The Pulpit Commentary — Philippians — Section 49

to rise no more, leaving the world to go back into Jewish and Gentile darkness, intoler- nnce, and superstition. But here the apostle says it was not so. It helped, not hin- dered, the ouwnrd march of gospel truth. He indicates here how it tended in this direction. 1. Dy extending its knowledge in fhe imperial city. "So that my bonds in Christ [margin,' for Christ'] are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places." Or, as Dr. Samuel Davidson renders it, "So that my bonds became manifest in all the Praitorian Guard, and in all the rest." All the Prretorian regiments, who, of course, were the most numerous and influential men in the imperial city-the city which con- quered the world-would, of courso, guard the apostle by turns, and to each and all who were in special connection with him at the time he, of course, would not only reveal his own morally noble and soul-commantling character, bnt earnestly expound that grand system of world-wide philanthrow for which he was in bonds. In this way the gospel would spread in Rome from soldier to soldier, and from the soldiers to the civilians. Perhaps there could have been no way more effective of spreading the gospel than this. 2 By encouraging the work of propagation. "Many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear." "There is," says Dr. Barry, "a twofold sense here, corresponding to the two- fold division of preachers made below. Those who preached Christ 'of contention' trusted in St. Paul's captivity as giving them scope; those who preached of 'good will' found in it a striking example of evil overruled for good, and so gained from it fresh encouragement." 'l'he expression, "many of the brethren," of course implies not all, and those who did not were Judaizing Christians and were affected with enmity towards Paul, and would preach in their own spirit and in their own way; whilst the others, " the many," would by the noble conduct of Paul as a prisoner, and by the con- stantly extending circulation of the gospel through the Prretorian regiments take encouragement and catch inspiration. Here, then, is an example of the princi pie of evil being overruled for good. "A strange chemistry of providence this," says Matthew Henry, in his quaint way, "to extract so great a good as the enlargement 01 the gospel out of so great an evil as the confinement of the apostle." Three remarks may be offered in relation to this principle. (1) That the known character of God authorizes the inferenoo that this would be the principle on which he would proceed in the moral management of the universe. It is scarcely possible to entertain the belief that a Being of infinite holiness, possessing a wisdom that nothing can baffle, a.nd a power that nothing can resist, would allow evil to run riot for ever in his empire, and make no effort to subordinate it to the advancement of spiritual excellence and happiness. Shall error triumph over truth, wrong over right, the devil over God? Incredible. Antecedently I am bound to conclude that a time will come when the sun of goodness shall scatter from the heavens every cloud of evil, however widespread and dense. (2) That the Bib7,e supplies abundant statements to support this belief. We read that the little stone-that is, goodness-shall not only shatter the colossal image-that is, evil-but shall itself grow till it becomes a mountain to fill the whole earth. We read of the knowledge of God covering the earth as the waters cover the channels of the great deep. We read of the "restitution of all things." We read of the "kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ ; " and of things being put into subjection to Christ; of "all things working together for good to them that love God," etc. (3) That the history of the world is a grand exemylijiccition of tliis principle, The introduction of sin into the world is a tremenuous evil; but how mnch good has come out of it! What glorious manifestations it ht\S occasioned of Go,\! what moral heroes it has been the means of creating amongst men I The crucifixion of Christ was evil in the most gigantic form; but to what good has the infinitely good One turned it! "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." I rejoice to blllieve in this IJrinciple of good overruling evil; it inspires in me the hope that the time will come when every human intellect shall be freed from error, every human conscience from guilt, every human heart from pain, when all the groans of the huruan creation shall be hushed in eternnl silence, aucl the flames of all hells extin~uished for ever. II. A SPLENDID EXAMPLE ~-oR THE llUITATlON OF PREACHERS. "Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and 8trifc; and some also of good will," etc. Observe : 1. The apostle speaks of two classes in liis day. One preached from a factious, or a party,  THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. [ell. I, 1-30,