1 Tim. 5: 9. Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man: 10. Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work. 11. But the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; 12. Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. 13. And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busy bodies, speaking things which they ought not.

The word rendered damnation in this passage is often rendered judgment and condemnation; and the meaning may be that the younger widows were found to wax wanton and fall into condemnation, and for a time at least to disgrace their profession by casting off their first faith; or it may mean that they were apt to be found among those who renounced the profession of the true faith which they at first professed. They were young widows. Uneducated as heathen women were and are, and it could not be surprising that many of this class should make a spurious profession and afterwards cast off their profession through wantonness, and disgrace their profession. The apostle therefore warns Timothy against too hasty a reception of them or against having too early a confidence in the reality of their piety.

As every one knows that Dr. Adam Clark was a strong opponent of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, I give his views of this passage from his commentary. See Clark on verses 3, 9, 11, and 12:

"Verse 3. Honor widows that are widows indeed. One meaning of the word Timao, to honor, is to support, sustain, &c., Matt. xv. 45., and here it is most obviously to be taken in this sense. Provide for those widows especially which are widows indeed; persons truly destitute, being aged and helpless; and having neither children nor friends to take care of them; and who behave as becometh their destitute state.

Verse 9. Taken into the number. Let her not be taken into the list of those for which the church must provide. But some think that the apostle means the list of those who were deaconesses in the church; and that no widow was to be admitted into the rank who did not answer to the following character.

Verse 11. But the younger widows refuse. Do not admit those into this office who are under sixty years of age. Pro

bably those who were received into such a list, promised to abide in their widowhood. But as young or comparatively young women, might have both occasion and temptations to re-marry, and so break their engagement to Christ, they should not be admitted. Not that the apostle condemns their remarrying as a crime in itself, but because it was contrary to their engagement.

Wax wonton. Katastreniasosi, from kata intensive, and streniao, to act in a luxurious or wonton manner. The word is supposed to be derived from sterein, to remove, and enia, the rein; and is a metaphor taken from a pampered horse, from whose mouth the rein has been removed; so that there is nothing to check or confine him. The metaphor is plain enough, and the application easy.

Verse 12. Having damnation. In the sense in which we use this word, I am satisfied the apostle never intended it. It is likely that he refers here to some promise or engagement which they made when taken on the list already mentioned; and now they have the guilt of having violated that promise; this is the krima, or condemnation, of which the apostle speaks.

They have cast off their first faith. By pledging their fidelity to a husband, they have cast off their fidelity to Christ; as a married life and their previous engagement are incompatible. Dr. Macknight translates these two verses thus:-But the younger widows reject; for when they cannot endure Christ's rein, they will marry; incurring condemnation, because they have. put away their first fidelity."

This passage does not assert that any real christian had fallen and been lost, and the most that can be made of it is that they may, or can do so, and that there is danger of apostacy. This I fully admit and maintain; that is, that humanly speaking there is danger, which is the only sense in which there is danger that any event may be different from what it in fact turns out to be. I have already said and shall have occasion to say again, that there is, and can be no danger in the sense of real uncertainty that any event whatever will be different from what it turns out to be, and from what God foresees that it will be. But in the sense of probability, judging from the natural course of events as they appear to us, there may be a high degree of probability and therefore the utmost danger that things may be different from what in fact they turn out to be, and from what God foresees that they will be, and from what they really would be were it not for the warnings and threatening and a consequent sense of danger.

Again: it has been said that from Christ's letters to the churches in Asia, recorded in Revelations we learn that those churches, some of them at least, were in a state of apostacy from God, and that from the fact that the judgments of God annihilated those churches, there is reason to believe that the apostacy was complete and final, and their destruction certain. To this I reply, that those letters were written to churches as such, just as the prophets spoke of the Jewish Church as such. The things which the prophets declare of the Jewish church were declared of them as a body of professed saints, some generations of whom had more, and some less, real piety. The prophets would rebuke one generation for their backsliding and apostacy, without meaning to represent that the particular individuals they addressed were ever true saints, but meaning only that the body as such was in a degenerate and apostate state compared with what the body as such had been in former times. So Christ writes to the churches of Asia and reproves them for their backslidden and apostate condition, asserts that they had fallen, had left their first love &c., from which, however, we are not to infer that he intended to say this of those who had been truly converted as individuals, but merely that those churches as bodies had fallen, and were now composed of members as a whole who were in the state of which he complained; just as we say of the Roman Catholic church, or of the Lutheran or German Reformed, or of other bodies in which piety is at a low ebb, that they have left their first love, &c. In saying this we should not mean to be understood as affirming that the individuals who now compose those churches were at any time in a better spiritual state than they are at present, but only that the churches as such are fallen from what those bodies once were, and had left the love and zeal and obedience once manifested in those churches.

