'Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In
everything give thanks.'--1 THESS. v. 16-18.
The peculiarity and the stringency of these three precepts is the
unbroken continuity which they require. To rejoice, to pray, to give
thanks, are easy when circumstances favour, as a taper burns steadily in
a windless night; but to do these things always is as difficult as for
the taper's flame to keep upright when all the winds are eddying round
it. 'Evermore'--'without ceasing'--'in everything'--these qualifying
words give the injunctions of this text their grip and urgency. The
Apostle meets the objections which he anticipates would spring to the
lips of the Thessalonians, to the effect that he was requiring
impossibilities, by adding that, hard and impracticable as they might
think such a constant attitude of mind and heart, 'This is the will of
God in Christ Jesus concerning you.' So, then, a Christian life may be
lived continuously on the high level; and more than that, it is our duty
to try to live ours thus.
We need not fight with other Christian people about whether absolute
obedience to these precepts is possible. It will be soon enough for us
to discuss whether a completely unbroken uniformity of Christian
experience is attainable in this life, when we have come a good deal
nearer to the attainable than we have yet reached. Let us mend our
breaches of continuity a good deal more, and then we may begin to
discuss the question whether an absolute absence of any cessation of the
continuity is consistent with the conditions of Christian life here.
Now it seems to me that these three exhortations hold together in a very
striking way, and that Paul knew what he was about when he put in the
middle, like the strong central pole that holds up a tent, that
exhortation, 'Pray without ceasing.' For it is the primary precept, and
on its being obeyed the possibility of the fulfilment of the other two
depends. If we pray without ceasing, we shall rejoice evermore and in
everything give thanks. So, then, the duty of continual prayer, and the
promise, as well as the precept, that its results are to be continual
joy and continual thanksgiving, are suggested by these words.