HOMILY V.] HOMILIES ON TITUS. 537 "That we should live godly in this present world." And what is this hope? what the reward of our labors ? " Looking for the blessed hope and the ap pearing." For nothing is more blessed and more desira ble than that appearing. Words are not able to represent it, the blessings thereof surpass our understanding. " Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour." Where are those who say that the Son is inferior to the Father? " Our great God and Saviour." He who saved us when we were enemies. What will He not do then when He has us approved ? 2 " The great God." When he says great with respect to God, he says it not comparatively but absolutely, 3 after Whom no one is great, since it is relative. For if it is relative, He is great by comparison, not great by nature. But now He is incomparably great. Ver. 14. " Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people." "Peculiar": that is, selected from the rest, and having nothing in common with them. "Zealous of good works." Dost thou see that our part is necessary, not merely works, but " zealous " ; we should with all alacrity, with a becoming earnestness, go forward in virtue. For whenwe were weighed down with evils, and incurably diseased, it was of His lov- ingkindness that we were delivered. But what follows after this is our part as well as His. Ver. 15. "These things speak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority." " These things speak and exhort." Do you see how he charges Timothy? " Reprove, re buke, exhort." But here, " Rebuke with all authority." For the manners of this people were more stubborn, wherefore he orders them to be rebuked more roughly, and with all au thority. For there are some sins, which ought to be prevented by command. We may with persuasion advise men to despise riches, to be meek, and the like. But the adulterer, the fornicator, the defrauder, ought to be brought to a better course by command. And those who are addicted to augury and divination, and the like, should be corrected " with all authority." Observe how he would have him insist on these things with independence, and with entire free dom. 4 1 This is the meaning, as Middleton has shown. The English Version, " The great God and our Saviour," is ambiguous. 2 Edd. OVK eii^oKiMoCi Tas Aa/3uii>. The order does not admit the sense, "seeing He received us when not approved," so that thi: would be, " how will he not punish us if he finds us not approved " : but B. has not the negative, which Downes had rejected. " Let no man despise thee." But Chap. iii. i. " Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers." What then ? even when men do evil, may we not revile them ? nay, but " to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man." Hear the exhortation, " To speak evil of no man." Our lips should be pure from reviling. For if our reproaches are true, it is not for us to utter them, but for the Judge to enquire into the mat ter. " For why," he says, " dost thou judge thy brother?" (Rom. xiv. 10.) But if they are not true, how great the fire.5 Hear what the thief says to his fellow-thief. " For we are also in the same condemnation." (Luke xxiii. 40.) We are running the same hazard." If thou revilest others, thou wilt soon fall into the same sins. Therefore the blessed Paul admonishes us : " Let him that standeth, take heed lest he fall." (i Cor. x. 12.) "To be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men." Unto Greeks and Jews, to the wicked and the evil. Forwhen he says, " Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall," he wakens their fears from the future ; but here, on the contrary, he exhorts them from the consideration of the past, and the same in what follows ; Ver. 3. " For we ourselves also were some times foolish." Thus also he does in his Epistle to the Gala- tians, where he says, " Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the ele ments of the world." (Gal. iv. 4.) Therefore he says, Revile no one, for such also thou wast thyself. " For we ourselves also were sometimes fool ish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." Therefore we ought to be thus to all, to be gently disposed. For he who was formerly in such a state, and has been delivered from it, ought not to reproach others, but to pray, to be thankful to Him who has granted both to him and them deliverance from such evils. Let no one boast ; for all have sinned. If then, doing well thyself, thou art inclined to revile others, consider thyown former life, and the uncertainty of the future, and restrain thy anger. 7 For if thou hast lived virtuously from thy earliest youth, yet nevertheless thou mayest have many sins ; and if thou hast not, as thou thinkest, consider that this is not the effect of thy virtue, but of the 3 i.e. hereafter. See Horn. i. on Tit. i. 4, p. 522, "how great a flame." 7 Colb. and Old Lat. " impulse."