It has been considered beneath the dignity of inspiration that there should be such a trivial record. But the criticism is singularly superficial.

I. THE APOSTLE'S DIRECTIONS. "The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments."

1. There is no evidence that the cloke was an ecclesiastical vestment; for there is no evidence of vestments being worn at all in the primitive Church. It was a thick cloke or mantle which the apostle needed in view of the approaching winter. His death might be near at hand, but, as its day was uncertain, it was natural he should provide against the winter cold.

2. It was a precious consignment that was left with Carpus, the Christian disciple, at Troas. It included, besides his cloke, books and parchments.

(1) Even an apostle could not do without books for his ministry.

(2) The parchments were more valuable than the books, containing, as they did probably, some of his own writings, if not the Holy Scriptures.

II. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE APOSTLE'S DIRECTIONS.

1. The request concerning his cloke implied that he was a poor man, as well as exposed to hardship and cold.

2. It suggests that he was partially deserted by the Yeoman Christians. Why could they not give him or lend him a cloke? What had become of the Roman Christians who met him, so many years before, fifty miles from the city, and gave him such a hearty welcome?

3. It proves his personal independence. He will not ask a cloke from any one. - T.C.

I. Let us LOOK AT THIS MEMORABLE CLOAK which Paul left with Carpus at Troas. Troas was a principal seaport-town of Asia Minor. Very likely the apostle Paul was seized at Troas on the second occasion of his being taken before the Roman emperor. The soldiers usually appropriated to themselves any extra garment in the possession of an arrested person, such things being considered as the perquisites of those who made the arrest. The apostle may have been forewarned of his seizure, and therefore prudently committed his few books and his outer garment, which made up all his household stuff, to the care of a certain honest man named Carpus. Although Troas was full six hundred miles' journey from Rome, yet the apostle Paul is too poor to purchase a garment, and so directs Timothy, as he is coming that way, to bring his cloak. He needs it much, for the sharp winter is coming on, and the dungeon is very, very chilly.

1. Let us perceive here with admiration, the complete self-sacrifice of the apostle Paul for the Lord's sake. Remember what the apostle once was. He was great, famous, and wealthy. Ah! how he emptied himself, and to what extremity of destitution was he willing to bring himself for Christ's name sake. The Saviour must die in absolute nakedness, and the apostle is made something like Him as he sits shivering in the cold.

2. We learn how utterly forsaken the apostle was by his friends. If he had not a cloak of his own, could not some of them lend him one? No; he is so utterly left, that although he is ready to die of ague in the dungeon, not a soul will lend or give him a cloak. What patience does this teach to those similarly situated I In your greatest trials do you find your fewest friends? Have those who once loved and respected you fallen asleep in Jesus? And have others turned out to be hypocritical and untrue? "Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me." So now, when man deserts you, God will be your Friend.

3. Our text shows the apostle's independence of mind. Why did not he borrow a cloak? Why did not he beg one? That is not the apostle's taste at all. He has a cloak, and though it is six hundred miles away, he will wait until it comes. A Christian man would do well to remember that it is never to his honour, though it is not always to his dishonour, to beg.

4. We see here, how very little the apostles thought of how they were dressed. Paul wants enough to keep him warm; he asks no more. When good Bishop Hooper was led out to be burnt, he had been long in prison, and his clothes were so gone from him, that he borrowed an old scholar's gown, full of rags and holes, that he might put it on, and went limping with pains of sciatica and rheumatism to the stake. We read of , that he lay in a damp, cold dungeon, and was refused anything to cover him in his nakedness and cold. Every saint is an image of Christ, but a poor saint is His express image, for Christ was poor. So, if you are brought to such a pitch with regard to poverty, that you scarcely know how to provide things decent by way of raiment, do not be dispirited; but say, "My Master suffered the same, and so did the apostle Paul"; and so take heart, and be of good cheer.

5. Paul's cloak at Troas shows me how mighty the apostle was to resist temptation. "I do not see that," you say. The apostle had the gift of miracles. Our Saviour, though able to work miracles, never wrought anything like a miracle on His own account; nor did His apostles. Miraculous gifts were entrusted to them with gospel ends and purposes, for the good of others, and for the promotion of the truth; but never for themselves.

