456 Reflections on the meekness which becomes ministers. SECT. and each other, think of this, and learn to be more solicitous xvi. than they are, about approving their fidelity to their great Master, whether they be more or less regarded by their fellow ser 2 Cor. vants. verse IMPROVEMENT. MAY the meekness and gentleness of Christ ever be remembered 1 by all his servants, and especially by his ministers, to whom, both under their public and private characters it will be of so great importance to imitate it. Their calling is indeed high and holy; let their behaviour in it be so much the more humble. 3 And let it be their great care, that while they walk in the flesh, they do not war after it. Still, though disarmed of that miracu. 4 lous power with which the apostles were endowed, are the weap ons of their warfare mighty. They have the scripture magazine ever at hand, from whence they may be furnished with them; and may humbly hope, that the Spirit of God will render them effectual to the pulling down strong holds, and abasing every proud 5 imagination which exalteth itself against the obedience of God. May every thought of their own hearts be in the first place thus subdued, and brought into a sweet and willing captivity! So shall these their captives, thus conquered, prove as so many faithful soldiers to fight for him, against whom they once were foolishly rebelling. And may they succeed in this holy war, till the empire of our Divine Master become universal, and the happiness of mankind universal with it! To promote this, let us pray, that ministers may always remember, that whatever authority they have given them, is for edifica7, 11 tion, and not for destruction; and may learn from that moderation with which the apostle used his miraculous powers, in how gentle and candid a manner they should behave themselves in their far inferior stations; never making their preeminence in the church the instrument of their own resentment, or of any other sinful or selfish passion; but ever solicitous to subserve the interest of our great Lord in all, and desirous to keep up their own character and influence, chiefly for his sake. 12, 16 May they in no instance boast beyond their proper measure ; and while they are ready, like St. Paul, to meet all the most laborious scenes of service, let them glory not in themselves, but in the Lord. This is a lesson we are all to learn. And whatever our stations in life are, let us resolutely and constantly guard 17, 18 against that self flattery by which we may be ready to commend ourselves, in instances in which we may be least approved by him, whose favour alone is worthy of our ambition, and by whose judgment, in the day of final account, we must stand or fall. The apostle declares he was jealous over the Corinthians, 457 SECT. XVII. The apostle farther vindicates himself, from the perverse insinuations of them that opposed him at Corinth; particularly on the head of his having declined to receive a contribution from this church, for his maintenance. 2 Cor. XI. 1-15. 2 COR. XI. 1. WOULD to God you could bear W with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me. 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 1. 2 Cor. WOULD advise every man, as I have sECT. I I hinted, to be sparing in his own commenda- xvii. tion, and to study above all to approve himself to Christ; and yet in present circumstances, xi. 1 I wish you would bear with a little of [my] folly, that you would permit a little of that boasting which I know generally to be foolish and indeed I must entreat you to bear with me in what may look this way, considering the manner in which I am urged to it, and brought under an 2 For I am jealous unwilling necessity. For I am jealous over you 2 over you with godly with what I trust I may call a godly jealousy, jealousy: for I have espoused you to one and feel the warmest and most zealous desires, husband, that I may that I may present [you as] a chaste virgin to present you as a Christ; for I have, by successfully preaching chaste virgin to the gospel to you, and bringing you into the engagements of the Christian covenant, in effect espoused you to one husband, even to him; under the character of his servant and ambassador, I have led you into a holy contract with him, which hath been mutually sealed. I am therefore exceedingly concerned, that you may maintain a pure and loyal heart to him who has condescended to take you into so dear and intimate a relation. Christ. 3 But I fear lest by And I am the more solicitous about this, as 3 I know what insinuating enemies are endeavouring to corrupt you: for I fear lest by any means, as in the first seduction and ruin of • That I may present you, &c.] This is much illustrated by recollecting, that there was an officer among the Greeks, whose business it was to educate and form young women, especially those of rank and figure, designed for marriage; and then to present them to those who were to be their husbands; and if this officer permitted them, through negligence, to be corrupted, between the espousals and consummation VOL. 4. 