The Works of the Rev. P. Doddridge, D. D - The Family Expositor, Containing a Paraphrase on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy #270307

But the strongest argument in support of this opinion is drawn from chap. Iv. 6 I am now just ready to be fiend, and the time of my departure is at hand. From whence it has been inferred, that Paul, when he wrote this, was in immediate expectation of death, in consequence of Nero's menaces, or of some express re velation from Christ (wlnch some have thought Peter also had a little before his martyrdom, 2 Pet. I. Yet the directions he afterwards gives plainly shew he had some expectations of living a while longer. Else it is difficult to say why he should so much urge Timothy to give diligence to come to him, ver. 21, or press his care of the cloak, boo/rs, and parchments, mentioned ver. 13. Thou h, after all, these words must, I think, express an apprehension that his life and ministry were drawing towards a close which is yet farther confirmed by observing, that whereas in his former 1m prisonment the apostle had often expressed his persuasion of being released and seeing his Christian friends again, he gives no hint in this epistle of any such expectation, but seems to intimate the con t'rary, ver. 18. By expressing his confidence, not that he should be again rescued from his enemy as he had been upon making his first apology, but that God would deliver him from every evil work, and preserve him to his heavenly kingdom — Upon the whole, therefore, I conclude that this epistle was written some time towards the close of Paul's second imprisonment, and consequently about the year of our Lord 66 or 67 and in the 13th of the emperor Now. (see Family Expositor, Vol. VIII. Sect. 60, note, p. The apostle seems to have intended in this epistle to prepare Timothy for those sufferings to which he foresaw he would be ex posed to forewarn him of the fatal apostacy and declension that was beginning to appear in the church and at the same time to animate him, from his own example and the great motives of Christianity, to the most vigorous and resolute discharge of every part of the ministerial oflice.