Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Ver. 22. Flee also youthful lusts] φευγε, Flee them he must with post haste, though such a chaste and chastened piece as he was. Youth is a slippery age, slippery as glass, easily contracting dust and filth, as the word used by David importeth,Psalms 119:9,. and should therefore cleanse its ways by cleaving to the word. Youth is a hot age, as the Greek word signifies; a a black dark age, as the Hebrew word noteth, Ecclesiastes 11:10. Therefore put away evil from thy flesh, saith the wise man there, out of his own experience. St Paul repeats and inculcates this precept upon his son Timothy, as men do not only anoint their flesh, but rub in the ointment. He knew that all was but enough. Summopere cavendum divine praeconi, ne dicta factis deficientibus erubescant. Nihil turpius Peripatetico claudo, saith one.
But follow righteousness, faith, &c.] Let not the devil find thee idle, but do what thou canst to be out of the way when the temptation cometh. Keep close to God in other matters,Ecclesiastes 7:26; Proverbs 22:14; exercise thyself in duties of piety with an upright heart, Proverbs 23:26,27; Proverbs 6:23,24; Proverbs 2:10,11; Pro 2:16 Romans 1:28 .
a ηιθεος, of αιθω, uro; αιζεος, of ζεω, ferveo.