your friend on that day of eternal retribution, feeling, as I do, that the grandeur of the property may appear diminished by the feebleness of the description.

V. Those who have the hope of mercy should desire its participation by others. It has already been observed, that the prayer of the apostle is that peculiar form of prayer which is known by the name of intercession. Here is a beautiful example of that spirit which we, as the possessors and heirs of mercy, should cultivate towards those in whom we feel an interest. (James Parsons.)

Mercy in the day of judgment

I. “that day.” Its date is not given. It would but gratify curiosity. Its length is not specified. It will be long enough for the deliberate judgment of all men. Its coming will be solemnly proclaimed. Ushered in with pomp of angels, sound of trumpet, etc., none will be ignorant of it. Its glory, the revelation of Jesus from heaven upon the throne of judgment this will make it most memorable. Its event, the assembly of quick and dead, and the last assize. Its character, excitement of joy or terror. Its personal interest to each one of us will be paramount.

II. The mercy. To arouse us, let us think of those who will find no mercy of the Lord in that day:--Those who had no mercy on others. Those who lived and died impenitent. Those who neglected salvation. How shall they escape? Those who said they needed no mercy: the self-righteous. Those who sought no mercy: procrastinators, and the indifferent. Those who scoffed at Christ, and refused the gospel. Those who sold their Lord, and apostatised from Him. Those who made a false and hypocritical profession.

III. To-Day. Remember that now is the accepted time; for you are not yet standing at the judgment bar. You are yet where prayer is heard. You are where faith will save all who exercise it towards Christ. You are where the Spirit strives. You are where sin may be forgiven, at once, and for ever. You are where grace reigns, even though sin abounds. Today is the day of grace; to-morrow may be a day of another sort, for you at least, and possibly for all mankind. The Judge is at the door. Seek mercy immediately, that mercy may be yours for ever. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Going to receive mercy

When Thomas Hooker was dying, one said to him, “Brother, you are going to receive the reward of your labors.” He humbly replied, “Brother, I am going to receive mercy.”

The Christian manner of expressing gratitude

The enemies of Christianity, while stating its supposed defects, have asserted that it recognises neither patriotism nor friendship as virtues; that it discountenances, or at least does not encourage, the exercise of gratitude to human benefactors; and that its spirit is unfriendly to many of the finer feelings and sensibilities of our nature. But these assertions prove only that those who make them are unacquainted with the religion, which they blindly assail. Nothing more is necessary to show that they are groundless than a reference to the character of St. Paul. We readily admit, however, or rather we assert it as an important truth, that his religion, though it extinguished none of these feelings, modified them all. It infused into them its own spirit, regulated their exercises and expressions by its own views, and thus stamped upon them a new and distinctive character. It baptized them, if I may be allowed the expression, with the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus Christ. Hence, the apostle expressed neither his patriotism, nor his friendship, nor his gratitude, precisely as he would have done, before his conversion to Christianity. These remarks, so far at least as they relate to gratitude, are illustrated and verified by the passage before us, in which he expresses his sense of obligation to a human benefactor. He did not idolise his benefactor; he did not load him with flattering applauses; but from the fulness of his heart he poured out a prayer for him to that God who alone could reward him as the apostle wished him to be rewarded. It is more than possible, that to some persons this mode of expressing gratitude will appear frigid, unmeaning, and unsatisfactory. They will regard it as a very cheap and easy method of requiting a benefactor; and were the case their own, they would probably prefer a small pecuniary recompense, or an honorary reward, to all the prayers which even an apostle could offer on their behalf. It is certain, however, that such persons estimate the value of objects very erroneously, and that their religious views and feelings differ very widely from those which were entertained by St. Paul. But what is the precise import of the petition--that he might then find mercy--and what did it imply? To pray that any one may find mercy of him at the judgment day, is to pray that he may then be pardoned, or saved from deserved punishment, and accepted and treated as if he were righteous. St. Paul, when he prayed that Onesiphorus might find mercy of his Judge at that day, must then have believed, that he would at that day need mercy or pardon. And if so, he must have believed that, in the sight of God, he was guilty; for by the guilty alone can pardoning mercy be needed. The innocent need nothing but justice. A distinguished modern philosopher, Adam Smith, well known by his celebrated treatise on the Wealth of Nations, has some remarks relative to this subject, which are so just and apposite, that you will readily excuse me for quoting them. “Man,” says this writer, “when about to appear before a being of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit, or in the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. To such a being he can scarce imagine that his littleness and weakness should ever seem to be the proper object either of esteem or regard. But he can easily conceive how the numberless violations of duty of which lie has been guilty should render him the object of aversion and punishment; nor can he see any reason why the Divine indignation should not he let loose without any restraint upon so vile an insect as he is sensible that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for happiness he is conscious that he cannot demand it from the justice, but that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow, humiliation, contrition at the thought of his past conduct, are, upon this account, the sentiments which become him, and seem to be the only means which he has left of appeasing that wrath which he has justly provoked. He even distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally fears, lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime by the most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other intercession, some other sacrifice, some other atonement, he imagines, must be made for him, beyond what he himself is capable of making, before the purity of the Divine justice can be reconciled to his manifold offences.” It may perhaps be said, if the apostle’s views were such as have now been described, if he believed that justice must pronounce a sentence of condemnation on all without exception, on what could he found a hope that either himself, or his benefactor, or any other man, will find mercy of the Lord at that day? These questions are perfectly reasonable and proper, and it would be impossible to answer them in such a manner as to justify the apostle, were not a satisfactory answer furnished by the gospel of Jesus Christ. That gospel reveals to us a glorious plan, devised by infinite wisdom, in which the apparently conflicting claims of justice and mercy are perfectly reconciled. (E. Payson, D. D.)

