§6. Observe hence,

1. Our hearts are not to be trusted to in occasional duties, if not preserved in a continual disposition towards them; if that be lost, no argument will be prevalent to engage them to present occasions.

2. The mind ought continually to be upon its watch, and in a gracious disposition towards such duties as are attended with difficulties and charge.

3. Examples of privileges annexed to duties, (whereof the scripture is full) are great motives and incentives to the like duties.

4. Faith will make use of the highest privileges that ever were enjoyed in the performance of duties to encourage to obedience, though it expects not any thing of the same kind, or the performance of the same duties.

5. When men, designing that which is good, do more good than they intended, they shall reap more benefit thereby than they expected.

VERSE S.

Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.

$1. Of brotherly love towards sufferers. 2. Particularly prisoners. §3. What implied in remembering them. $4. And them who suffer adversity, $5, A motive to it subjoined. §6, 7. Observations,

§1. THE first branch of the exercise of brotherly love enjoined was towards strangers; the next is towards sufferers; that is, who suffered for the gospel. These were in a twofold outward condition; some in prisons or bonds, and some variously troubled in their names, reputation, goods, and enjoyments; some deprived of all, and all of some of these things.

§2. (Twy dεopiwv) of those that are bound; any that are in prison, whether actually bound with chains or

no, because all prisoners were usually so bound, Acts, xvi, 26; this was esteemed a thing shameful as well as penal; for it was the state of evil doers. But the "word of God," as the apostle speaks, "is not bound," 2 Tim. ii, 9; the devil was never able, by this means, to obscure the light, or stop the progress of the gospel; he and his agents do but labor in vain. Men may, but the word of God.cannot be bound.

§3. The duty enjoined with respect to those that are bound is, that we (μponobe) remember them, or be mindful of them. It seems those that are at liberty, are apt to forget Christ's prisoners; and we are desired so to remember or think of them, as to relieve them according to our ability. It implies a care about their persons and concernments, as opposed to that regardlessness which is apt to possess the minds of those that are at ease, and, as they suppose, free from danger; compassion towards them, as if bound with them: the want of it is expressed as a great aggravation of the sufferings of our Savior himself; Psal. Ixix, 20, "I looked for some to take pity, and there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." Prayer, as in the case of Peter when he was in bonds, Acts xii, 5. Assisting them as to what may be wanting to their relief. To supply their wants according to our ability. Visiting them, which the Lord Jesus Christ calls the visiting of himself in person, Matt. xxv, 36-43. Where this attention to suffering saints is not, it argues a great decay in the power of religion; and there are none more severely reflected on, than those who are at ease while the church is in affliction, Psal. cxxiii, 4 Zech. i, 15.

§4. But that we may not suppose our love and duty to be confined to these alone, he adds all that undergo trouble of any sort for the profession of the gospel;

"and them which suffer adversity:" all that is adverse or grievous to us, as sickness, pain, losses, want, and poverty, reproaches, contempt, scorn, turning out of secular employments, spoiling of goods, stigmatizing, taking away of children, banishment, every thing which we may undergo in and for our profession.

$5. The motive added to the diligent discharge of the duty enjoined, is, That "we ourselves are also in the body." Were you indeed, as if the apostle had said, once freed from the body, none of these things could reach you; but whereas you are in the same state of natural life with them, equally exposed to all the sufferings which they undergo, be they of what kind they will, and have no assurance that you shall always be exempted from them, this ought to be a motive to you to be mindful of them in their present sufferings. This, I perceive, is the sense of the place. §6. And we may observe from hence;

1. Bonds and imprisonment for the truth were consecrated to God, and made honorable, by the bonds and imprisonment of Christ himself; and commended to the church in all ages by those-of the apostle and primitive witnesses of the truth.

2. It is better, more safe and honorable, to be in bonds for Christ, than to be at liberty with a brutish, raging, persecuting world.

3. Whilst God is pleased to give grace and courage to some to suffer for the gospel unto bonds, and to others to perform the duty here recommended towards them, the church will be no loser by suffering.

4. When some are tried as to their constancy in bonds, others are tried as to their sincerity in the discharge of the duties required of them on such occa sions. And,

5. Usually more fail in the neglect of their duty towards sufferers, and so fall from their profession, than do so fail under their sufferings.

§7. 1. Although there are peculiar duties required of us towards those who suffer for the gospel in bonds, yet we are not hereon discharged from the same kind of duties towards those who suffer in lesser degrees. And,

2. Not only those who are in bonds for the gospel, or suffer in an high degree in their persons, are under the special care of Christ, but those also who suffer on the same account in any other kind whatever, though the world may take little notice of them; and therefore they are all commended to our special remembrance.

3. Professors of the gospel are exempted from no sorts of adversity, from nothing that is evil and grievous to the outward man in this world; and therefore we ought not to think it strange when we fall into them.

4. That we have no security of freedom from any sort of suffering for the gospel whilst we are in the body, or during the continuance of our natural lives. Heaven is the only state of everlasting rest. Whilst we have our bodily eyes, all tears will not be wiped from them.

5. We are not only exposed to afflictions during this life, but we ought to live in the continual expectation of them, so long as there are any in the world who actually suffer for the gospel. Not to expect our share in trouble and persecution, is a sinful security proceeding from very corrupt principles of mind.

6. A sense of our being continually obnoxious to sufferings, no less than those who actually suffer, ought to incline our minds to a diligent consideration of them in their sufferings, so as to discharge all duties of love and helpfulness towards them.

7. Unless we do so, we can have no evidence of our present interest in the same mystical body with them, nor just expectation of any compassion or relief from others, when we ourselves are called to sufferings. What a severe self-reflection must we charge ourselves with for want of due compassion for those who were in that condition before us!

VERSE 4.

Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

$1. Occasion and design of the words. $2. Exposition. Marriage is honorable in all. 63. And the bed undefiled. 4. The dreadful doom of whoremongers and adulterers. §5, 6. Observations.

§1. THIS declaration refers, undoubtedly, to some principles and practices that were then current in the world. And these were, that marriage was at least burthensome, and a kind of bondage to some men, especially an hinderance to them that were contemplative, and that fornication was at least a thing indifferent, which men might allow themselves in, though adultery were to be condemned. In opposition to these cursed principles and practices, the apostle, designing to commend and enjoin chastity to all professors of the gospel, declares, on the one side, the honorable state of matrimony from divine institution; and on the other, the wickedness of that lasciviousness wherein they allowed themselves, with the certainty of divine vengeance which would befall them who continued in it. There was just reason, therefore, why the apostle should insinuate the prescription of the duty intended by a declaration of the honor of that state which God had appointed for the preservation of chastity. See 1 Tim. iv, 3.