17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.



Ver. 17. The Lord stood] God is never so sweet and so seasonable to his saints as in the day of their deepest distress. He loves to help those that are forsaken of their hopes.



The preaching might be fully known] Or, soundly proved to be a divine ordinance, by my constancy and contempt of death.



Out of the mouth, of the lion] Nero, who first orientem fidem Romae cruentavit, as Tertullian speaketh, put Christians to death, and made a bloody decree, that whosoever confessed himself a Christian should, without any more ado, be put to death as a convicted enemy of mankind. Tertullian calleth him Dedicator damnationis Christianorum, The dedicator of the condemnation of Christians.