Explanatory Notes upon the Old and New Testaments

1. Let us cleanse ourselves - This is the latter part of the exhortation, which was proposed, chap. vi, 1, and resumed, chap. vi, 14. From all pollution of the flesh - All outward sin. And of the spirit - All inward. Yet let us not rest in negative religion, but perfect holiness - Carrying it to the height in all its branches, and enduring to the end in the loving fear of God, the sure foundation of all holiness.

2. Receive us - The sum of what is said in this, as well as in the tenth and following chapters. We have hurt no man - In his person. We have corrupted no man - In his principles. We have defrauded no man - Of his property. In this he intimates likewise the good he had done them, but with the utmost modesty, as it were not looking upon it.

3. I speak not to condemn you - Not as if I accused you of laying this to my charge. I am so far from thinking so unkindly of you, that ye are in our hearts, to live and die with you - That is, I could rejoice to spend all my days with you.

4. I am filled with comfort - Of this he treats, 2 Cor. vii, 6, &c.; of his joy, 2 Cor. vii, 7, &c.; of both, 2 Cor. vii, 13.

5. Our flesh - That is, we ourselves. Had no rest from without - From the heathens. Were fightings - Furious and cruel oppositions. From within - From our brethren. Were fears - Lest they should be seduced.

7. Your earnest desire - To rectify what had been amiss. Your grief - For what had offended God, and troubled me.

8. I did repent - That is, I felt a tender sorrow for having grieved you, till I saw the happy effect of it.

10. The sorrow of the world - Sorrow that arises from worldly considerations. Worketh death - Naturally tends to work or occasion death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal.

11. How great diligence it wrought in you - Shown in all the following particulars. Yea, clearing of yourselves - Some had been more, some less, faulty; whence arose these various affections. Hence their apologizing and indignation, with respect to themselves; their fear and desire, with respect to the apostle; their zeal and revenge, with respect to the offender, yea, and themselves also. Clearing of yourselves - From either sharing in, or approving of, his sin. Indignation - That ye had not immediately corrected the offender. Fear - Of God's displeasure, or lest I should come with a rod. Vehement desire - To see me again. Zeal - For the glory of God, and the soul of that sinner. Yea, revenge - Ye took a kind of holy revenge upon yourselves, being scarce able to forgive yourselves. In all things ye - As a church. Have approved yourselves to be pure - That is, free from blame, since ye received my letter.

12. It was not only, or chiefly, for the sake of the incestuous person, or of his father; but to show my care over you.

1. We declare to you the grace of God - Which evidently appeared by this happy effect.

2. In a great trial of affliction - Being continually persecuted, harassed, and plundered.

4. Praying us with much entreaty - Probably St. Paul had lovingly admonished them not to do beyond their power.

5. And not as we hoped - That is, beyond all we could hope. They gave themselves to us, by the will of God - In obedience to his will, to be wholly directed by us.

6. As he had begun - When he was with you before.

9. For ye know - And this knowledge is the true source of love. The grace - The most sincere, most free, and most abundant love. He became poor - In becoming man, in all his life; in his death. Rich - In the favour and image of God.

12. A man - Every believer. Is accepted - With God. According to what he hath - And the same rule holds universally. Whoever acknowledges himself to be a vile, guilty sinner, and, in consequence of this acknowledgment, flies for refuge to the wounds of a crucified saviour, and relies on his merits alone for salvation, may in every circumstance of life apply this indulgent declaration to himself.

14. That their abundance - If need should so require. May be - At another time. A supply to your want: that there may be an equality - No want on one side, no superfluity on the other. It may likewise have a further meaning:-that as the temporal bounty of the Corinthians did now supply the temporal wants of their poor brethren in Judea, so the prayers of these might be a means of bringing down many spiritual blessings on their benefactors: so that all the spiritual wants of the one might be amply supplied; all the temporal of the other.

