(1) 'kindly (Ps. cxli. 5); (2) with love t.o those who administer It (Prov. ix. 8; uiv. 25); (3) they att.end to rebnke (Prov. xv. 6). II. THE DESIGN OF THE REBUKE, "That they may be sound in the faith." It was: l. That they might be r«,0-uered from their errors, and receive sound doctrine, and uae sou11d spe,-ch that cannot be condemned. 2. That they may be sound in the grace oj faith, and manifest it by departing from their evil works. This soundness of faith is d,•scribed negatively by their "not ~ving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth. (1) Jewish fables. These are mentioned in 1 Tim. i. 4; iv. 7; 2 Tim. iv. 4. They were, no doubt, rabbinical, and ultimately crystallized into the Talmud. Our Lord condemned them (Matt. xv. 3). The tra- ditionary principle has, in spite of this warning, spread widely in the Church. We see it in the Latin Church, in the Greek Church, in lslamism. It is, in fact the ruling principle of all these communities, which have no real love for the Scriptur~ (2) The commandments of men. (a) They stancl in antithesis to the commandments of God (Matt. xv. 9; Col. ii. 22). (b) They evidently were of a ceremonial character, and involved ascetic peculiarities, touching the question of abstinence from meats, and from other things created by God for man's enjoyment. (c) Their origin was evil, for they sprang from men turning away from the truth. It was not merely Mosaical prohibi- tions with regard t.o food that they enforced, but ascetic additions and exaggerations in the spirit of the later Gnosticism. The COU!ll8 of these men was downward. They were departing fast from the gospel.-T. C. • Ver. 15.-.A great counter-principle against this ascetic tendency. "Unto the pure >tll things are pure: but to the defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled." I. THE PRIVILEGES OF THE PURE. 1. The pure are not those ceremonially pure, but those (lJ justified from all sin by Christ's riF:hteousness; (2) clean through the Word spoken to them; (3) with hearts purified by faith; (4) with the graces of faith unfeigned, love without dissimulation, and hope without hypocrisy. 2. Their privileye, purchased by the blood of Christ, was the lawful liberty of using all meats under the gospel which were forbidden by the cererrwnial law. (1) Jesus had taught that defile- ment comes from tne heart, not from the shambles (Luke xi. 39-41). (2) The Church solemnly at Jerusalem decreed the abolition of this old distinction of meats (Acts xv.). 3. The apostle elsewhere teaches the same truth. " For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for that man that eateth with offence" (Rom. xiv. 20). All meats are pure to the pure in heart. 4. The distinctim of meats among Boman Catholicl! tends to the neglect of the Divine Law altogether. People on the Con- tinent go to balls on the Lord's day who will fed their souls in danger from eating an egg on Friday. 5. The saying of the apostle has an almost proverbial cast; for it asserts that "all things "-that is, more than mere food-may have a purifying tendency in the ca.se of the pure. Nothing is unclean of itaelf, but good, and to be received with thanksgiving (1 Tim. iv. 3-5). II. THE MORAL RETRIBUTION OF THE DIPUBE. It is that they pollute all they touch, and everything becomes the means or increasing their depravity. 1. There is nothing impure .,,,. evil in creation; it is in the mind and heart of men; these can turn the choicest gifts of God int.o the means of moral defilement. 2. Unbelief is thefountai11 from which all the evil flows; for to the" defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure." 'l'he won;hippers may, by their distinctions of food, only foster pride and self-righteous- ness; but all alike springs from unbelief, which disregards the authority of the Word of God. 3. The impurity is not 'tM1"ely external, such as many dread, but internal; for it extends to "the mind and conscience," t.o the whole intellectual, volitional, and moral nature of man. Thus the last safeguard of the soul disappears, as the retribution upon man's neglect of God, truth, and purity. There is no longer a taste for the simple truth of the gospel, but a frightful facility for self-deception.-T. C.
Ver. 16.-The great =tradiction. The apostle here describes their moral deficiency. "They con less that they know God, but in works they deny him." f. 'J'HEY WERE MERE PBOFESBOB8 OF REUGION, POSBESBING 1TB l'ORM BUT :;ENYING ITS POWER. 1. Their koowledge of God waa purely theoretical or specrd,iti·vt, l .• ~ they were CB, I, 1-18.] THE EPISTLE TO TITUS. 13