1 Thess. i. 2 — 4. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers ; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father ; knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.
THIS epistle, though not placed first in the sacred canon, is generally supposed to have been the first in point of time : and in point of tenderness and affec- tion, it is certainly inferior to none. The Church at Thessalonica was subjected to heavy trials. In their first reception of the word, they sustained grievous opposition3; and, in their subsequent profession of it, they endured a great fight of afflictions, being no less cruelly persecuted by their own countrymen than the Apostles were by the Jewsb. From them St. Paul had been driven by the fury of his blood- thirsty enemies0, who had followed him even to Beraea with the most relentless animosity d. No wonder therefore that he felt extremely anxious for his new converts, under a situation of such peril. Gladly would he have returned to them again and again : but his watchful and malicious adversaries would not suffer ite. Hence his anxiety for them became exteme ; so that he could no longer endure
a ver. 6. b 1 Thess. ii. 14. c Acts xvii. 5 — 10.
d Acts xvii. 13, 14. * 1 Thess. ii. 18.
the suspense he was in concerning them. The pre- sence of Timothy with him at Athens was of great importance : yet on the whole he thought it better to be left at Athens alone, that, by sending Timothy to them, he might gain certain information of their state, and promote their establishment in the faith f. After Timothy's return to him, he wrote them this epistle. It is an epistle admirably calculated to im- press the minds of all who read it, whether ministers or people, and to shew them what ardent affection should subsist between all who stand in that relation towards each other. In the commencement of it we see how ready he was to acknowledge and commend what was good in them : and herein he particularly instructs us how to minister with effect. Though doubtless it is the duty of every minister to reprove and correct what he sees amiss in his people, his chief delight should be to comfort the feeble-minded, to support the weak, and to build up all in their most holy faith. The object he should continually aim at should be, to be " a helper of their joy."
In discoursing on the words which we have just read, we shall consider,
I. The graces which he had seen in them —
The great leading graces of Christianity are, " faith, hope, and charity." On these all other graces essen- tially depend ; so that where these are, there will all others most assuredly be found. But of all these graces there are counterfeits : there is " a faith that is dead :" there is " a love, which is " little else than " dissimulation :" and there is " a hope of the hypo- crite that perisheth." Such however were not the graces which had been exercised among them : in them he had seen,
1. An active faith —
[True faith is active : it brings to the Christian's view the Lord Jesus Christ, as having in him a fulness of all imaginable blessings treasured up for the use of the Church ; just as the
f 1 Thess. iii. 1, 2, 5.