must have appeared with much greater force to those who, by the many
difficulties they went through for the sake of their religion, were
led to keep always in view the relation they stood in to their
Saviour, who had undergone the same: to those, who, from the
idolatries of all around them, and their ill-treatment, were taught
to consider themselves as not of the world in which they lived, but
as a distinct society of themselves; with laws and ends, and
principles of life and action, quite contrary to those which the
world professed themselves at that time influenced by. Hence the
relation of a Christian was by them considered as nearer than that
of affinity and blood; and they almost literally esteemed themselves
as members one of another.

It cannot, indeed, possibly be denied, that our being God's
creatures, and virtue being the natural law we are born under, and
the whole constitution of man being plainly adapted to it, are prior
obligations to piety and virtue than the consideration that God sent
his Son into the world to save it, and the motives which arise from
the peculiar relation of Christians as members one of another under
Christ our head. However, though all this be allowed, as it
expressly is by the inspired writers, yet it is manifest that
Christians at the time of the Revelation, and immediately after,
could not but insist mostly upon considerations of this latter kind.

These observations show the original particular reference to the
text, and the peculiar force with which the thing intended by the
allusion in it must have been felt by the primitive Christian world.
They likewise afford a reason for treating it at this time in a more
general way.