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Any violence of affection we call passion, whether of love, or anger, or desire, because the soul is passive, or suffers thereby. The Stoics said passions were not incident to a wise man; and: They that are Christ’s, saith the apostle, have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts, Gal_5:24. And lust is usually taken for all inordinate affection, either with respect to the object or degree; though the Greek word doth signify only desire, and is sometimes taken in a good sense, as Phi_1:23; for, there are good lustings as well as evil, as Gal_5:17, the Spirit lusteth against the flesh; but here the word is taken in a bad sense, for the lust of uncleanness, which the apostle here calls
the lust of concupiscence. The philosophers distinguish of the affections or passions of the soul, some are irascible, some concupiscible. The former are conversant about evil, to repel it or fly from it; the latter about good, either real or imaginary, to pursue it or embrace it. And the lusts of concupiscence are either of the mind or of the flesh, Eph_2:3: here we understand the latter, that fleshly concupiscence that is conversant about women, which if by vessel in the former verse is understood man’s lawful wife, then he forbids all unchasteness even towards her; if the body, then he forbids all unchaste usage of the body in any kind, or towards any person whatsoever. And, to avoid fornication, he forbids lust that leads to it.
Even as the Gentiles which know not God; which the apostle useth as an argument to them: Though ye are Gentiles by nation as well as others, yet not in state, such as know not God. There is a natural knowledge of God, which the apostle speaks of, Rom_1:21, which the Gentiles had; and supernatural, which is by the Scriptures; to know the mind, will, nature, decrees, and counsels of God as they are there revealed: and the knowledge of God in Christ; this is meant in the text, and this the Gentiles had not, and therefore no wonder though they followed the lust of concupiscence, they wanted the rule of God’s word to direct them, and that effectual knowledge of God, and presence of his grace, that would have restrained them from such lust. But these Thessalonians now, since their conversion by the gospel, were come to this knowledge of God, which they had not before, and therefore were not to live as before they did. Knowledge ought to influence our hearts and lives, and to sin against knowledge is the great aggravation of sin, and will make men more inexcusable. But yet where knowledge is wanting what wickedness will not men practise! The Gentiles were alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in them, Eph_4:18. The Jews crucified Christ, and Saul persecuted the disciples, through ignorance, 1Ti_1:13. Much more are those Christians to be condemned, who, having more knowledge than the Gentiles, yet practise worse than they; as the apostle upbraids the Jews upon this account, Rom_2:27.