II. We will LOOK AT HIS BOOKS. We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them.

1. Even an apostle must read. He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yes he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy, and so he says to every preacher, "Give thyself unto reading." The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted, lie who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

2. Paul herein is a picture of industry. He is in prison; he cannot preach: what will he do? As he cannot preach, he will read. As we read of the fishermen of old and their boats. The fishermen were gone out of them. What were they doing? Mending their nets. So if Providence has laid you upon a sick bed, and you cannot teach your class — if you cannot be working for God in public, mend your nets by reading. If one occupation is taken from you, take another, and let the books of the apostle read you a lesson of industry.

III. We now want to have AN INTERVIEW WITH THE APOSTLE PAUL HIMSELF, for we may learn much from him. The poor old man, without his cloak, wraps his ragged garment about him. Sometimes you see him kneeling down to pray, and then he dips his pen into the ink, and writes to his dear son Timothy. No companion, except Luke, who occasionally comes in for a short time. Now, how shall we find the old man? What sort of temper will he be in?

1. We find him full of confidence in the religion which has cost him so much.

2. But he is not only confident. You will notice that this grand old man is having communion with Jesus Christ in his sufferings.

3. Triumphant.

4. In expectation of a crown.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

Doubtless the cloak was an old companion; it may have been wetted many a time with the water torrents of Pamphylia, and whitened with the dust of the long Roman roads, and stained with the brine of shipwreck, when, on the rocky cliffs of Malta, the Euroclydon was driving the waters into foam; he may have slept in its warm shelter on the uplands under the canopy of the stars; it may have covered his trembling limbs, bruised with the brutal rods of the lictors, as he lay that night in the dungeon of Philippi; and now the old man thinks, as he calls himself, with a passing touch of self-pity, an ambassador in chains, and as he sits shivering in some gloomy cell under the walls, or, it may be, on the rocky floor of the Palladio, in the wintry nights that are coming on, he bethinks him of the old cloak, and asks Timothy to bring it with him. "The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments" — the Biblia and the papyrus books, few we may be sure and yet old friends. Perhaps he had bought some of those very books in the school of Gamaliel at Jerusalem, or had received some of them as presents from his wealthier converts. Perhaps among them may have been some of those books in which, as we can trace from his Epistles, he had read the poems of his native poet, Aratus, or some of the pamphlets Of Plato, or the wisdom of Solomon. The papyrus books, then, "but especially the parchments," that is, especially the works inscribed on vellum — what were these? Was there any document amongst them which would have been useful to prove his rights as a Roman citizen? Were there any precious rolls of Isaiah and the Psalms, or the lesser prophets, which father or mother may have given him as a life-long treasure (for in those days parchments were valuable things)in the far-off days when, little dreaming of all that awaited him, he played as a happy boy in the dear old Tarsian home? Dreary and long are the days; longer and drearier still are the evenings in that Roman dungeon, and often the rude legionary soldier, who detests to be chained to a sick and suffering Jew, is coarse and cruel to him. And he cannot always be engaged in the sweet session of silent thought, even in the sweet hopes of the future or the remembrance of the past. He knows Scripture well, but it will be a deep joy to read once more how David and Isaiah, in all their troubles, learned, like his own poor self, to suffer and be strong. Who, as he reads this last message, can help remembering the touching letter written from the damp cells of his prison by our own noble martyr, William Tyndale, one of the greatest of our translators of the English Bible: "I entreat your lordship," he writes, "and that by the Lord Jesus, that, if I was to remain here for the winter, you would beg the Commissary to be so kind as to send me, from the things of mine which he has, a warmer cap; I feel the cold painfully in my head; also a warmer cloke, for the one I have is very thin; also some cloth to patch my leggings. My overcoat is worn out, my shirts even are threadbare. The Commissary has a woollen shirt of mine if he will be so kind as to send it. But most of all I entreat your kindness to do your best with the Commissary to be so good as to send me my Hebrew Bible, grammar, and vocabulary, that I may spend my time in that pursuit. — William Tyndale." The noble martyr was not thinking of St. Paul; but history repeats itself, and what is this fragment from the letter which he, too, wrote so soon before his death, but the same thing as "the cloke which I left at Troas with Carpus, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments"?

