as they say,” or, “to use their own language.” Doddridge paraphrases it, “as they proverbially speak.” Tyndale incloses it in a parenthesis. ¶ _I will put upon you none other burden._ That is, no other than that which you now experience from having these persons with you, and that which must attend the effort to purify the church. He had not approved their conduct for suffering these persons to remain in the church, and he threatens to punish all those who had become contaminated with these pernicious doctrines. He evidently designed to say that there was _some_ token of his displeasure proper in the case, but he was not disposed to bring upon them any _other_ expression of his displeasure than that which grew naturally and necessarily out of the fact that they had been tolerated among them, and those troubles and toils which must attend the effort to deliver the church from these errors. Under any circumstances the church must suffer. It would suffer in reputation. It would suffer in respect to its internal tranquillity. Perhaps, also, there were those who were implicated in these errors, and who would be implicated in the punishment, who had friends and kindred in the church; and the judgments which were to come upon the advocates of these errors must, therefore, come in a measure upon the church. A kind Saviour says, that he would bring upon them no other and no weightier burden, than _must_ arise from his purpose to inflict appropriate vengeance on the guilty themselves. The trouble which would grow out of that would be a sufficient expression of his displeasure. This is, in fact, often now all that is necessary as a punishment on a church for harbouring the advocates of error and of sin. The church has trouble enough ultimately in getting rid of them; and the injury which such persons do to its piety, peace, and reputation, and the disorders of which they are the cause, constitute a sufficient punishment for having tolerated them in its bosom. Often the most severe punishment that God can bring upon men is to “lay upon them no other burden” than to leave them to the inevitable consequences of their own folly, or to the trouble and vexation incident to the effort to free themselves {86} from what they had for a long time tolerated or practised. 25 But [134]that which ye have _already_ hold fast till I come. 25. _But that which ye have_, &c. All that there is of truth and purity remaining among you, retain faithfully. Comp. ch. iii. 11. ¶ _Till I come._ To receive you to myself, Jn. xiv. 3. 26 And [135]he that overcometh, and keepeth[136] my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: