The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Peter — Section 127

their hearts, By God's mercy they were numbered among his people-pardoned and cleansed. Well, then, did it become them to pay their highest tribute of praise to the excellence of that mercy that had found them in their forlorn heathenism, .And have we not all reason to praise the mercy that has ordered our circumstances, that has broken down the hardness of our hearls, that has admitted us to glorious privileges? -R.F. Vers. 11, 12.-CJhristians in the world. I. ASPECT UNDER WRICH THEY ARE ADDRESSED. "Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims." There is here a well-marked transition to a new section. It is introduced by a word which gives an earnest, affection- ate tone to his exhortation, He addresses them under the aspect of" sojourners and pilgrims." The languege is based on Ps. xxxix, 12, "For I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers were," where, in the Greek translation, the same two words are used as here. The two words strengthen the idea; there is very little differ- ence in sense. The first word points to our not being at home; the second word points to our not being among our own people, We are not at home on earth where there is so much evil, where especially we have not the immediate presence of our Father. To this is added that we do not live among our own people; for, though we have our own circle, yet the men of the world are as those that speak a strange language and do not follow our customs. II. DOTY PRESENTED. 1. Negatively. (1) Form. "To abstain from fleshly lusts.n We are not to understand " fleshly " in the narrow sense, but as including all the desires of sinful human nature. 'l'he context suggests lusts that have to do with insubordination; and there are not excluded drunkenness, gluttony, and what is called lust. They agree in being irregular; they are the desires belonging to our nature going beyond the order appointed for them. The call is to abstain from them. This is a Christian word with a wider range than is sometimes given to it in the present day. It defines the movement we have to make againt our lusts, (2) Reason. "Which war against the soul." There is reason for our moving against fleshly lusts in this, that they move against u2. They are not only antagonistic, but are actively aggressive. 'l'hey move against us in our highest nature, viz. the soul-that by which. we are capable of a higher destiny than is to be got on earth. As sojouror:c and pilgrims, we are looking forward to "an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven; " we must not, by giving ourselves into the power of lusts, unfit ourselves for our noble destiny. "Abstain" is the word for those who would have their souls saved. 2. Positively. (1) Form. "Having your behaviour seemly among the Gentiles." The whole of Christian duty is not contained in the word "abstain." There must be, on the positive side, the having our behaviour seemly. The usual translation of the word is "beautiful," "fair." Mere strictness is often repellent; there must be what is attractive about our conduct, especially if we take into account those who are yet unfriendly to Christianity. (2) Christian motfre. "That wherein they speak against you 118 evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." There is often a very loose way of classifying men. The Christians were classed with evil-doers. Those who ha<l the highest conception of God were spoken against as atheists, simply because they rejected the objects of heathen worship. '!'hose who were called by their religion to live most holy lives were spoken against as anarchists, and even as introducing abomi- nations, the only foundation for it being that they had necessarily to put themselves in opposition to many heathen ways. How, then, were they to act before the heathen? 'l'hey were to see well to the seemliness of their behaviour. Peter might have urged that they were to do this, that they might not come into collision with heat?en autho- rities. He goes a point beyoud that, and urges that by good works (beautiful works, beinu the same word that is translated "seemly") they were to nim at the conversion of the heathen, We can understand, from what follows, that he had in his mind exemplariness in the different relations of life, and not returning evil for evil ; but we ca11 also think of the deeds for which 'l'ertullian praises the Christians. "When the pagans deserted their nearest relatives i? a plague, ~hristians ministered to the sick and dying. Who11 the pagans left their dead unburied after a battle, and cast their wounded into the streets, the Christians hastened to relieve the suffering." By  122 THE FIRST ~PISTLE GENERAt OF' PE'l':n!R. [ctt. n.1-25.