EPISTLE OF PAUL

TO THE

PHILIPPIANS,

PRACTICALLY EXPLAINED.

BY

DR. AUGUSTUS NEANDER.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

BY

MRS. H. C. CONANT.

NEW YORK:

LEWIS COLBY & CO.,

122 NASSAU STREET.

1853.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,

BY LEWIS COLBY,

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.

INTRODUCTION.

IN offering the following work of Neander to the American public, some brief explanation of its character seems to be necessary. Many, who have only heard of the author as one of the most profound scholars and thinkers of the age, might otherwise be deterred from reading it, by the supposition that it was merely a work of learned criticism. Such, however, is far from being the case. It was the beginning of a series of popular practical commentaries, intended to embrace the more important portions of the Bible. Next to the Epistle of James, which was completed, and a translation of which we expect shortly to present to the public, were to follow the Epistles of John, then the Gospels, the Psalms, &c., as rapidly as the public duties of the author would allow. The surpassing excellence of the beginning makes us deeply lament the loss to the church, through the recent death of the great and good Neander, of so rich an addition to its means of understanding the Scriptures, and one so happily adapted to the wants of common Christians. This, however, does not impair the value of the separate parts, each division being complete in itself;

and we cannot but rejoice that, as he was not permitted fully to carry out his plan, he should have executed a part so appropriate as the closing labor of his life. Had he foreseen that these were to be his last words of counsel to his brethren in Christ, he could nowhere have found freer scope for all he wished to say for their instruction, comforting, and edification, than in a commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians. One might almost believe, such a fulness of pious feeling pours through its pages, that he had some such presage. Whether this were so or not, doubtless He to whom all events are known guided him in the selection; and we may receive it as the dying legacy of one of the greatest Christian teachers with which God has ever blessed his church. May its instructions sink deep into the heart of the church, and bring forth fruit to the honor and glory of God!

In reading this commentary, one cannot but be forcibly struck with the strong affinity between the character of Paul and that of his expounder. Different as were their outward circumstances and course of life, Neander seems to have had, in his own nature and spiritual sympathies, a perfect key to those of the Apostle. Hence it is that he has surpassed all others in giving the spirit of this Epistle. The grandeur of Paul's spiritual conceptions, his personal aspirations, his inward conflicts, his magnanimity, tenderness, and humility, his all-absorbing love for Christ and for man, are delineated with a life

:

and power which only a kindred soul in the writer could have inspired. His very manner bears the same stamp of resemblance. Impatient of the niceties of minute criticism, he breaks through the mere outward form, the shell of words and phrases, into the very heart of the Epistle; and develops its contents, not by a petty weighing of particles, but by one broad, extended view of the whole scope of the Apostle's design and meaning. This he illustrates from Paul's history and character, his present circumstances and those of the infant churches; and the whole glows with the light and warmth of a deep personal experience of the Gospel. Thus, though the work is rich in the results of a learning as profound as it was various, the earnest and intelligent, but unlearned reader, can pursue his way unimpeded by any obtrusive lumber of scholarship. It is indeed a beautiful illustration of what his friend and colleague, the evangelical Strauss, says of him in his funeral discourse: "He did not despise human knowledge; he sought for it with unwearied diligence; he was a master in it; but he laid all the surprising treasures of his learning at the foot of the cross." To edify the members of Christ's body was with him a greater object, than to make a vain parade of his own superiority; as to be one with Christ was to himself, personally, an immeasurably greater object than all human learning or honor.

One characteristic of the work, which adds greatly to its practical value, has also a special interest as showing