The churches of Asia were doubtless when first gathered by the Apostles and primitive ministers, full of faith, and zeal and love. But things had changed. Many of the members had changed and perhaps every member who had originally composed those churches was dead previous to the time when these letters were written. However this may be, there had doubtless been great changes in the membership of those churches, and since they were evidently addressed as bodies, from what is said it cannot be fairly inferred that the same persons addressed had fallen from a state of high spirituality into backsliding or apostacy, but that that was true only of

the then present membership when compared with the former membership and state of the churches. These letters can not be justly relied upon as disproving the doctrine in question; for the utmost that can be made of them is that those churches as bodies were at the time in a state of declension.

The passages we have examined are so far as I know the principal ones upon which reliance has been placed to disprove the doctrine in question. I have read over attentively several times the views of Mr. Fletcher in his Scripture Scales, and the passages quoted by him to disprove this doctrine. His chief reliance is manifestly upon the numerous passages that imply the possibility and danger of falling rather than on any passages that unequivocally teach that any have or will utterly fall. I am not aware that any respectable writer has laid much stress upon other passages than those I have examined as expressly teaching or unequivocally implying the fact of the fall and ruin of real saints. There may be such writers and such passages as those of which I speak; but if there are, I do not recollect to have seen them.

Before I proceed to state the main arguments in support of the doctrine in question I would remark that I have felt greater hesitancy in forming and expressing my views upon this than upon almost any other question in theology. I have read whatever I could find upon both sides of this question, and have uniformly found myself dissatisfied with the arguments on both sides. After very full and repeated discussions I feel better able to make up and express an opinion upon the subject than formerly. I have at some periods of my ministry been nearly on the point of coming to the conclusion that the doctrine is not true. But I could never find myself able to give a satisfactory reason for the rejection of the doctrine. Apparent facts that have come under my observation have sometimes led me seriously to doubt the soundness of this doctrine; but I can not see, and the more I examine the more unable I find myself to see how a denial of it can be reconciled with the scriptures.

I shall give the substance of what I regard as the scripture proof of this doctrine, and beg the reader to make up his opinion for himself by a careful examination. Perhaps what has been satisfactory to my mind may not be so to the minds of others. Let no one believe this or any other doctrine upon my authority, but "prove all things and hold fast that which is good."

LECTURE LXXVIII.

PERSEVERANCE OF SAINTS.

PERSEVERANCE OP THE SAINTS PROVED.

V. I COME NOW TO A CONSIDERATION OF THE PRINCIPAL

ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THIS DOCTRINE.

But before I proceed to the direct proof of the doctrine it is proper to remark:

1. That its truth can not be inferred from the nature of regeneration. It is true as has been said, and as will be farther shown that perseverance is an attribute or characteristic of christian character, but this does not necessarily result from the nature of regeneration, but from the indwelling Spirit of Christ. It has been common for that class of writers and theologians who hold what is called the Taste Scheme of regeneration to infer the truth of this doctrine from the nature of the change that constitutes the new birth. In this they have been entirely consistent. If, as they suppose, regeneration consists in a change in the constitution of the mind, in the implanting or infusion of a new constitutional taste, relish, or appetite, if it consists in or implies a change back of all voluntary action, and such a change as to secure and necessitate a change of voluntary action; why, then it is consistent to infer from such a change the perseverance of the saints, unless it can be made to appear that either God, or Satan, or voluntary sin can change the nature back again. If in regeneration the nature is really changed, if there be some new appetite, or taste implanted, some holy principle implanted or infused into the constitution, why, then it must follow that they will persevere by a physical law of the new nature or constitution. I see not how in this case they could even be the subjects of temporary backsliding, unless the new appetite should temporarily fail, as does sometimes our appetite for food. But if this may be, yet if regeneration consists in or implies a new creation of something that is not voluntary, but involuntary, a creation of a new nature instead of a new character, I admit that perse