As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Ver. 19. As many as I love] q.d. Think not that I hate you, because I thus chide you. He that escapes reprehension may suspect his adoption. God had one Son without corruption, but none without correction. We must look through the anger of his correction to the sweetness of his loving countenance; as by a rainbow we see the beautiful image of the sun's light in the midst of a dark and waterish cloud. See more in my Treatise upon this verse, the second edition.
And repent] So they did in likehhood; for Eusebius commends this Church as greatly flourishing in his time. Oh, the divine rhetoric and omnipotent efficacy of repentance, saith a divine. This is the rainbow, which if God seeth shining in our hearts, he will never drown our souls.