15. As it is written, He that had gathered the most had nothing over; and he that had gathered the least did not lack - That is, in which that scripture is in another sense fulfilled. Exod. xvi, 18

17. Being more forward - Than to need it, though he received it well.

18. We - I and Timothy. The brother - The ancients generally supposed this was St. Luke. Whose praise - For faithfully dispensing the gospel, is through all the churches.

19. He was appointed by the churches - Of Macedonia. With this gift - Which they were carrying from Macedonia to Jerusalem. For the declaration of our ready mind - That of Paul and his fellow-traveler, ready to be the servants of all.

22. With them - With Titus and Luke. Our brother - Perhaps Apollos.

23. My partner - In my cares and labours. The glory of Christ - Signal instruments of advancing his glory.

24. Before the churches - Present by their messengers.

1. To write to you - Largely.

2. I boast to them of Macedonia - With whom he then was.

3. I have sent the above mentioned brethren before me.

5. Spoken of before - By me, to the Macedonians. Not as a matter of covetousness - As wrung by importunity from covetous persons.

6. He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly; he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully - A general rule. God will proportion the reward to the work, and the temper whence it proceeds.

7. Of necessity - Because he cannot tell how to refuse.

8. How remarkable are these words! Each is loaded with matter and increases all the way it goes. All grace - Every kind of blessing. That ye may abound to every good work - God gives us everything, that we may do good therewith, and so receive more blessings. All things in this life, even rewards, are, to the faithful, seeds in order to a future harvest. Prov. xxii, 9

9. He hath scattered abroad - (A generous word.) With a full hand, without any anxious thought which way each grain falls. His righteousness - His beneficence, with the blessed effects of it. Remaineth forever - Unexhausted, God still renewing his store. Psalm cxii, 9

10. And he who supplieth seed - Opportunity and ability to help others. And bread - All things needful for your own souls and bodies. Will continually supply you with that seed, yea, multiply it to you more and more. And increase the fruits of your righteousness - The happy effects of your love to God and man. Isaiah lv, 10

11. Which worketh by us thanksgiving to God - Both from us who distribute, and them who receive, your bounty.

13. Your avowed subjection - Openly testified by your actions. To all men - Who stand in need of it.

15. His unspeakable gift - His outward and inward blessings, the number and excellence of which cannot be uttered.

1. Now I Paul myself - - A strongly emphatical expression. Who when present am base among you - So, probably, some of the false teachers affirmed. Copying after the meekness and gentleness of Christ, entreat - Though I might command you.

2. Do not constrain me when present to be bold - To exert my apostolical authority. Who think of us as walking after the flesh - As acting in a cowardly or crafty manner.

3. Though we walk in the flesh - In mortal bodies, and, consequently, are not free from human weakness. Yet we do not war - Against the world and the devil. After the flesh - By any carnal or worldly methods. Though the apostle here, and in several other parts of this epistle, speaks in the plural number, for the sake of modesty and decency, yet he principally means himself. On him were these reflections thrown, and it is his own authority which he is vindicating.

4. For the weapons of our warfare - Those we use in this war. Are not carnal - But spiritual, and therefore mighty to the throwing down of strong holds - Of all the difficulties which men or devils can raise in our way. Though faith and prayer belong also to the Christian armour, Eph. vi, 15, &c., yet the word of God seems to be here chiefly intended.

5. Destroying all vain reasonings, and every high thing which exalteth itself - As a wall or rampart. Against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought - Or, rather, faculty of the mind. Into captivity to the obedience of Christ - Those evil reasonings are destroyed. The mind itself, being overcome and taken captive, lays down all authority of its own, and entirely gives itself up to perform, for the time to come, to Christ its conqueror the obedience of faith.

6. Being in readiness to avenge all disobedience - Not only by spiritual censure, but miraculous punishments. When your obedience is fulfilled - When the sound part of you has given proof of your obedience, so that I am in no danger of punishing the innocent with the guilty.