Remember the reckoning day

What shall we think of such who never mind this day? Verily, they are much affected with earthly pleasures and profits, and have little regard of the greatest good. Many men in the inn of this world are like the swaggerers and prodigals in a tavern, who call freely, eat and drink, laugh and are fat, but never mind either the reckoning or the time of harvest; for they have sown no good seed, neither have wherewith to dis charge the shot: therefore suffer these things willingly to slip and absent them selves out from their minds, because they have or can expect no commodity by either. But the faithful man is of a contrary mind; for he is sparing in expense, and hath scattered much good grain, the which will bring a goodly crop at his Master’s appearing, the great day of reaping, both of which cause him often to look upward. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

Mercy on the judgment day

I. An important season. “That day.” The day is that which is elsewhere called “the last day,” because then the end of this world’s history, as a place of trial at least, will be come; it is called also “the great day,” because then scenes unparalleled before in grandeur will be unfolded, and affairs that have never been surpassed in magnitude will be transacted--such scenes and affairs as will throw into the shade the most splendid spectacles and momentous transactions of time.

II. An important blessing. For a man to find mercy even now, amid the trials and changes and imperfections of this present life, is to be truly blessed. It is to have guaranteed to him all that is included in eternal life--that gift of God--that munificent donation of infinite mercy. Nor will the largess be diminished, or the security invalidated, on the day of judgment.

1. There are many considerations besides which go to illustrate the high importance and exceeding desirableness of mercy on that day; and one of these is, that it will then be felt to be peculiarly needful.

2. Another consideration, tending to enhance the value of the blessing, is that it will not be shared in by all. This is obviously implied in the apostle’s intercessory petition. If the mariner who is saved from the wreck, when all his shipmates are lost, estimates his preservation more highly than he who has returned to the desired haven with them all in safety, must it not seem a glorious benefit to appear as “vessels of mercy prepared unto glory,” when many fellow-sinners are found to be “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”?

3. Another consideration still, which may well exalt the blessing in our eyes, is that if mercy be not found then, it will never be found.

4. And yet another circumstance which magnifies the value of the blessing is, that the condition of those by whom mercy shall not then be found will be pre-eminently wretched. Not to find mercy on that day is to be undone, altogether and eternally undone.

Lessons:

1. If mercy is to be found at last, it must be sought now.

2. Again, if mercy is to be found at all, it must be sought through the mediation of Christ.

3. And, in fine, if mercy is to be found of the Lord, it must be sought in His service. (D. Davidson.)

The requited of friendship

Paul was the friend of Onesiphorus, and how did he manifest his friendship? In carcerated and enchained, poor and destitute, he could not requite, in kind, his benefactor’s generosity. But another mode of expressing friendship was left him, and as he was shut up to it by circumstances, so he turned to it with fondness. As the waters of a spring, when prevented from flowing forth in their natural channel, mount forcibly up towards heaven--as the portion that is prevented, by exhalation, from diffusing fertility along the course of the stream, descends afterwards in fertilising showers; so the emotions of his overflowing heart, being pent up in one direction by the tyranny of man, ascended in devout aspiration to God, and though seeming to vanish in the vapour of fruitless wishes, entailed the communication of invaluable blessings. (D. Davidson.)

The value of a good man’s prayers

I would rather have the gift of a brother’s faithful prayers than of his plentiful substance. And I feel that when I have given to a brother my faithful prayers I have given him my best and greatest gift. (Edward Irving.)

Prayers for the dead

That Onesiphorus was dead is a gratuitous assumption. The fact that Paul nowhere else prays for the dead is fatal to the notion here. (J. Bryce, LL. D.)

In case even that Onesiphorus were really dead at the time of the writing of this Epistle, still the Roman Catholic interpreters are in error when they find in 2 Timothy 1:18 a proof of the lawfulness and obligation for intercessory prayers for the dead. The case here was altogether special, and cannot, without great wilfulness, be applied as the foundation of a general rule for all the dead. On the other side, it is often forgotten that the gospel nowhere lays down a positive prohibition to follow with our wishes and prayers, if our heart impel us thereto, our departed while in the condition of separation; and hence, in any case, it is well to distinguish between the Christian idea which lies at the foundation of such inward needs, and the form of later Church rite and practice. (Dr. Van Oosterzee.)

Beneficent wishes for the dead

On the assumption already mentioned as probable (that Onesiphorus was dead), this would, of course, be a prayer for the dead. The reference to the great day of judgment falls in with this hypothesis. Such prayers were, as we know from 2Ma 12:41-45, common among the Jews a century or more before St. Paul’s time, and there is good ground for thinking that they entered into the ritual of every synagogue and were to be seen in the epitaphs in every Jewish burial-place. From the controversial point of view this may appear to favour the doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome, but facts are facts apart from their controversial bearing. It is, at any rate, clear that such a simple utterance of hope in prayer, like the Shalom (peace) of Jewish, and the Requiescat or Refrigerium of early Christian epitaphs, and the like prayers in early liturgies, though they sanction the natural outpouring of affectionate yearnings, are as far as possible from the full-blown Romish theory of purgatory. (E. H. Plumptre, D. D.).