SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. 16^ 



me Old Testament. The expression bears that sense in 

 every place in which it occurs. Those of the New had not 

 yet acquired the name ; not to mention, that in Timothy's 

 childhood probably none of them existed. In what man- 

 ner then could Timothy have known "from a child" the 

 Jewish Scriptures, had he not been born, on one side or on 

 both, of Jewish parentage ? Perhaps he was not less likely 

 to be carefully instructed in them, for that his mother alone 

 professed that religion. 



IV. Chap. 2:22: "Flee also youthful lusts; but fol- 

 low righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call 

 on the Lord out of a pure heart." 



^^ Flee also youthful lusts." The suitableness of this 

 precept to the age of the person to whom it is addressed, is 

 gathered from 1 Timothy, 4 : 12 : "Let no man despise thy 

 youth." Nor do I deem the less of this coincidence because 

 the propriety resides in a single epithet, or because this one 

 precept is joined with, and followed by a train of others 

 not more applicable to Timothy than to any ordinary con- 

 vert. It is on these transient and cursory allusions that the 

 argument is best founded. When a writer dwells and rests 

 upon a point in which some coincidence is discerned, it may 

 be doubted whether he himself had not fabricated the con- 

 formity, and was endeavoring to display and set it off". But 

 when the reference is contained in a single word, unobserved 

 perhaps by most readers, the writer passing on to other sub- 

 jects, as unconscious that he had hit upon a correspondency, 

 or unsolicitous w^hether it were remarked or not, we may be 

 pretty well assured that no fraud was exercised, no imposi- 

 tion intended. 



V. Chap. 3 : 10, 11 : "But thou hast fully known my 

 doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suHering, char- 

 ity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me 

 at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra ; what persecutions I 

 endured : but out of them all the Lord delivered me." 



The Antioch here mentioned was not Antioch the capital 

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