As previously he has warned them by the awful end of apostates, so here he stirs them up by the remembrance of their own former faith, patience, and self-sacrificing love. So Rev 2:3, Rev 2:4.
call to remembrance - habitually: so the present tense means.
illuminated - “enlightened”: come to “the knowledge of the truth” (Heb 10:26) in connection with baptism (see on Heb 6:4). In spiritual baptism, Christ, who is “the Light,” is put on. “On the one hand, we are not to sever the sign and the grace signified where the sacrifice truly answers its designs; on the other, the glass is not to be mistaken for the liquor, nor the sheath for the sword” [Bengel].