I. Does it not show us that this great and holy apostle was first a man like ourselves; a tried and suffering man with human wants and human sympathies; aye, and human limitations, and with transcendentally severer trials, yet with no greater privileges than we enjoy? Does he not call to us with more clear encouragement, "Faint not, dear brother, dear sister in the Lord; I, too, was weak; I, too, was tempted; but thou, no less than I, canst do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us"?

II. Then, in what a lovely light of manliness, good sense, and contentment does this place the apostle's character! The sword, he well knows, is hanging over his head whose flash shall slay him, but life is life. Until the Lord calls him, there is no reason at all why life should not go on, not only in its quiet duties, but also with such small blessings as it yet may bring. There is no flaring fanaticism, no exaggerated self-denial, here. The wintry nights will be cold and dull; there is no sort of merit in making them colder and duller. That is why he writes for the cloak and the dear old books. God, for our good, sends us all trials enough to bear, but it is only for our good. There is not the least reason — it is not even right — to create tortures and miseries for ourselves which God has not sent us. We are allowed to take and we ought to take every harmless and every innocent gift which God permits to us, and to thank Him for it.

III. Then, look at the matter in one more light. What is it that a life of ceaseless ungrudging labour has left to St. Paul? What earthly possessions has the apostle gained as the sum total of services to the world, unparalleled in intensity and unparalleled in self-denial? Perhaps he wants to leave some small memento behind him, some trifling legacy by which some true heart may remember him "ere the rippled sea of life flows smooth once more over his nameless grave." Just as the hermit St. Antony left the great bishop St. his one sole possession, which was his sheep-skin cloak, so St. Paul, perhaps, might have liked to leave to the kind and faithful Luke, or to the true and gentle Timothy, the cloak, the books, the parchments. But, oh, how small a result of earth's labours, if earth were everything, worth far less than a dancer gets for a single figure in a theatre, or an acrobat for a fling on the trapeze; not worth one-millionth part of what a patent brings in for some infinitesimal invention! Oh, the work and the reward are not the same for eternity. It is not for such rewards that the great high service of the world is done. Earth's rewards, observe, have marvellously small relations to intrinsic values. The singer who has a fine note in her voice may blaze in diamonds worth a king's ransom. But. the thinker who has raised the aim and nature of nations may die unnoticed; and the poet, who has enriched the blood of the earth, may be left to starve. Paul pours out his whole life as a libation on God's altar, in agonies for his fellow-men; he cleanses the customs, he brightens the hope, he purifies the life of men; he adds, for centuries, to the untold ennoblement of generations; what is the sum total of his earthly reward? What is the inventory of all his earthly possessions as he sits upon his prison floor? Just "the cloke that I left at Troas, and the books, but especially the parchments." Would that content you? Do you think that he sighed or was envious of evildoers, when he contrasted his solo possessions — that cloak and those few books, which were all that he had — with the jewels of the adventurer Agrippa, or the purple of the execrable Nero? Not one whir. They were not what he had aimed at. He sat loose to those earthly interests on which men's minds are sometimes to the last so deplorably and so hideously fixed. No; better as it is. He will thank God for such warmth as he may find in the cloak and such consolation as the books may bring him, and, for the rest, he will trust death, and he will throw himself on God.

(Archdeacon Farrar.)

of his own making or collecting: these are highly prized by. students. Julius Caesar, being forced to swim for his life, held his commentaries m one hand above water, and swam to land with the other.

(J. Trapp.)

