Jesus Christ, "who is our hope." Christ is the only foundation of hope; a hope, that we are effectually reconciled; that the work of the Spirit is transforming us into new creatures; and that the precious blood of the Divine Victim will prove a ransom and complete satisfaction for our sins. "Unto Timothy mine own son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord." Words cannot be found more powerfully expressive of the sacred and interesting relationship, which exists between the souls of them that teach, and them that be taught, in connection with the ministry. It must be of the same character in every age of the Church; and will be proportionally effective, as the teacher labours to resemble the disinterested, zealous, bold and affectionate Apostle while the disciple strives to emulate the docility, diligence, and piety of the self-denying Timothy. It is a bond which, thus preserved, cannot fail; and will

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doubtless be a subject for renewed attachment in that world of peace, which Christ is now preparing for them that love Him.

Thus glancing gratefully at his own conversion from a state of fierce error to one of glorious hope in Christ, and uttering a devout prayer for a blessing on the head of him, whom he had been instrumental in bringing unto Jesus, St. Paul now proceeds to remind his faithful fellow labourer, of the chief purposes, for which he had placed him in the rich and idolatrous city of the Ephesians. "As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying: so do." He had besought Timothy: he had not commanded. For though he might have enjoined and enforced his orders, by an authority derived from Christ, yet did our Apostle prefer the system of govern

ing, by love, all, who were willing in this spirit to submit themselves. The terrors of his indignation he reserved for those extreme cases, which must, in such a fallen world as ours, sometimes be expected to occur and disturb our peaceful course. He, who could, with a word, deliver over to Satan, the blasphemer Hymenæus, and put away from the Church that ungodly person of Corinth; he, at whose scourging and imprisonment, the jail at Philippi rocked with an earthquake; he, for love's sake, intercedes with Philemon in behalf of his servant, and beseeches Timothy to remain at Ephesus.

The corruption of man's nature is felt in his closet, and in the sanctuary; and bursts forth, when many are brought together and form a Church, according to the evil propensities varying in the several individuals. Here we see, that even in an age of miracles and prophecy, many years not having elapsed since the glorified Son of God had been manifested

on the earth, already had "the mystery of iniquity" begun to work. Already, were the vigilance and prompt correction of the Apostle found necessary to check the growing evil.

Fables and traditionary histories of events; wild and fanciful speculations; unsupported and mysterious notions, began to intrude into the place of the simple "truth as it is in Jesus "". One of the first duties of Timothy was, to stop the mouths of these men; to refer them "to the law and to the testimony2;" to "charge them that they teach no other doctrine" than that, which had been received by them. He was to check the propagation of new and illusive theories, captivating unstable minds, because new; whereas they should have been suspected as false, because not old. These he was commissioned to restrain at once; and to impose silence on the conceited and babbling tongues of their authors. He was also to stem the current of " endless genealogies." These, either the Gnostics were

1 Eph. iv. 21.

2 Is. viii. 20.

introducing, to the disparagement of Christ as the Son of God; or the Jews were advancing, as the ground of their hopes, by thus tracing their claims, as children of Abraham. St. Paul could be firm, as well as forbearing; prompt, no less than meek. And these unworthy corruptions of the Infant Christian Church, he requires his representative at Ephesus to put down; and at once to crush, with the holy zeal becoming his high office in the Church. Having thus commissioned him to lose no time in removing this great obstacle to the purity of the Gospel, so artfully laid in the way by the Jewish zealot, or the Gnostic theorist, he proceeds, in a few words, to explain the great end of revelation; and to state such requirement, as affords the best proof that it has been effectually embraced. "The end of the commandment is charity," or Christian love: Christian love "out of a pure heart, and a good conscience and faith unfeigned." This, says he, let every teacher aim at establishing in