If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
Ver. 1. If there be therefore] A most passionate obtestation, importing his most vehement desire of their good agreement; whereunto he conjures them, as it were, by all the bonds of love between him and them. Matters of importance must be pressed with utmost vehemence, Colossians 3:14. Love is charged upon us above all those excellent things there reckoned up.
If any comfort of love] As there is very much, making the saints to enjoy one another's society with spiritual delight, Psalms 16:3, and to communicate with gladness and singleness of heart, Acts 2:46. The Lord doth usually and graciously water the holy fellowship of his people with the dews of many sweet and glorious refreshings; so that they have a very heaven upon earth, for kind the same with that above, and differing only in degrees.
If any bowels and mercies] Ipsa suada, credo, si loqui posset, non potuisset, εμφατικοτερως, ubi quot verba, tot tela, &c., saith Dr Morton; that is, persuasion itself could not speak more persuasively, here are so many words, so many weapons, able to pierce and work upon any heart not possessed with an iron sinew.