THE apostle had been speaking, in the preceding chapter, of the troubles and persecutions which he daily endured, and of the hopes and consolations—the life by faith rather than by right—which made their endurance easy. Having touched upon the theme, he could not but enlarge upon it; and doing so, his ardent expectations carried him out of the present, and made him covet and attempt to grasp the future. Before his enlightened eye and spiritualised heart, his affliction was light and its continuance brief; the present state was but as a tent, quickly to be taken down, and then in its place should be digged the deep foundation and reared the abiding edifice of a building of GOD eternal in the heavens. Outstretched, then, were his thoughts, and desires, and earnest were his prayers, not so much to get rid of what he had, as to attain what he hoped for and was promised. He knew indeed that the tabernacle must be removed; that his present state must cease—either by actual death or by a change, which the quick at CHRIST’S coming must undergo, much the same as death; he felt the burthen which was upon him; he yearned and groaned to be rid of it; but looking to the end he disregarded the way; dwelling, not upon the change but what was to come after it, he sought not death, but life. He longed, not to be unclothed, but clothed upon. Nay, recognising the good, and so the desirableness of this life, shrinking too naturally from the thought of dissolution, he would keep the present till he had the future, he would have what he wanted _added_ to what he possessed, rather than _substituted_ for it. Present life was in many respects dear to him; he would that the evil were purged away from it, and the good left; and then that the good were augmented, enfolded, absorbed by the transcendent, satisfying perfect blessedness which GOD had promised, and for the attaining whereof He had bestowed His effectually working Spirit.