An incident of my own experience has often interested me, and may not be without interest to you. I learnt one evening in London — it was at an evening party at which many persons were assembled — from a friend of mine that a friend of his and mine was lying dangerously, and, as it turned out, fatally ill in his chambers in the Temple. That friend of mine was the late Sir David Dundas, who was for many years in Parliament, and with whose friendship for many years I was favoured. I went down the next morning to ask after him, and, if it were proper, to see him. He invited me, through his servant, into his room, and I found him upon his bed of sickness, feeble, not able to talk much, and scarcely able to turn himself in his bed. We had some little conversation, and in the course of it he offered to me something like a benediction. He said — I remember his words very well — "I have never pretended to be a learned man or a scholar, but God has given me a great love for books." He then referred to the writings of the celebrated Lord Bacon, and taking a quotation from a letter which that eminent person had written to a friend, he turned to me and said, "May God lead you by the hand." That was one of the passages fixed in his mind from his reading of the words of Lord Bacon. Now, that was a solemn hour with my friend — if I may quote a very expressive and beautiful line from one of Scotland's real, but one of her minor poets, Michael Bruce — "When dim in his breast life's dying taper burns." At that solemn hour, reviewing his past life, reviewing the enjoyment he had partaken of, he thanked God for having given him "a great love of books." Two days after that — I think the second or third after that interview — that "dying taper" was extinguished, and my friend passed into the unseen world.

(John Bright.)

Truths which it has taken years to glean are therein at once freely but carefully communicated. We enjoy communion with the mind, though not with the person of the writer. Thus the humblest man may surround himself by the wisest and best spirits of past and present ages. No one can be solitary who possesses a book; he owns a friend that will instruct him in moments of leisure or of necessity. It is only necessary to turn over the leaves, and the fountain at once gives forth its streams. You may seek costly furniture for your homes, fanciful ornaments for your mantelpieces, and rich carpets for your floors; but, after the absolute necessaries for a home. give me books as at once the cheapest, and certainly the most useful and abiding embellishments.

(Family Friend.)

What books you will choose as your intimate friends will depend upon your humour and taste. Dr. Guthrie's choice seemed to me charming. He told me that he read through four books every year — the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," four of Sir Waiter Scott's novels, which he reckoned as one book, and a fourth book, which I have forgotten, but I think it was "Robinson Crusoe." You will choose some books because they soothe and quiet you; some because they are as invigorating as mountain air; some because they amuse you by the shrewdness of their humour; some because they give wings to your fancy; some because they kindle your imagination.

(R. W. Dale.)

Exile and imprisonment are among the darkest tragedies of existence. But , banished from the luxurious and learned capital to the barbarians of Tomis, in the inhospitable waste along the Euxine, stripped of property, wife, and children, saved himself from despair by labour, and, surrounded by hopeless savagery, produced some of the finest of his works. , the last and noblest of the ancients, before the darkness of the Middle Ages fell on Europe, lying under unjust sentence of death in the tower of Pavia, forbidden books, intercourse with fellow-scholars, preserved his sanity and fortitude to face a cruel death by writing "The Consolation of Philosophy." "Don Quixote," which convulsed a nation with merriment, was the solace of an undeserved imprisonment, which bodily suffering made more unendurable. The dungeon of Walter Raleigh was his calm study. In the condemned cell Madame Roland, less moved by the certainty of her own fate than by apprehension for her beloved husband, fortified her mind against possible madness by the composition of her memoirs. Lady Jane Grey and Mary Queen of Scots beguiled imprisonment of half its terrors with hard study and careful writing.

(Harper's Bazaar.)

Newman tells us (in 1840) how he kept an old blue cloak which he got in 1823, and "had an affection for it," because it had "nursed me through all my illness. I have it still. I have brought it up here to Littlemore, and on some cold nights I have had it on my bed. I have so few things to sympathise with me that I take to cloaks."

A shawl with a strange history was buried with the late Professor Cocker, of Michigan University. Shortly before his death, Dr. Cocker called the attention of his pastor to a worn and faded shawl spread on his bed, and requested to have it wrapped around his body and buried with him. He had made it himself when a young man in England; had worn it in all his journeyings to and from over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, when residing in Australia, when he escaped from the Fiji Islanders as they were preparing to kill and roast him, and when he was ship wrecked. It accompanied him when he landed in the United States, and even clad the remains of his dead child when, penniless and disheartened, he first arrived in Adrian. It is not surprising that a garment with such associations had, though worn and faded, become precious to him, and his desire that his body should be enshrouded in it is easily understood.

John Welch, the old Scotch minister, used to put a plaid across his bed on cold nights, and some one asked him why he put that there. He said: "Oh, sometimes in the night I want to sing the praises of Jesus, and I get down and pray. Then I just take that plaid and wrap it around me to keep myself from the cold."

