2 

2:1 What was proposed, Th1 1:5-6, is now more largely treated of: concerning Paul and his fellowlabourers, Th1 2:1-12; concerning the Thessalonians, Th1 2:13-16.

2:2 We had suffered - In several places. We are bold - Notwithstanding. With much contention - Notwithstanding bothinward and outward conflicts of all kinds.

2:3 For our exhortation - That is, our preaching. A part is put for the whole. Is not, at any time, of deceit - We preach not a lie, but the truth of God. Nor of uncleanness - With any unholy or selfish view. This expression is not always appropriated to lust, although it is sometimes emphatically applied thereto.Nor in guile - But with great plainness of speech.

2:5 Flattering words - This ye know. Nor a cloak of covetousness - Of this God is witness. He calls men to witness an open fact; God, the secret intentions of the heart. In a point of a mixed nature, Th1 2:10, he appeals both to God and man.

2:6 Nor from others - Who would have honoured us more, if we had been burdensome - That is, taken state upon ourselves.

2:7 But we were gentle - Mild, tender. In the midst of you - Like a hen surrounded with her young. Even as a nurse cherisheth her own children - The offspring of her own womb.

2:8 To impart our own souls - To lay down our lives for your sake.

15 

15:1 All the publicans - That is, all who were in that place.It seems our Lord was in some town of Galilee of the Gentiles, from whence he afterward went to Jerusalem, Luk 17:11.

15:3 He spake - Three parables of the same import: for the sheep, the piece of silver, and the lost son, all declare (in direct contrariety to the Pharisees and scribes) in what manner God receiveth sinners.

15:4 Leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness - Where they used to feed: all uncultivated ground, like our commons, was by the Jews termed wilderness or desert. And go after - In recovering a lost soul, God as it were labours. May we not learn hence, that to let them alone who are in sin, is both unchristian and inhuman! Mat 18:12.

15:7 Joy shall be - Solemn and festal joy, in heaven - First, in our blessed Lord himself, and then among the angels and spirits of just men, perhaps informed thereof by God himself, or by the angels who ministered to them. Over one sinner - One gross, open, notorious sinner, that repenteth - That is, thoroughly changed in heart and life; more than over ninety and nine just persons - Comparatively just, outwardly blameless: that need not such arepentance - For they need not, cannot repent of the sins which they never committed. The sum is, as a father peculiarly rejoices when an extravagantchild, supposed to be utterly lost, comes to a thorough sense of his duty; or as any other person who has recovered what he had given up for gone, has a more sensible satisfaction in it, than in several other things equally valuable, but not in such danger: so do the angels in heaven peculiarly rejoice in the conversion of the most abandoned sinners. Yea, and God himself so readily forgives and receives them, that he may be represented as having part in the joy.