V. 32.— But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions. Knowing the terrors of the Lord, the Apostle persuaded men, yet for love’ s sake he preferred beseeching them, and hence we find with what wisdom he mingles the most alarming warnings with the most affectionate recollections. We have a very striking example of this in the passage before us. A most awful description had been given of the doom of apostates. There were, perhaps, others approaching the brink of the precipice, and, as a nurse cherisheth her children, the Apostle recalls to their minds the trials they had gone through. He remembered the kindness of their youth, the love of their espousals, when after they were illuminated, when the Sun of Righteousness had arisen upon them with healing in his wings, they had endured a great fight of afflictions; they had braved persecution, and had not been moved by their afflictions.