Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Philippians 4:8 - 4:8
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Here we have a very comprehensive precept, describing the duties of all christians: Whatsoever things are true; truth is the principal character of our profession, and is to be expressed in our words and actions.
Whatsoever things are honest, venerable, or grave; that is, answer the dignity of our high calling, and agree with the gravity and comeliness of the christian profession.
Whatsoever things are just, according to divine and human laws.
Whatsoever things are pure and chaste; intimating that we must preserve the heart, the hand, the tongue, the eye, from all impurity.
Whatsoever things are lovely, and of good report; as easiness to pardon, readiness to oblige, compassion to the afflicted, liberality to the distressed, sweetness of conversation, without gall and bitterness; these are of universal esteem with mankind, and soften the most savage tempers and dispositions.
Note here, 1. That there are things naturally honest, just, and lovely, in their own nature, and praise-worthy in themselves, which do raise and refine the human nature; and, without a command, their goodness is a strong obligation to observe them.
Note, 2. That christianity doth adopt morality, or precepts of good life and manners, into its frame and constitution, and it is indeed an integral part of the christian religion; not that any moral precepts, though never so good, can raise a soul from the death of sin to a life of holiness, without faith in Christ, and assistance from his Spirit; but the morality which the scriptures teach us, is founded not barely upon principles of reason, but divine revelation, and obliges us to the practice of moral duties, in obedience to Christ's command, in conformity to his example, in the strength of his assistance, and with an eye to his glory.