TEXT. 9 For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were, appointed to death. For we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ: we are weak, but ye are strong: ye are honourable, but we are despised. 11 Even unto this present hour, we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place. 12 And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it : 13 Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the off-scouring of all things unto this day. 14 I write not these things to shame you; but, as my beloved sons, I warn you. * PARAPHRASE. and share in the protection and prosperity you enjoy, 9 now you are in your kingdom. For I being made an apostle last of all, it seems to me as if I were brought last upon the stage, to be, in my sufferings and death, a spectacle to the world, and to angels, 10 and to men. I am a fool for Christ's sake, but you manage your christian concerns with wisdom. I am weak, and in a suffering condition † ; you are strong and flourishing; you are honourable, but I am de11 spised. Even to this present hour, I both hunger and thirst, and want clothes, and am buffeted, 12 wandering without house or home; And maintain myself with the labour of my hands. Being reviled, 13 I bless being persecuted, I suffer patiently: Being defamed, I in treat: I am made as the filth of the world, and the off-scouring of all things unto this 14 day. I write not these things to shame you; but as a father to warn you, my children, that ye be not the devoted zealous partisans and followers of such, whose carriage is not like this; under whom, however you may flatter yourselves, in truth, you do not reign but, on the contrary, ye are domineered NOTES. 9 * The apostle seems here to allude to the custom of bringing those last upon the theatre, who were to be destroyed by wild beasts. 10+ So he uses the word weakness, often, in his epistles to the corinthians, applied to himself: vid. 2 Cor. xii. 10. TEXT. 15 For, though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for, in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you, through the gospel. 16 Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. 17 For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways, which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church. 18 Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. 19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. 20 For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. PARAPHRASE, over, and fleeced by them *. I warn you, I say, as 15 your father: For how many teachers soever you may have, you can have but one father; it was I, that begot you in Christ, i. e. I converted you to 16 christianity. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye fol17 lowers of met. To this purpose I have sent my beloved son Timothy to you, who may be relied upon he shall put you in mind, and inform you, how I behave myself every-where in the ministry of 18 the gospel. Some, indeed, are puffed up, and make 19 their boasts, as if I would not come to you. But I intend, God willing, to come shortly; and then will make trial, not of the rhetoric, or talking of those boasters, but of what miraculous power of the Holy 20 Ghost is in them. For the doctrine and prevalency of the gospel, the propagation and support of Christ's NOTES. 14 Vid. 2 Cor xi. 20. St. Paul here, from ver. 8 to 17, by giving an account of his own carriage, gently rebukes them for following men of a different character, and exhorts them to be followers of himself. 16 This he presses again, chap. xi. 1. and it is not likely he would have proposed himself, over and over again, to them, to be followed by them, had the question and contest amongst them been only, whose name they should have borne, bis, or their new teacher's. His proposing himself, therefore, thus to be followed, must be understood, in direct opposition to the false apostle, who misled them, and was not to be suffered to have any credit, or followers, amongst them. 17 This he does to show, that what he taught them, and pressed them to, was not in a pique against his opposer, but to convince them, that all he did, at Corinth, was the very same, and no other, than what he did every where, as a faithful steward and minister of the gospel. PARAPHRASE. kingdom, by the conversion and establishment of believers, does not consist in talking, nor in the fluency of a glib tongue, and a fine discourse, but in the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost. SECT. II. No.6. CHAP. IV. 21.-VI. 20. CONTENTS. ANOTHER means, which St. Paul makes use of, to bring off the corinthians from their false apostle, and to stop their veneration of him, and their glorying in him, is by representing to them the fault and disorder, which was committed in that church, by not judging and expelling the fornicator; which neglect, as may be guessed, was owing to that faction. 1. Because it is natural for a faction to support and protect an offender, that is of their side. 2. From the great fear St. Paul was in, whether they would obey him, in censuring the offender, as appears by the second epistle; which he could not fear, but from the opposite faction; they, who had preserved their respect to him, being sure to follow his orders. 