Winter was coming on, and his somewhat emaciated frame was less able than formerly to withstand the cold. He remembers that when he was last at Troas, he left his heavy overcoat there, in charge of his friend Carpus, probably because he preferred to take a portion of his journey on foot. He will be sure to need it as the weather becomes more severe, so he requests Timothy, who is now at Ephesus, to bring it with him when he comes west to Italy.

I. TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODILY HEALTH. Young men are often particularly neglectful on this matter. Many is the man whose constitution has been undermined for life by his own carelessness as a youth in respect of food, rest, and clothing.

II. MAINTAIN THE CULTURE OF YOUR MIND. Do not be so engrossed with business, that you rarely open an instructive book. Do not forget that your intellect wants to be stimulated and fed, as it cannot be if you think of nothing but bills, and accounts, and orders, and invoices, and what is vulgarly and expressively called "shop." A sailor, who had circumnavigated the globe with Captain Cook, was pressed by his friends to give them some account of the wonders he had seen, and at last consented to do so on a certain evening. A large and eager company assembled, in expectation of a great intellectual treat; when the rough mariner thus began and ended his description of his travels: "I have been round the world with Captain Cook, and all that I saw was the sky above me and the water beneath me." And, truth to tell, there are young men who show little more discernment than that blunt sailor. They have no intellectual ambition, no thirst for knowledge, no passionate desire for self-improvement. If business is going on well, and their salary is regularly paid, and they have enough to eat and drink, they are content. There is no systematic study; no training of the mind, no whetting or sharpening of the intellectual faculties. I warn you, young men, against so ignoble a use of what is, in some respects, the best part of life. Lord Bacon's opinion upon books he thus expressed: "That histories make men wise, poets, witty; mathematics, subtle; natural science, deep; moral philosophy, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to debate." As you would possess such qualities, then, your reading must be catholic and extensive.

III. ESPECIALLY SEE TO THE WELFARE OF THE SOUL. However limited be your reading, see that the Bible has its rightful place. It is said that in the British Museum alone there are so many books that the mere mechanical reading of them would demand a thousand years. So you cannot read everything — you must make your selection; but oh! let this peerless volume reign supreme in your library. Let it be the monarch of your bookshelves. There is an old Latin proverb, which is good enough so long as the Bible is out of account, "Cave ab homine unius libri — i.e., Beware of a man of one book." But when that one book is the Book of God, the counsel may be inverted; for there is no man more to be sought after than the man who daily feeds from this table, and drinks from this well. "Especially the parchments." Let no general reading, however excellent and instructive, elbow this to one side. Be diligent students of God's Word, "and," as Dr. Doddridge said, "you shall be excellent scholars ten thousand years hence"; whereas, however proficient in secular knowledge, if the Bible be neglected, you shall be unfitted for the occupations of the redeemed in heaven. You have a richer Bible than ever Paul possessed. Those clumsy, greasy "parchments," written by laborious scribes, would form a strange contrast to such triumphs of modern skill as are now sent out in millions from the great repository in Queen Victoria Street; and you can place in your waistcoat-pocket treasures of inspiration, which in the apostle's time would have taxed the strength of a man to carry. The greater, then, your responsibility. Oh, make good use of your Bibles! Above all, accept without delay the Divine salvation revealed.

(J. T. Davidson, D. D.)

We have here —

1. A striking illustration of the manner of Divine inspiration. The divinest communications of truth appear in connection with things of personal and secular concern.

2. A beautiful display of spiritual self-possession.

3. An affecting utterance of human needs. With all his present principles, past achievements, and future destiny, he has yet necessities as well as resources. Spirituality did not destroy his physical sensibilities; heroic courage and independence did not deaden his social affections; supernatural illumination did not make him depreciate the ordinary means of information and excitement.

I. PHYSICAL. "The cloak." Paul needed a garment, and wished for one. To slight the body is a mark of heretics; to destroy it is to be a murderer. What a world of need is caused by its possession! What urgent demands does it make on care and effort, skill and labour! But the thought here is, that the body is a source of trouble, inconvenience, dependence; — that small things may lead to its discomfort and injury. Let but the ordinary laws of nature be broken; let but the ordinary operations of life be suspended; let there be but a little accident, a slight mistake, a temporary forgetfulness; and how bitterly are we made to feel the pressure and responsibility of our material charge! We cannot afford to trifle with or ignore it. The most spiritual and independent must remember the mislaid or forgotten dress.