7. Do ye look at the outward appearance of things - Does any of you judge of a minister of Christ by his person, or any outward circumstance? Let him again think this of himself - Let him learn it from his own reflection, before I convince him by a severer method.

8. I should not be ashamed - As having said more than I could make good.

9. I say this, that I may not seem to terrify you by letters - Threatening more than I can perform.

10. His bodily presence is weak - His stature, says St. Chrysostom, was low, his body crooked, and his head bald.

12. For we presume not - A strong irony. To equal ourselves - As partners of the same office. Or to compare ourselves - As partakers of the same labour. They among themselves limiting themselves - Choosing and limiting their provinces according to their own fancy.

13. But we will not, like them, boastingly extend ourselves beyond our measure, but according to the measure of the province which God hath allotted us - To me, in particular, as the apostle of the gentiles. A measure which reaches even unto you - God allotted to each apostle his province, and the measure or bounds thereof.

14. We are come even to you - By a gradual, regular process, having taken the intermediate places in our way, in preaching the gospel of Christ.

15. Having hope, now your faith is increased - So that you can the better spare us. To be enlarged by you abundantly - That is, enabled by you to go still further.

16. In the regions beyond you - To the west and south, where the gospel had not yet been preached.

1. I wish ye would bear - So does he pave the way for what might otherwise have given offense. With my folly - Of commending myself; which to many may appear folly; and really would be so, were it not on this occasion absolutely necessary.

2. For - The cause of his seeming folly is expressed in this and the following verse; the cause why they should bear with him, 2 Cor. xi, 4.

3. But I fear - Love is full of these fears. Lest as the serpent - A most apposite comparison. Deceived Eve - Simple, ignorant of evil. By his subtilty - Which is in the highest degree dangerous to such a disposition. So your minds - We might therefore be tempted, even if there were no sin in us. Might be corrupted - Losing their virginal purity. From the simplicity that is in Christ - That simplicity which is lovingly intent on him alone, seeking no other person or thing.

4. If indeed - Any could show you another saviour, a more powerful Spirit, a better gospel. Ye might well bear with him - But this is impossible.

6. If I am unskilful in speech - If I speak in a plain, unadorned way, like an unlearned person. So the Greek word properly signifies.

7. Have I committed an offense - Will any turn this into an objection? In humbling myself - To work at my trade. That ye might be exalted - To be children of God.

8. I spoiled other churches - I, as it were, took the spoils of them: it is a military term. Taking wages (or pay, another military word) of them - When I came to you at first. And when I was present with you, and wanted - My work not quite supplying my necessities. I was chargeable to no man - Of Corinth.

9. For - I choose to receive help from the poor Macedonians, rather than the rich Corinthians! Were the poor in all ages more generous than the rich?

10. This my boasting shall not be stopped - For I will receive nothing from you.

11. Do I refuse to receive anything of you, because I love you not? God knoweth that is not the case.

12. Who desire any occasion - To censure me. That wherein they boast, they may be found even as we - They boasted of being "burdensome to no man." But it was a vain boast in them, though not in the apostle.

14. Satan himself is transformed - Uses to transform himself; to put on the fairest appearances.

15. Therefore it is no great, no strange, thing; whose end, notwithstanding all their disguises, shall be according to their works.

16. I say again - He premises a new apology to this new commendation of himself. Let no man think me a fool - Let none think I do this without the utmost necessity. But if any do think me foolish herein, yet bear with my folly.

17. I speak not after the Lord - Not by an express command from him; though still under the direction of his Spirit. But as it were foolishly - In such a manner as many may think foolish.

18. After the flesh - That is, in external things.

19. Being wise - A beautiful irony.

20. For ye suffer - Not only the folly, but the gross abuses, of those false apostles. If a man enslave you - Lord it over you in the most arbitrary manner. If he devour you - By his exorbitant demands; not - withstanding his boast of not being burdensome. If he take from you - By open violence. If he exalt himself - By the most unbounded self-commendation. If he smite you on the face - (A very possible case,) under pretense of divine zeal.