3. From what he says, ch. iv. 16, after he had told them, ver. 6, of that chapter, that they should not be puffed up, for any other, against him, (for so the whole scope of his discourse here imports,) he beseeches them to be his followers, i. e. leaving their other guides, to follow him, in punishing the offender. For that we may conclude, from his immediately insisting on it so earnestly, he had in his view, when he beseeches them to be followers of him, and consequently that they might join with him, and take him for their leader, ch. v. 3, 4, he makes himself, by his spirit, as his proxy, the presi dent of their assembly, to be convened for the punishing that criminal. 4. It may further be suspected, from what St. Paul says, ch. vi. 1, that the opposite party, to stop the churchcensure, pretended that this was a matter to be judged by the civil magistrate: nay, possibly, from what is said, ver. 6, of that chapter, it may be gathered, that they had got it brought before the heathen judge; or at least from ver. 12, that they pleaded, that what he had done was lawful, and might be justified before the magistrate. For the judging spoken of, chap. vi. must be understood to relate to the same matter it does, chap. v. it being a continuation of the same discourse and argument as is easy to be observed by any one, who will read it without regarding the divisions into chapters and verses, whereby ordinary people (not to say others) are often disturbed in reading the holy scripture, and hindered from observing the true sense and coherence of it. The whole 6th chapter is spent in prosecuting the business of the fornicator, begun in the 5th. That this is so, is evident from the latter end, as well as beginning of the 6th chapter. And therefore, what St. Paul says of lawful, chap. vi. 12, may, without any violence, be supposed to be said, in answer to some, who might have alleged in favour of the fornicator, that what he had done was lawful, and might be justified by the laws of the country, which he was under: why else should St. Paul subjoin so many arguments (wherewith he concludes this 6th chapter, and this subject) to prove the fornication, in question, to be by the law of the gospel, a great sin, and consequently fit for a christian church to censure, in one of its members, however it might pass for lawful, in the esteem, and by the laws of gentiles? There is one objection, which, at first sight, seems to be a strong argument against this supposition; that the fornication, here spoken of, was held lawful by the gentiles of Corinth, and that, possibly, this very case had been brought before the magistrate there, and not condemned. The objection seems to lie in these words, ch. v. 1," There is fornication heard of amongst you, "and such fornication, as is not heard of amongst the 66 gentiles, that one should have his father's wife." But yet I conceive the words, duly considered, have nothing in them contrary to my supposition. To clear this, I take the liberty to say, it cannot be thought that this man had his father's wife; whilst, by the laws of the place, she actually was his father's wife; for then it had been μxía and adultery, and so the apostle would have called it, which was a crime in Greece; nor could it be tolerated in any civil society, that one man should have the use of a woman, whilst she was another man's wife, i. e. another man's right and possession. The case, therefore, here seems to be this; the woman had parted from her husband; which it is plain, from chap. vii. 10, 11, 13, at Corinth, women could do. For if, by the law of that country, a woman could not divorce herself from her husband, the apostle had there, in vain, bid her not leave her husband. But, however known and allowed a practice it might be, amongst the corinthians, for a woman to part from her husband; yet this was the first time it was ever known that her husband's own son should marry her. This is that, which the apostle takes notice of in these words," Such a fornication, as is not named amongst "the gentiles." Such a fornication this was, so little known in practice amongst them, that it was not so much as heard, named, or spoken of, by any of them. But, whether they held it unlawful, that a woman, so 'separated, should marry her husband's son, when she was looked upon to be at liberty from her former husband, and free to marry whom she pleased; that the apostle says not. This, indeed, he declares, that, by the law of Christ, a woman's leaving her husband, and marrying another, is unlawful, ch. vii. 11, and this woman's marrying her husband's son, he declares, ch. v. 1, (the place before us,) to be fornication, a peculiar sort of fornication, whatever the corinthians, or their law, might determine in the case: and, therefore, a christian church might and ought to have censured it, within themselves, it being an offence against the rule of the gospel; which is the law of their society: and they might, and should, |