II. THE SOCIAL. "When thou comest." "Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me." Man is a social being — made to feel for and with his fellow-men. He is revealed, regaled, renewed by fellowship. It is a lamp, a feast, a buttress of his being. It is everything whereby he can be ministered unto, or help to minister. Fellowship in woe, in joy, in work, in thought, is a rich delight, and in most cases a great necessity.

III. THE SPIRITUAL. "The books, especially the parchments." We know not what these were, but are sure they were books tending to cultivation of mind and heart. What a field of thought is opened up by these words I See the ministry of minds; see their working and results preserved and propagated by the use of letters; see the labours and rewards of some made the inheritance of others; and all this beyond the sphere Of personal presence and immediate influence see it done for men and ages unborn. What a debt we owe to books! What information and stimulus! what means of growth! what instruments of knowledge, joy, and power! "Especially the parchments." Some think these were a kind of commonplace book, in which the apostle put his own reflections and precious passages met with in his reading. If so, we have an important thought. That is most a man's own which he has originated, or thoroughly appropriated by meditation. Books are nothing but as they are "read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested." Lessons:

1. The subject teaches humility.

2. Gratitude.

3. Benevolence.

4. Self-interest.

(A. J. Morris.)

It appears to us that Paul's request for his cloak left at Troas affords an undesigned proof of a striking feature in his character — viz., that sobriety of mind which, on the one hand, never separates the things of earth from the things of heaven; nor, on the other hand, ever esteems spiritual-mindedness, and the ardent contemplation of unseen things, to be inconsistent with attention to the ordinary ongoings, the common duties, and little details of every-day life. Paul was not further removed from the worldliness which never seeks to ascend in heart to heaven, than from the fanaticism and morbid pietism we sometimes witness, which only condescends to visit earth. The "light of life" which he enjoyed filled and blended into one common glory the things of earth and heaven, of time and of eternity! At one moment, for instance, we hear him exclaim (vers. 6-8). Yet, when his course was being finished, his death near, his reward sure, and while he sees the glories of heaven opening before his enraptured eye, it is even then that he expresses his anxiety to obtain his cloak from Treas. What evidence does this coincidence afford of calmness, peace, and sobriety of mind! Such we have sometimes witnessed, too, in aged Christians of long experience, who, on their deathbeds, could gaze upon the unseen world of everlasting rest, on which they were entering with perfect peace and full assured hope, while, at the same time, they attended with cheerful spirit to those common household duties and family arrangements from which, in person, they were soon to be for ever severed.

(Edinburgh Christian Magazine.)

Alexander, Aquila, Claudia, Crescens, Demas, Erastus, Eubulus, Linus, Luke, Mark, Onesiphorus, Paul, Prisca, Priscilla, Pudens, Timothy, Titus, Trophimus, TychicusCorinth, Dalmatia, Ephesus, Galatia, Miletus, Thessalonica, TroasBehind, Books, Bring, Carpus, Carpus's, Cloak, Cloke, Coat, Comest, Especially, Papers, Parchments, Scrolls, Specially, Troas, Tro'as1. He exhorts him to preach the Word with all care and diligence;
6. certifies him of the nearness of his death;
9. wills him to come speedily unto him, and to bring Marcus with him;
14. warns him to beware of Alexander the metalworker.
16. informs him what had befallen him at his first answering;
19. and soon after he concludes.

