Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON III. po0toUc t)gtmnce a pattern for fjrigttang. (lent.) Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities. I Tim. v. 23. is a remarkable verse, because it accidentally tells us so much. It is addressed to Timothy, St. Paul's companion, the first Bishop of Ephesus. Of Timothy we know very little, except that he did minister to St. Paul, and hence we might have inferred that he was a man of very saintly character; but we know little or nothing of him, except that he had been from a child a careful reader of Scripture. This indeed, by itself, in that Apostolic age, would have led us to infer, that he had risen to some great height in spiritual excellence; though it must be confessed that instances are frequent at this day, of persons knowing the Bible well, and yet being little stricter than others in their lives, for all their knowledge. Timothy, however, had so read the Old Testament, and tad so heard from St. Paul the New, that he was a true follower of the Apostle, as theApostle was of Christ: St. Paul accordingly calls him my own son, or my true son in the faith. And elsewhere he says to the Philippians, that he has 'no man like-minded to Timothy, who would naturally or truly care for their state 1. But still, after all, this is but a general account of him, and we seem to desire something more definite in the way of description, heyond merely knowing that he was a great saint, which conveys no clear impression to the mind. Now, in the text we have accidentally a glimpse given us of his mode of life. St. Paul does not expressly tell us that he was a man of mortified habits; but he reveals the fact indirectly by cautioning him against an excess of mortification. Drink no longer water, he says, ...