The last words of the text--"the day of the Lord Jesus"--recall a very similar passage in 1 Thess. ii. 19: "What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing--is it not even ye--before our Lord Jesus at His coming?" In both cases our minds are lifted to that great presence in which St. Paul habitually lived; and as we stand there our disagreements sink into their true proportions; our judgments of each other are seen in their true colours. No one will rejoice then that he has made evil out of good, that he has cunningly perverted simple actions, that he has discovered the infirmities of preachers, or set the saints at variance; the joy will be for those who have loved and trusted each other, who have borne each other's faults and laboured for their healing, who have believed all things, hoped all things, endured all things, rather than be parted from each other by any failure of love. The mutual confidence of Christian ministers and Christian people will then, after all its trials, have its exceeding great reward. FOOTNOTES: [4] Notice the perfect ἐσχήκαμεν. We _had_ this experience, and in its fruit--a newer and deeper faith in God--we _have_ it still. It is a permanent possession in this happy form. The same idea is expressed in the pft. ἠλπίκαμεν, ver. 10. [5] The doubtful words here are καὶ ῥύεται in ver. 10 of the Received Text, from D^C, E, F, G, K, etc. ("_and doth deliver_," in the Authorised Version). They are not found in A, D, Syr., Chrys., while the most authoritative MSS., א, B, C, P, have καὶ ῥύσεται ("and _will_ deliver," of the Revised Version). Most editors take the last reading, as best attested; but on internal grounds two of the most recent and acute interpreters, Schmiedel and Heinrici, prefer the Received Text. The present tense ("_doth_ deliver") presupposes that the danger to which Paul had been exposed in some form or in some sense continued. If this were the case, of course it could not have been, as Hofmann supposes, the shipwreck in which the Apostle spent a night and a day in the deep. Otherwise this would be a plausible and tempting supposition. [6] To render διὰ πολλῶν _prolixe_, copiously, is at least precarious; and to take πρόσωπα as "faces" ("that from many faces upturned in prayer to God"), though lexically admissible, seems on all other grounds out of place. III _THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION_