Having seen what the Apostle desired for them, we will proceed to shew,
II. Why with such intensity he desired it —
In the close of the preceding chapter he speaks of " labouring and striving" according to the working of the Holy Spirit, who wrought in him mightily. The word, before translated " striving," he here repeats ; conveying to us, thereby, the idea that he exerted himself, for the attainment of these things, with such a kind of " conflict" as wrestlers, racers, or fighters, maintained in the Grecian games. His whole heart and soul were engaged in behalf of all his Christian brethren, whether personally known to himself or not, that these great things might be accomplished in them. And for this end he laboured,
1. Because these things were essential to their comfort —
[In truth, there is no happiness in religion, unless it have its perfect work within us. A superficial and general view of the Gospel calls forth no admiring and adoring thoughts : nor does it gender in the soul those ardent affec- tions which bind together the members of Christ's mystical body, and make every one of them ready to " lay down his life for the brethren11." But when all the riches of the Gospel are opened to our view, and the incomprehensible mystery of redemption, in all its inscrutable provisions, in its execution at the appointed period, in the mode of its application to the soul, and in all its stupendous consequences, is unfolded to us, so that we can behold our own interest in it, and are enabled to bear witness to it before an ignorant and ungodly world — what is all this, but heaven already begun in the soul ? The glorified saints around the throne have no higher sources of joy than these, no higher theme of praise : and they are only happier than we, because their discovery of these things is more complete, and they are freed from all those infirmities which, in our present state, interrupt our enjoyment of them. To this I may add : when the soul, by virtue of this mystery, is filled with love, even with such .love as Christ himself bears to his saints, such love as is the very image of God within us — this is happiness : the man that lives in the exercise of this
h 1 John iii. 16.