and power to love, because it is itself not the pretence of faith, but faith in real exillt.ence and power. There was thus a marked contrast with the life of the false teachers-- corrupted In mind ( eh. vi. 5), seared in conscience ( eh. iv. 2), and " reprobate con- cerning the faith" (2 Tim. iii. 8). 4. Mark the order of ,grace here followed. In the order of nature, faith must be placed first. The apostle follows the order of practical working. Furthest down in man's inner nature is the deep well of a purified heart; then the love, as it comes forth into exercise, must be arrested on its way by a good conscience, to receive restraint and regulation; then, to sustain the vigour of love in its continuoUB exercise, there must be faith unfeigned, grasping the promises of God, and in intimate relation to things not seen. Ill. 'l'HE EVIL EFFECTS OF SWERVING FROM THIS THREEFOLD FOUNDATION OF LOVE. "From which things some having swerved have turned aside to vain talking." 1. The persons referred to had evidently belonged, if they did not still belong to, the Chwrch at Ephesus. Timothy could not otherwise have exercised authority over them. 2. The swerve was moral in its nature, but it would have intellectual effects of an injurious character. How often does the heart determine the bias of the mind! 3. Its actual result was a persistent habit of vain talking. It was empty babbling, without sense or profit-about mere trilles, to the neglect cf ,;eightier matters of doctrine. IV. THE PRESUMPTUOUS IGNORANCE OF THIS PABTY. "Desiring to be teachers of the Law, not underst,u1ding either what they say, or concerning what things they con- fidently affirm." 1. It is no new fact in life to find the least qualified the most ready to u1tdertake the tusk of instruction. '!'hey were ignorant and unlearned men, who were only able to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction. 2. Their ignorance was of the most unquestionable character; for they neither understood their own averments or arguments, as to their nature and drift, nor did they compre- hend the things concerning which they were so ready to give their foolish but deliberate judgment. (1) It is evident they did not reject and disparage the Mosaic Law, but rather exaltecl. it by their interpretations. (2) They were not mere Jud ..,sts such as the apostle contended with in Go.latia and elsewhere; for they are not charged with any attempt, either to maintain the ancient cust-0ms or to bring in legal observances out of their proper place. (3) They rather, as misunderstanding the true nature and design of the Law, tried to work up a compost of Judaic and Gnostic elements, which explained the Law according to the philosophic views of the East. Therefore their theology was marred by fanciful allegorizings of the Law, which eliminated its moral element, and thus robbed it of e.11 power to touch the heart or conscience of men. (4) The case in hand illustrates the progress of error in the Church. The incipient Gnosticism of Ephesus !VOOually developed into the more pronounced Gnosticism 80 pointedly condemned by the Apostle John in his First Epistle.-T. C.
Vers. 8, 9.-The nature and design of the Law. "We know that the Law ia good, if a map. use it lawfully." This passage contains the last recorded utterance of the apostle concerning the Law, and of which he speaks with all the conscious authority of an apostle. He asserts the goodness of the Law-the moral Law, not the ceremonial, which was now disannulled, for the context refers expressly to the precepts of the Decalogue-and this goodness is manifest if you keep in view the moral end for which it was given. Perhaps the apostle may have had in view the lax moral practice of the errorists at Ephesu8. I. 'l'HE LA w~·uL USE OF THE LA w. Scripture sets forth its design in plain language. 1. It w,,s a schoolmaster to bring us to Ohrist. (Gal. iii. 24.) Thus" Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness" (Rom. x. 4). 2. But it only brings us to Christ as it reveals to us our imperfections and our sins. "For by the Law is the knowledge of sin " (Rom. iii. 20). It was, indeed, "11ided because of transgressions" (Gal. iii. 19). The Law shows us our sinfulness, and drives us to the Saviour. It thus" shuts us up to faith " (Gal. iii. 23). II. THE UNLAWFUL USE OF THE LA w. I. To make it the occasion of endless logo- machies-of vain talking, of" strhings about the Law." 2. To seek justification by obedience to its precepts. 3. To strive for the attainment of hol-i11ess by a use o/ the Law, interpreted, not in it.~ plain sense, but with meanings imposed upon it by mystical allegorizings and theosophic culture. Thii en-orists at Ephesus were nu 12 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. [oH. I. 1-20.