21. I speak with regard to reproach, as though we had been weak - I say, "Bear with me," even on supposition that the weakness be real which they reproach me with.

22. Are they Hebrews, Israelites, the seed of Abraham - These were the heads on which they boasted.

23. I am more so than they. In deaths often - Surrounding me in the most dreadful forms.

24. Five times I received from the Jews forty stripes save one - Which was the utmost that the law allowed. With the Roman he sometimes pleaded his privilege as a Roman; but from the Jews he suffered all things.

25. Thrice I have been shipwrecked - Before his voyage to Rome. In the deep - Probably floating on some part of the vessel.

27. In cold and nakedness - Having no place where to lay my head; no convenient raiment to cover me; yet appearing before noble-men, governors, kings; and not being ashamed.

28. Beside the things which are from without - Which I suffer on the account of others; namely, the care of all the churches - A more modest expression than if he had said, the care of the whole church. All - Even those I have not seen in the flesh. St. Peter himself could not have said this in so strong a sense.

29. Who - So he had not only the care of the churches, but of every person therein. Is weak, and I am not weak - By sympathy, as well as by condescension. Who is offended - Hindered in, or turned out of, the good way. And I burn not - Being pained as though I had fire in my bosom.

30. I will glory of the things that concern my infirmities - Of what shows my weakness, rather than my strength.

32. The governor under Aretas - King of Arabia and Syria of which Damascus was a chief city, willing to oblige the Jews, kept the city - Setting guards at all the gates day and night.

33. Through a window - Of an house which stood on the city wall.

1. It is not expedient - Unless on so pressing occasion. Visions are seen; Revelations, heard.

2. I knew a man in Christ - That is, a Christian. It is plain from 2 Cor. xii, 6, 7, that he means himself, though in modesty he speaks as of a third person. Whether in the body or out of the body I know not - It is equally possible with God to present distant things to the imagination in the body, as if the soul were absent from it, and present with them; or to transport both soul and body for what time he pleases to heaven; or to transport the soul only thither for a season, and in the mean time to preserve the body fit for its re- entrance. But since the apostle himself did not know whether his soul was in the body, or whether one or both were actually in heaven, it would be vain curiosity for us to attempt determining it. The third heaven - Where God is; far above the aerial and the starry heaven. Some suppose it was here the apostle was let into the mystery of the future state of the church; and received his orders to turn from the Jews and go to the gentiles.

3. Yea, I knew such a man - That at another time.

4. He was caught up into paradise - The seat of happy spirits in their separate state, between death and the resurrection. Things which it is not possible for man to utter - Human language being incapable of expressing them. Here he anticipated the joyous rest of the righteous that die in the Lord. But this rapture did not precede, but follow after, his being caught up to the third heaven: a strong intimation that he must first discharge his mission, and then enter into glory. And beyond all doubt, such a foretaste of it served to strengthen him in all his after trials, when he could call to mind the very joy that was prepared for him.

5. Of such an one I will - I might, glory; but I will not glory of myself - As considered in myself.

6. For if I should resolve to glory - Referring to, I might glory of such a glorious Revelation. I should not be a fool - That is, it could not justly be accounted folly to relate the naked truth. But I forbear - I speak sparingly of these things, for fear any one should think too highly of me - O where is this fear now to be found? Who is afraid of this?

7. There was given me - By the wise and gracious providence of God. A thorn in the flesh - A visitation more painful than any thorn sticking in the flesh. A messenger or angel of Satan to buffet me - Perhaps both visibly and invisibly; and the word in the original expresses the present, as well as the past, time. All kinds of affliction had befallen the apostle. Yet none of those did he deprecate. But here he speaks of one, as above all the rest, one that macerated him with weakness, and by the pain and ignominy of it prevented his being lifted up mere, or, at least, not less, than the most vehement head ache could have done; which many of the ancients say he laboured under. St. Paul seems to have had a fresh fear of these buffetings every moment, when he so frequently represses himself in his boasting, though it was extorted from him by the utmost necessity.