59 of the marriage, great blame would naturally fall upon him. b For I have espoused you.] This clause, poraμny gap upas eve aydp, may be con. sidered as a parenthesis; and therefore in the paraphrase, I have transposed it, that the construction may appear; e vuas Tagasnoaι, I am jealous, &C. that I may present yon, &c. 458 Lest they should be corrupted from their simplicity: xvii. 2 Cor. xi. 3 SECT. mankind, the serpent deceived Eve, our com- any means, as the mon mother, by his subtilty, so your minds should serpent beguiled Eve be corrupted from that simplicity which should through his subtilty, so your minds should always be in us towards Christ, and which the be corrupted from adulterous mixtures which some are endeav- the simplicity that is in Christ. ouring to introduce among you, would greatly injure. 4 For if he that cometh among you with such 4 For if he that extraordinary pretences, preach another Jesus, cometh, preacheth as a Saviour, whom we have not preached; if he another Jesus whom we have not preachcan point out another Christ who shall equally ed, or if ye receive deserve your attention and regard; or [if] ye another spirit which receive by his preaching another spirit, which ye ed, or another gospel ye have not receiv have not yet received, which can bestow upon which ye have not you gifts superior to those which we have im- accepted, ye might parted; or another gospel, which ye have not well bear with him. accepted, the tidings of which shall be equally happy, evident, and important, ye might well bear with [him,] and there would be some excuse for your conduct; but how far this is from being, or so much as seeming to be the case, I 5 need not say at large. Nor will you, I am sure, maintain any such thing; for I reckon upon most certain knowledge, that I was so far from being inferior in my discourses, or miracles, to these your favourite teachers, that I did not in any respect fall short of the greatest of the apostles; but gave you as evident and convincing proofs of a Divine mission as any church 5 For I suppose i was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. 6 has ever received from any one of them. For 6 But though I be Lest as the serpent deceived Eve, &c.] From the instance to which this is applied, viz. that of the false apostles, whose subtilty did not consist so much in crafty arguments, as in false appearances, by which they put on the outward forms of the apostles of Christ; Mr. Rymer infers (especially comparing verse 14) that the subtilty of Satan, when he deceived Eve, consisted in putting on the appearance of an angel of light, or pretending to be one of the Seraphim that attended on the Shechinah (Rymer on Rev. p. 79.) But I think that if it had been ever so expressly said by Moses, that the deception lay, as it very probably might, in pretending to have received the faculty of reason and speech, though a brute, by eating the fruit he preposed to her, it might be said in the general, that the false apostles deceived their followers as Satan deceived Eve, that is, by false pretences and insinuations. d Simplicity towards Christ: ancîr? Tas us lov Xpisov.] This implies an entire undivided devotedness to Christ, as the great Husband Christians should desire to please, and from whom they are to receive law; and is with peculiar propriety op. posed to that mixture of Judaism which some were endeavouring to bring in among the Corinthians. Unskilful in speech.] 18ins properly signifies a private man, one that can speak no better than the generality of his neigh And then he expostulates with them as to himself; made 459 not in knowledge; not so in knowledge of the gospel of Christ, and SECT. but we have been the Divine dispensations which were introduc- xvii. thoroughly manifest among you tory to it. But in every respect we have been 2 Cor. in all things. manifest to you in all things; every one of you xi. 6 has had a proof of this, as you received the gospel from me, and therefore ought not to question my abilities, nor to prefer another in opposition to me. 7 Have I commit- Nothing can be more ungenerous and unrea. 