2 Peter 1:6

2 Peter 1:6

I. The coarser or entirely corporeal gratifications are the more obvious sphere for the exercise of temperance, and in some respects the easiest. We do not canonise a man because he only drinks to quench his thirst, and because his use for food is the restoration of his exhausted powers. And without converting the Christian Church into a convent or making one long Lent of the Christian year, we think it is often by greater simplicity in our tables and in our attire that most of us are to be able to do something for Christ's sake and the Gospel's.

II. The passions also fall within the domain of temperance. As far as they are implanted by the Creator, they are harmless, and it would be easy to show the important purposes subserved by anger, the love of approbation, and such-like. But, temperate in all things, the manly Christian adds to his faith the control of his passions. He neither lets them fire up without a rightful occasion, nor in the outburst does he allow his own soul or interests which ought to be even more dear to suffer damage.

III. All have not the same need of temperance, for all have not the same temptations. From the leisurely life they lead, from the even flow of their spirits, from the felicitous state of their bodily sensations, some are seldom provoked, and therefore seldom in danger of wrathful explosions. In the domains of appetite, passion, or imagination we all have need of temperance; and that man alone is temperate, thoroughly and consistently temperate, whose self-command keeps pace with every precept of Scripture.

J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 361.

References: 2 Peter 1:6 , 2 Peter 1:7 . J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity, Part I., p. 10. 2 Peter 1:8 . W. Cunningham, Sermons, p. 159; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iv., p. 188; vol. ix., p. 341.