XIX.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God, which worketh in you, both to will, and to do, of his good pleasure.-Philippians, ii. 12.

IN this passage there are several things, which want explaining.

Let us first consider what is meant by working out our own salvation. This text at first sight implies, what the apostle certainly never meant it should imply, that we have the power to work out our own salvation ourselves. If that had been the case, the christian atonement had been useless. Christ had died in vain.

The salvation of man is every where represented in scripture as depending on two things-his own endeavours; and the merits of Christ. Neither will save him without the other. It is very plain therefore, that when the apostle bids us work out our own salvation, he is not explaining to us the whole mode of our salvation, but is only enjoining us to do that part, which belongs to ourselves.

We next observe, that we are not only exhorted

to

to work out our own salvation, but to do it with fear and trembling. This expression is used in two or three other parts of scripture; and seems only to imply great care, caution, and anxiety. There is no difficulty however in this clause. It is not at all wonderful, that what depends on man, should be so liable to error, and negligence, as to demand the strongest exhortations to care and watchfulness.

BUT in the next clause there is somewhat more of difficulty. The reason given for our working out our own salvation with fear and trembling is, at first sight, rather peculiar. It is because God worketh in us both to will and to do. If God work out our salvation, where is the necessity of our working at all; or being in any fear and trembling about the matter? But we should consider, that as all the effectual efforts we can make of working out our own salvation depend on our listening to the holy spirit of God, it is certainly a mighty reason for our working with all the care and caution we can ; lest we should do any thing to prevent or impair its gracious admonitions.

We are told further, that God worketh in us both to will and to do, of his good pleasure. This appears, as if God wrought in us, in an arbitrary

manner, whereas this is directly opposite to the apostle's meaning. If God work in us, in an arbitrary manner, it would certainly be of no use for us to work for ourselves; which we are carefully instructed to do. The meaning therefore of the expression, is, not that it is God's good pleasure to work for one more than for another: but that it is his good pleasure, that he works for any of us at all.

XX.

The end of all things is at hand. Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer and above all things have fervent charity among yourselves. 1 Peter, iv. 7.

A SENSE hath sometimes been put on this passage, which appears to me a degrading one. Some commentators* refer the end of all things here mentioned, to the destruction of Jerusalem. For myself, I see nothing relative to the destruction of Jerusalem in the whole context. It appears to other expositors †, referring to a very different subject.

What indeed was the destruction of Jerusalem to those, whom St. Peter addressed? His was a catholic epistle, written to all christians, wherever dispersed, very few of whom probably had any concern with the destruction of Jerusalem.

Besides, I think this sense injures the apostle's reasoning. The destruction of Jerusalem is at hand therefore be sober. How so? What

*See PYLE, WHITBY, &c. See POLE, and DODDRIDGE. inducement

BB4

inducement to sobriety was the destruction of Je rusalem? If a man were necessarily involved in that destruction, to such a man it might be an inducement to sobriety. But all good christians were warned, over and over, of that great event; and ordered to fly from it. And accordingly we find from history, that all good christians did retire from Jerusalem at that time. The destruction of Jerusalem therefore could be no inducement to them.

As the end of all things, therefore, cannot, I think, be referred to the destruction of Jerusalem, so neither can it well be referred, as its obvious meaning implies, to the end of the world. The apostle would hardly call the end of the world an event at hand, which was at least removed to the distance of seventeen hundred years-neither was it an argument for sobriety.-He rather therefore seems to mean, by the end of all things, every man's death, which is to him the end of all things. This makes the sense both connect with the context and with itself.

The apostle begins the chapter by exhorting his converts (who seem chiefly to have been Gentiles) to overcome the world, after the example of Christ which is the only way, he tells them, to cease from sin, and lead a life consonant to the