7 ted an offence in a sonable, than to insinuate, that I have renounced basing myself, that ye might be exalt my claim to being an apostle, by declining ed, because I have that maintenance which my brethren generally preached to you the think it reasonable to take from the people gospel of God freeamong whom they labour, and which while employed for them they may indeed reasonably expect. Have I then committed an offence, in humbling myself to the daily cares and toils of a tent maker, that you may more effectually be exalted to the dignity of those who know and believe in Christ? Is this, after all, the crime, that I have preached the gospel of God to you at 8 I robbed oth-free cost? er churches, taking I may almost, in this sense, be said to have 8 wages of them, to robbed other churches; so freely have I received do you service. f 9 And when I was from them, at least taking wages, as it were, present with you, [of them,] for waiting upon you; for indeed I and wanted, I was received a kind of stipend from them, while I chargeable to no man: for that which abode at Corinth. (Phil. iv. 15.) And when 19 was lacking to me, was in want, while present with you, I was the brethren which chargeable to no one man of your society, when nia, supplied and in incapable of maintaining myself as before: all things I have kept for what was deficient to me, in this respect, the myself from being Christian brethren who came from Macedonia, burdensome unto supplied; (Phil. iv. 10;) and in all things I have kept, and so long as God shall enable me, I will 10 As the truth of keep myself from being burdensome to you. And 10 came from Macedo you, and so will I keep myself bours, being unformed by the rules of eloquence. And this is consistent with that great natural pathos which we find in the apostle's writings; so that there is no need of recurring, as Dr. Whitby here does, to the supposed impediment in his speech, which allowing it ever so certain a fact, could not properly be expressed by this phrase. The good Archbishop of Cambray hath a very pertinent observation on this expression, in his excellent Dialogues of Eloquence, (p. 136,) viz. that this might well be the case, though St. Paul shared so largely in the gift of tongues; as when he was at Tarsus, he probably learnt a cor. rupt kind of Greek, spoken by the inhabitants of this place; for we have reason to believe, that as for any of the languages which the apostles had learnt in a natural way, the Spirit left them to speak as before. Chargeable to no man : ου κατενάρκησα oud] Beza would render it, I was not idle at any man's expense The word vapan implies a benumbe‹ inactive state, a kind of torpor, to which no man seems to be less obnoxious than St. Paul. 460 And is anxious to prevent his enemies from defaming him. SECT. this in some measure I value myself upon; so Christ is in me, no xvii. that as the truth of Christ is in me, this boast man shall stop me of shall not be violated, nor this rule broke in upon regions of Achaia. this boasting in the xi. 10 with respect to me, at Corinth, or in all the re 2 Cor. 11 gions of Achaia. 12 But what I do, may cut off occasion even as we. And why is it that I insist upon this? Is it 11 Wherefore? bebecause I love you not, and therefore am unwil, cause I love you not! ling to be under any obligation to you? God God knoweth. knows the contrary, that you have a large share in my tenderest affections and cares; yea, that it was my desire of serving you more effectually, that subjected me to these mortifications and self denials; for such they undoubtedly were. 12 But what I do in this respect, I will continue to do, that I may cut off occasion from them who that I will do, that I greatly desire an occasion to reflect upon me, that from them which de in [the thing of] which they are so ready to boast, sire occasion; that they may be found even as we. I would teach wherein they glory, them.by my example, instead of boasting, that they may be found they have such an influence over you, as procures them a plentiful, and perhaps splendid maintenance, that they rather emulate my disinterested conduct, and subsist on their own la13 bours. But I know they have no inward prin- 13 For such are ciple to bear them through such hardships: false apostles, deFor such, whatever they pretend, [are] false apos transforming themtles, destitute of that Divine mission which an- selves into the apos imates our spirits to do, or to bear, whatever tles of Christ. we meet in the course of our duty; and indeed they are deceitful workers, whatever pains they may seem to take in their employment; transforming themselves artfully into the appearance of apostles of Christ by counterfeit forms, which they may put on for a while, but which they 14 can with no consistency long support. ceitful workers, into an angel of And 14 And no mar[it is] no wonder they assume them for a time; vel; for Satan him. for Satan himself, in subordination to whom self is transformed they act, can put on such deceitful appearances, light. and wear upon occasion such a mask of sanctity and religion in his attempts, that he is, as it were, transformed into an angel of light, and one would imagine his suggestions to be of a 8 They might be found, &c.] The Jews had a maxim among them, "that it was better for their wise men to skin dead beasts for a living, than to ask a maintenance from the generosity of those whom they taught." But it plainly appears, that whatever the false apostles might boast upon this head, there was no foundation for it. Compare verse 20; and 1 Cor. ix. 12. . |