2 Timothy 4:13

     5108   Paul, life of
     5144   cloak
     5232   book
     5387   leisure, pastimes

2 Timothy 4:9-13

     5976   visiting

Truth Hidden when not Sought After.
"They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."--2 Tim. iv. 4. From these words of the blessed Apostle, written shortly before he suffered martyrdom, we learn, that there is such a thing as religious truth, and therefore there is such a thing as religious error. We learn that religious truth is one--and therefore that all views of religion but one are wrong. And we learn, moreover, that so it was to be (for his words are a prophecy) that professed Christians, …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

A Last Look-Out
We have mainly to do with the second description which he gives of his death. What does he say when the hour that this grim monster must be grappled with is at hand? I do not find him sad. Those who delight in gloomy poetry have often represented death in terrible language. "It is hard," says one-- To feel the hand of death arrest one's steps, Throw a chill blight on all one's budding hopes, And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades." And another exclaims-- "O God, it is a fearful thing To see the …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Sermon for St. Peter's Day
Of brotherly rebuke and admonition, how far it is advisable and seemly or not, and especially how prelates and governors ought to demean themselves toward their subjects. 2 Tim. iv. 2.--"Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine." THIS is the lesson which St. Paul gives to his beloved disciple Timothy, whom he set to rule over men, and it equally behoves all pastors of souls and magistrates, to possess these two things,--long-suffering and doctrine. First, it is their office to …
Susannah Winkworth—The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler

Demas
BY REV. PRINCIPAL DAVID ROWLANDS, B.A. Many a man who figures in history, is only known in connection with some stupendous fault--some mistake, some folly, or some sin--that has given him an unenviable immortality. Mention his name, and the huge blot by which his memory is besmirched starts up before the mind in all its hideousness. Take Cain, for example. He occupies the foremost rank as regards fame; his name is one of the first that children learn to lisp; and yet what do we know about him? …
George Milligan—Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known

Some Other Writers of the New Testament
[Illustration: (drop cap L) Ancient engraving of man reading scroll] Let us now look at the rest of the books which make up the New Testament. In the days when Paul preached at Athens, the old capital of Greece, much of the ancient splendour and power of the Greek people had passed away, for the Romans had conquered their country, and they were no longer a free nation. Yet, although the Greeks had been forced to yield to Rome, their conquerors knew that the Grecian scholars and artists were far …
Mildred Duff—The Bible in its Making

Epistle Liii. To John, Bishop.
To John, Bishop. Gregory to John, Bishop of Constantinople [1503] . Though consideration of the case moves me, yet charity also impels me to write, since I have written once and again to my most holy brother the lord John, but have received no letter from him. For some one else, a secular person, addressed me under his name; seeing that, if those were really his letters, I have not been vigilant, having believed of him something far different from what I have found. For I had written about the …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Paul's Departure and Crown;
OR, AN EXPOSITION UPON 2 TIM. IV. 6-8 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR How great and glorious is the Christian's ultimate destiny--a kingdom and a crown! Surely it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what ear never heard, nor mortal eye ever saw? the mansions of the blest--the realms of glory--'a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' For whom can so precious an inheritance be intended? How are those treated in this world who are entitled to so glorious, so exalted, so eternal, …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

How the Meek and the Passionate are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 17.) Differently to be admonished are the meek and the passionate. For sometimes the meek, when they are in authority, suffer from the torpor of sloth, which is a kindred disposition, and as it were placed hard by. And for the most part from the laxity of too great gentleness they soften the force of strictness beyond need. But on the other hand the passionate, in that they are swept on into frenzy of mind by the impulse of anger, break up the calm of quietness, and so throw into …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

A Fulfilled Aspiration
'So that I might finish my course....'--ACTS xx. 24. 'I have finished my course....'--2 TIM. iv. 7. I do not suppose that Paul in prison, and within sight of martyrdom, remembered his words at Ephesus. But the fact that what was aspiration whilst he was in the very thick of his difficulties came to be calm retrospect at the close is to me very beautiful and significant. 'So that I may finish my course,' said he wistfully; whilst before him there lay dangers clearly discerned and others that had all …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

The Glory of Jesus and Mary.
Before entering upon the contemplation of the excellent glory which surrounds the blessed in heaven, we must endeavor to form a correct idea of God's grace, which enabled them to perform the great and noble actions we are now to consider. They were all, except Jesus and Mary, conceived in sin, and, therefore, subject to the same temptations that daily assail us. They never could have triumphed and reached the supernatural glory which now surrounds them, had they been left to their own natural strength, …
F. J. Boudreaux—The Happiness of Heaven

