present blessings, and to ground our joy on earth and on earthly things, as though our happiness
were based on them; and he bids us to raise our minds up to heaven, that we may possess solid and
full joy. If our joy is derived from the hope of future life, then patience will grow up in adversities;
for no kind of sorrow will be able to overwhelm this joy. Hence these two things are closely
connected together, that is, joy derived from hope, and patience in adversities. No man will indeed
calmly and quietly submit to bear the cross, but he who has learnt to seek his happiness beyond
this world, so as to mitigate and allay the bitterness of the cross with the consolation of hope.
But as both these things are far above our strength, we must be instant in prayer, and continually
call on God, that he may not suffer our hearts to faint and to be pressed down, or to be broken by
adverse events. But Paul not only stimulates us to prayer, but expressly requires perseverance; for
we have a continual warfare, and new conflicts daily arise, to sustain which, even the strongest are
not equal, unless they frequently gather new rigor. That we may not then be wearied, the best
remedy is diligence in prayer.
13.Communicating to the necessities,^394 etc. He returns to the duties of love; the chief of which
is to do good to those from whom we expect the least recompense. As then it commonly happens,
that they are especially despised who are more than others pressed down with want and stand in
need of help, (for the benefits conferred on them are regarded as lost,) God recommends them to
us in an especial manner. It is indeed then only that we prove our love to be genuine, when we
relieve needy brethren, for no other reason but that of exercising our benevolence. Now hospitality
is not one of the least acts of love; that is, that kindness and liberality which are shown towards
strangers, for they are for the most part destitute of all things, being far away from their friends:
he therefore distinctly recommends this to us. We hence see, that the more neglected any one
commonly is by men, the more attentive we ought to be to his wants.
Observe also the suitableness of the expression, when he says, that we are to communicate to
the necessities of the saints; by which he implies, that we ought so to relieve the wants of the
brethren, as though we were relieving our own selves. And he commands us to assist especially
the saints: for though our love ought to extend itself to the whole race of man, yet it ought with
peculiar feeling to embrace the household of faith, who are by a closer bond united to us.
Romans 12:14-16
- Benedicite iis qui vos persequuntur;
benedicite et ne malum imprecemini. - Bless them which persecute you: bless,
and curse not. - Gaudete cum gaudentibus, flete cum
fientibus; - Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and
weep with them that weep.
(^394) There is here an instance of the depravation of the text by some of the fathers, such as Ambrose, Hilary, Pelagius, Optatus,
etc., who substituted μ , monuments, for , necessities, or wants: but though there are a few copies which have this reading,
yet it has been discarded by most; it is not found in the Vulgate, nor approved by Erasmus nor Grotius. The word was introduced
evidently, as Whitby intimates, to countenance the superstition of the early Church respecting the monuments or sepulchres of
martyrs and confessors. The fact, that there were no monuments of martyrs at this time in Rome, was wholly overlooked. — Ed.