8. Concerning this - He had now forgot his being lifted up. I besought the Lord thrice - As our Lord besought his Father.

9. But he said to me - ln answer to my third request. My grace is sufficient for thee - How tender a repulse! We see there may be grace where there is the quickest sense of pain. My strength is more illustriously displayed by the weakness of the instrument. Therefore I will glory in my weaknesses rather than my Revelations, that the strength of Christ may rest upon me - The Greek word properly means, may cover me all over like a tent. We ought most willingly to accept whatever tends to this end, however contrary to flesh and blood.

10. Weaknesses - Whether proceeding from Satan or men. For when I am weak - Deeply conscious of my weakness, then does the strength of Christ rest upon me.

11. Though I am nothing - Of myself.

14. The third time - Having been disappointed twice. I seek not yours - Your goods. But you - Your souls.

15. I will gladly spend - All I have. And be spent - Myself.

16. But some may object, though I did not burden you, though I did not take anything of you myself, yet being crafty I caught you with guile - I did secretly by my messengers what I would not do openly, or in person.

17. I answer this lying accusation by appealing to plain fact. Did I make a gain of you by Titus - Or any other of my messengers? You know the contrary. It should be carefully observed, that St. Paul does not allow, but absolutely denies, that he had caught them with guile; so that the common plea for guile, which has been often drawn from this text, is utterly without foundation.

18. I desired Titus - To go to you.

19. Think ye that we again excuse ourselves - That I speak this for my own sake? No. I speak all this for your sakes.

21. Who had sinned before - My last coming to Corinth. Uncleanness - Of married persons. Lasciviousness - Against nature.

1. I am coming this third time - He had been coming twice before, though he did not actually come.

2. All the rest - Who have since then sinned in any of these kinds. I will not spare - I will severely punish them.

4. He was crucified through weakness - Through the impotence of human nature. We also are weak with him - We appear weak and despicable by partaking of the same sufferings for his sake. But we shall live with him - Being raised from the dead. By the power of God in you - By that divine energy which is now in every believer, 2 Cor. xiii, 5.

5. Prove yourselves - Whether ye are such as can, or such as cannot, bear the test - This is the proper meaning of the word which we translate, reprobates. Know ye not yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you - All Christian believers know this, by the witness and by the fruit of his Spirit. Some translate the words, Jesus Christ is among you; that is, in the church of Corinth; and understand them of the miraculous gifts and the power of Christ which attended the censures of the apostle.

6. And I trust ye shall know - By proving yourselves, not by putting my authority to the proof.

7. I pray God that ye may do no evil - To give me occasion of showing my apostolical power. I do not desire to appear approved - By miraculously punishing you. But that ye may do that which is good, though we should be as reprobates - Having no occasion to give that proof of our apostleship.

8. For we can do nothing against the truth - Neither against that which is just and right, nor against those who walk according to the truth of the gospel.

9. For we rejoice when we are weak - When we appear so, having no occasion to show our apostolic power. And this we wish, even your perfection - In the faith that worketh by love.

11. Be perfect - Aspire to the highest degree of holiness. Be of good comfort - Filled with divine consolation. Be of one mind - Desire, labour, pray for it, to the utmost degree that is possible.

13. The grace - Or favour. Of our Lord Jesus Christ - By which alone we can come to the Father. And the love of God - Manifested to you, and abiding in you. And the communion - Or fellowship. Of the Holy Ghost - In all his gifts and graces. It is with great reason that this comprehensive and instructive blessing is pronounced at the close of our solemn assemblies; and it is a very indecent thing to see so many quitting them, or getting into postures of remove, before this short sentence can be ended. How often have we heard this awful benediction pronounced! Let us study it more and more, that we may value it proportionably; that we may either deliver or receive it with a becoming reverence, with eyes and hearts lifted up to God, "who giveth the blessing out of Zion, and life forevermore."