Exhortation to Workers and Ministers
In conclusion I feel that the Lord would be pleased for me to say a few words for the encouragement of young ministers and workers. In my work in the ministry I have come through many varied experiences that, I trust, will be helpful to you in the trials through which you will have to pass before you get settled in the Lord's work. The first difficulty met by most young ministers and workers is in regard to their call. Unless the call be clear and definite, they are likely to be in some doubt as …
Mary Cole—Trials and Triumphs of Faith

Author's Introduction,
In Which the Sources of This History Are Principally Treated A history of the "Origin of Christianity" ought to embrace all the obscure, and, if one might so speak, subterranean periods which extend from the first beginnings of this religion up to the moment when its existence became a public fact, notorious and evident to the eyes of all. Such a history would consist of four books. The first, which I now present to the public, treats of the particular fact which has served as the starting-point …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

Meditations of the Blessed State of the Regenerate Man after Death.
This estate has three degrees:--1st, From the day of death to the resurrection; 2d, From the resurrection to the pronouncing of the sentence; 3d, After the sentence, which lasts eternally. As soon as ever the regenerate man hath yielded up his soul to Christ, the holy angels take her into their custody, and immediately carry her into heaven (Luke xvi. 22), and there present her before Christ, where she is crowned with a crown of righteousness and glory; not which she hath deserved by her good works, …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Perseverance
'Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.' I Pet 1:1. The fifth and last fruit of sanctification, is perseverance in grace. The heavenly inheritance is kept for the saints, and they are kept to the inheritance. I Pet 1:1. The apostle asserts a saint's stability and permanence in grace. The saint's perseverance is much opposed by Papists and Arminians; but it is not the less true because it is opposed. A Christian's main comfort depends upon this doctrine of perseverance. Take …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Conflict and Comfort.
"For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts may be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ."--COL. ii. 1, 2. Although he was in prison the Apostle was constantly at work for his Master, and not least of all at the work of prayer. If ever the words …
W. H. Griffith Thomas—The Prayers of St. Paul

Concerning God's Purpose
1. God's purpose is the cause of salvation. THE third and last thing in the text, which I shall but briefly glance at, is the ground and origin of our effectual calling, in these words, "according to his purpose" (Eph. i. 11). Anselm renders it, According to his good will. Peter Martyr reads it, According to His decree. This purpose, or decree of God, is the fountainhead of our spiritual blessings. It is the impulsive cause of our vocation, justification, glorification. It is the highest link in …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Second Missionary Journey
Scripture, Acts 15:36-18:22 +The Inception+--After the Jerusalem Council Paul returned to Antioch where he spent some time, "teaching and preaching the Word of the Lord with many others also." "And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren i+The Companions+ (Acts 15:37-40).--Barnabas proposed to take John Mark, his nephew, with them on this second journey. But Paul strenuously objected, basing his objection on the ground that this young man had deserted them …
Henry T. Sell—Bible Studies in the Life of Paul

How the Gospels came to be Written
[Illustration: (drop cap B) Early Christian Lamp] But how did the story of the Saviour's life on earth come to be written? We have seen that many years passed before any one thought of writing it down at all. The men and women who had really seen Him, who had listened to His voice, looked into His face, and who knew that He had conquered death and sin for evermore, could not sit down to write, for their hearts were all on fire to speak. But as the years passed, the number of those who had seen Christ …
Mildred Duff—The Bible in its Making

Because There is not a Single Scripture in the Church Epistles Which, Rightly Interpreted, Teaches a Partial Rapture.
How could there be? Scripture cannot contradict itself. If the Pauline Epistles explicitly teach and expressly affirm that "all shall be changed in a moment," that "they that are Christ's at His coming shall be raised from the dead, that "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ" and that when our lord returns to the earth to be glorified in His saints He shall be "admired in all them that believe" then these same Church Epistles can not teach that a part of the Church only shall be …
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return

Curiosity a Temptation to Sin.
"Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."--Proverbs iv. 14, 15. The chief cause of the wickedness which is every where seen in the world, and in which, alas! each of us has more or less his share, is our curiosity to have some fellowship with darkness, some experience of sin, to know what the pleasures of sin are like. I believe it is even thought unmanly by many persons (though they may not like to say …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

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