“But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak: for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and the love which ye showed toward His name, in that ye ministered unto the saints, and still do minister. And we desire that each one of you may show the same diligence unto the fulness of hope even to the end: that ye be not sluggish, but imitators of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made promise to Abraham, since He could swear by none greater, He sware by Himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And thus, having patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men swear by the greater: and in every dispute of theirs the oath is final for confirmation. Wherein God, being minded to show more abundantly unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of His counsel, interposed with an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us; which we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and entering into that which is within the veil; whither as a Forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a High-priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”—HEB, vi. 9–20 (R.V.). Solemn warning is followed by words of affectionate encouragement. Impossibility of renewal is not the only impossibility within the compass of the Gospel.[106] Over against the descent to perdition, hope of the better things grasps salvation with the one hand and the climbing pilgrim with the other, and makes his failure to reach the summit impossible. Both impossibilities have their source in God’s justice. He is not unjust to forget the deed of love shown towards His name, when the only-begotten Son ministered to men and still ministers. Contempt of this love God will punish. Neither is He unjust to forget the love that ministered to His poor saints in days of persecution, when the Hebrew Christians became partakers with their fellow-believers in their reproaches and tribulations, showed pity towards their brethren in prisons, and took joyfully the spoiling of their goods.[107] The stream of brotherly kindness was still flowing. This love God rewards. But the Apostle desires them to show, not only faithfulness in ministering to the saints, but also Christian earnestness generally,[108] until they attain the full assurance of hope. The older expositors understand the words to express the Apostle’s wish that his readers should continue to minister to the saints. But Calvin’s view has, especially since the time of Bengel, been generally accepted: that the Apostle urges his readers to be as diligent in seeking the full assurance of hope as they are in ministering to the poor.