1 Thessalonians 4:9-11 But as touching brotherly love you need not that I write to you: for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another.… ss: — The sum of Christianity is to do the will of God (ver. 3; Ecclesiastes 12:13). This holiness stands as queen in the midst of all the graces, has patience to wait on her, compassion to reach out her hand, longanimity to sustain, and this placability of mind to keep her in an equal poise and temper. So that to holiness more is required than to believe, hope, and pray. What is my faith if my malice make me worse than an infidel? What are my prayers, if the spirit of unquietness scatter them? So St. Paul here commands us not only to "abstain from fornication," from those vices that the worst of men are ready to fling a stone at, but those popular vices, animosity and turbulent behaviour, and to be ambitious to be quiet. I. THE OBJECT IN WHICH OUR STUDY MUST BE SEEN. To be quiet is to be peaceable (1 Corinthians 12:25; 1 Timothy 2:2; Colossians 3:15). 1. This is not — (1) Tyranny, although some think there is no peace unless every man subscribe to their unwarrantable demands. (2) Others call even disobedience peace, and are never quiet but when they are let loose to do as they please. (3) Others esteem themselves quiet who are rather asleep than settled, bound up with a frost until the next thaw. (4) There are those who are still by reason of a dull and heavy disposition, and who do no harm because they do nothing and are nothing. (5) Some there are who are so tender that they will not even bear witness to the truth for fear of disturbance, having so much of the woman and the coward that they count it a punishment to be just and honest. (6) There is a constrained quietness; that of Esau, which would last but till his father's funeral, of an Ammonite under the harrow (2 Samuel 12:31), of Goliath when his head was off, that of a dead man who is at rest because he cannot move. All turbulent spirits are quiet before opportunity or hope sets their spirits aworking. 2. To be quiet consists in a sweet composure of mind, a calm and contented conversation, a heart ever equal and like unto itself. To this our religion binds us. It is a plant that God only plants, which grows and raises itself above the love of the world, covetousness, malice, fraud, which disturb ourselves and others. (1) To this the vanity of philosophy and the weakness of the law could not reach. The philosophers cried down anger and gave way to revenge; and under the law it was but a promise. (2) This it was the business of the Prince of Peace to effect (Matthew 5:38-45; Matthew 22:39). (3) By this the genuineness of our Chris tianity is to be determined. II. THE ACT. We must make it our study or ambition. There is nothing that deserves commendation but must be wrought out with study and difficulty; and the love of peace and quiet is no obvious and easy virtue, that will grow up of itself. 1. We must make it our constant meditation and fill our minds with it. By our continual survey of its beauty, by fixing our thoughts upon it, and by an assiduous reviving and strengthening of these thoughts we make it more clear and applicable. 2. We must put our meditation into practice, which will fix it in the habit. This is no easy thing. We must unlearn many things before we can learn this. (1) We must east out self-love which is the source of many troubles. (2) We must root out that "root of all evil," covetousness, which will never suffer us to be quiet (Isaiah 5:8). (3) We must pull back our ambition, which is a busy and vexatious evil, carrying over our brother's necks to that pitch whence we fall and break our own, never quiet till then. (4) Then we shall the more easily bind our malice which is ever lurking for the prey. (5) We must empty ourselves of all suspicion and discontent; which never wants fuel to foment, but feeds on shadows, whispers, lies, empty reports. All this is our spiritual exercise. We must practice it over and over again, and be ambitious to excel in it. III. THE METHOD WE MUST USE. Our progress in studies and endeavours is answerable to the rules we observe. Every man would be quiet in his own place, and pretendeth he is so when he is busy abroad. The covetous man is in his own place when he "joineth house to house"; the ambitious is in his place when he flieth out of it; never at rest till he reach that height where he cannot rest. The parasite, tale bearer, etc., all desire peace when they move as a tempest, and are at last lost in the ruin which they make. 1. There cannot be a truer method in our study than, to abide in our calling (1 Corinthians 7:20), as in our own proper sphere, castle, sanctuary, safe from those incursions and affronts which disturb us when we are out of it (2 Corinthians 12:20; 2 Corinthians 10:14; 1 Peter 4:15). (1) Christianity is the greatest peacemaker, and keeps every man to his own office (Romans 12:7, 8; Ephesians 6:7), which if every man would keep and make good there would be peace. When every part answers in its place, and raises itself no higher than that will bear; when the magistrate speaks by nothing but the laws, and the subject answers by nothing but his obedience; when the greater shadow the less, and the less help to fortify the greater; when every part does its part, and every member its office; then there is equality and harmony. (2) This is enjoined by nature, and is its method. Everything in its own place is at rest and nowhere else (Psalm 104:19). (3) This duty is to be urged and pressed — (a) From the grace and beseemingness of it. What garment can fit us better than our own? What motion more graceful than our own? Apelles with an awl, or the cobbler with his pencil; Midas with an asses' ears, or an ass in purple; Nero with his fiddle, or a fiddler with a crown, are monstrosities. (b) From the advantage it brings. That which becomes us, commonly furthers and promotes us. When we venture out of our place, we venture as at a lottery, where we draw many blanks before we have one prize; and when that is drawn it does not amount to a fortieth part of our venture. When we do our own business we find no difficulty but in the business itself, and no enemy but negligence; but when we break our limits and leap into other men's affairs, we meet with greater opposition. We meet with those who will be as violent to defend their station as we are to trouble it. 2. Let us shake off sloth and "work with our hands," for idleness is the mother and nurse of pragmatical curiosity. He that will be idle will be evil; and he that will do nothing will do that which he should not. This is the primordial law, as old as Adam, that we must work with our hands (Genesis 3:19). The food of our souls and bodies is God's gift, and He gives when He prescribes the means of procuring them (Psalm 24:1; Psalm 115:16). Labour is the price of God's gifts, and when we pay it down He puts them in our hands. What more unworthy an active creature than to bury himself alive in sloth? What more unbeseeming than to have feet and not to go, hands and not to use them? (1) The sluggard is a thief (Proverbs 5:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:11; Ephesians 4:28; Proverbs 12:27). Besides robbing others, he robs his own soul of the service the body was made to render. (2) There are devout sluggards other than monks and as idle, but not cloistered up, who do not hesitate to leave their duty to gratify the itch and wantonness of the ear. The husbandman may pray and praise the Lord at the plough tail. He that hears but one sermon and acts it over in his life, labouring honestly in his calling, is more acceptable to God than he that neglects his calling and hears one hundred a week. These are worse than infidels (1 Timothy 5:8). (3) We must not pass by the idle gallant. We see too many who have no calling, who neither sow nor reap, the cankers of their country, pinned to the commonwealth as their feathers are to their caps, for show, not for use, or rather as warts upon a man's hand, which grow up with it and deface it, or as idols, which, though dressed up and painted and gilt, are "nothing in the world." They may reply that they were born rich, and what they possess is theirs by inheritance. This may be true, but they were not born fools, nor were luxury and idleness entailed upon them at the same time. They were born men, and not as beasts of the field to eat, drink, and straggle up and down, and then fall to the ground. (A. Farindon, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. |
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