the Apostle's words, is plain from his remonstrance with them in the second Epistle (ii. 5) where, having set forth to them the things which must happen before the coming of the Lord, he says, 'Do ye not remember that while I was yet with you, I was in the habit of telling you these things?' Their enthusiasm had outrun even the Apostle's plain speaking; they regarded the day of the Lord as actually upon them, and its glories as something which would be missed by those who died before the Lord himself should appear. As far as we can gather, there appear to have been two distinct phases of their misapprehension: the first, concerning their deceased friends; then, when that had been removed by a plain declaration that when Christ should come they would accompany Him, another mistake as to the immediate coming of the day itself, which it is St. Paul's aim to correct in the second Epistle.

But we must now pass from notices of the message at first delivered, to the circumstances under which the two Epistles were written.

The Gospel at first made prosperous way at Beroa: but from that city again the missionaries were driven out by the malice of the Thessalonian

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Jews, who came and raised a tumult there also. On this, the principal member of the mission, and the most obnoxious to the Jews, was sent away alone by the brethren: it would appear, with secret orders in the route to elude the vigilance of the enemy.

It is not our object now to dwell on the memorable visit of St. Paul to Athens. We accompany him thence to Corinth, where we have a notice (Acts xviii. 5) of his companions, Silas and Timothy, having rejoined him from Macedonia. It would appear, from comparing Acts xvii. 15 with I Thess. iii. 2, that he had sent back by those brethren, who conducted him to Athens, a message to Timothy (and Silas) to visit the Thessalonian church, to establish them, and exhort them concerning their faith, and then to rejoin him as quickly as possible. The nature of the report brought him by his companions sufficiently appears in the first letter. It had been, on the whole, most favourable. The word of the Lord (ie., concerning Christ) had sounded abroad from them, not only in their own country but everywhere : they were cause of great joy to their father in the faith. But there appear to have been some ble

mishes. There was a tendency to adopt or fall back into the immoral habits of the heathen world: there was some want of brotherly love and quiet earnestness, and a disposition to meddle and to be indolent and there was the great mistake to which we have before made allusion, respecting those who had fallen asleep in Christ.

Under these circumstances the first letter was written. When the tidings from Macedonia arrived, they found the Apostle in an anxious and trying state. He was, we are told, constrained in spirit, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. It was the same kind of work in which he had had such conflict at Thessalonica, and the message brought up before him again all the fervour and love with which his preaching, though strongly opposed, had been there received. He employed his scanty intervals of retirement in pouring out his heart to his beloved Thessalonians. It was

apparently the first time that the Divine Spirit had prompted him to preach the Gospel in writing. Of course we cannot be certain of this, because some of his Epistles have been lost; but at all events this is the first of his letters that has come down to us, and it is interesting in that light, as well as

on all other accounts. We see from it what was the natural course of his feelings towards those among whom he had preached with success. We see how large a portion of his heart was given to love and gratitude, how rejoiced he was to praise and encourage, how unwilling to blame. There is no Epistle that shows us the spontaneous outflowing of the Apostle's mind to his converts so plainly as this. And it is all the more interesting, as also making it evident how the unfolding of the great doctrinal system of Christian truth was, even with the Apostles themselves, a gradual thing. In these earlier Epistles there is nothing of that deep dogmatic teaching which becomes so prevalent as time goes on, and almost pervades the later Epistles written during the Roman captivity: here all is affectionate remembrance, and fresh, fervid exhortation, grounded on the elementary facts and hopes of the Gospel. 6 I have said elsewhere,* The earliest of the Epistles are ever moral and practical, the advanced ones more doctrinal and spiritual. It was not till it appeared that the bulwark of salvation by grace must be strengthened, that the

* "New Testament for English Readers," Introduction, ch. viii. § 4,

ar. 3.

building on the one foundation must be raised thus impregnable to the righteousness of works and the law, that the Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans were given through the great Apostle, reaching to the full breadth and height of the great argument. Then followed the Epistles of the imprisonment, building up higher and higher the edifice there consolidated; and the Pastoral Epistles, suited to a more developed ecclesiastical condition, and aimed at the correction of abuses. which sprung up later, or were the ripened fruit of former doctrinal errors.'

It is remarkable that the one point as to which experience brought to the Apostle the greatest 'desire to change his voice,' was that very one which our Lord in solemn terms had left in uncertainty for all ages of his militant Church-even the day of the second coming. His teaching at Thessalonica had indeed been misunderstood. He himself protests against the sense which had been put upon it. But even misunderstanding points to some tendency in the direction which it has taken. St. Paul's manner of dwelling on and describing the day of the Lord, without perhaps putting in the cautions which he afterwards gave