who are made a spectacle to angels and to men ; viii. 231 10 We are fools ous attention to so strange and tragical a sight. SECT. for Christ's sake, but Imagine not, that I have aggravated the repreye are wise in Christ: sentation; the more you attend to our circum. we are weak, but ye are strong ye are stances, the more you will discern its justice: honourable, but we for we [are] treated like fools, babblers, and are despised. 1 Cor. iv. 10 madmen, for the sake of Christ, (Acts. xvii. 18, chap. xxvi. 24,) as if we were the weakest and most ignorant of mankind, because we preach the plain truths of the gospel, and endeavour to the utmost to exalt our Lord. But ye [are] wise in Christ: ye set up for a kind of Christian philosophers, of more refined understandings than your brethren, and think you have found out a political way, at once of securing the blessings of the gospel, and escaping its inconveniences and persecutions. We [are] weak, in presence, in infirmities, and in sufferings: but ye [are] strong, have great confidence in yourselves, and are got above many of those tender alarms and impressions, which hearts like ours are subject to, on a variety of occasions; you [are] honourable, adorned with extraordinary gifts, in which you are ready to glory, and many of you set off with circumstances of external distinction; but we [are] poor, despised creatures, treated with contempt 11 Even unto this wherever we come. For even to this present 11 present hour, we hour, after all the battles fought, and all the thirst, and are naked, conquests already gained, by the gospel, we are often exposed to circumstances of the extremest want and misery. Sometimes we both hunger and thirst, and amidst our charitable journies to diffuse the gospel, hardly find entertainment of the plainest kind, to relieve our necessities, or money to purchase it. And our clothes are so worn out with travelling, and we are so ill furnished for buying more, that we are often almost naked,d not having decent raiment to wear, though we appear so often in public assemblies. And in many instances, both hunger and have a great tendency to inspire their minds with the most heroic sentiments. Elsner has given an excellent collection of passages from heathen writers, in which such a figure is made use of by them. • Are naked, &c.] Surely one cannot imagine any more glorious triumph of the truth, than what it gained in these circumstances, when St. Paul, with an impediment in his speech, and a personage, rather contemptible, than graceful, appeared in a mean, and perhaps sometimes tattered dress, before persons of the highest rank, and yet commanded such attention, and made such impressions. 232 1 Cor. по certain dwelling place. and are reviled and persecuted as the filth of the world. SECT. where our benevolent and important message and are buffeted, and viii. is heard, instead of being received with due have respect, we are insulted, and perhaps buffeted, iv. 11 by the unruly and barbarous mob; and at best, if we now and then meet with a little more hospitable usage, it is but for a very little while; for, whereas you dwell in a rich and magnificent city, we have no certain abode, but are continually removing from one place to another. 12 And though we are engaged in a work of so 12 And labour, great importance to the souls of men, which working with our might well ingross all our time and care; yet reviled, we bless; own hands. Being such are the circumstances in which we are being persecuted, often placed, that we are obliged in duty and we suffer it; prudence, to labour in some secular calling, working with our own hands, to procure the necessary supports of the most frugal and parsimonious life. Being in the most insolent and provoking manner reviled to our faces, and loaded with every opprobrious name of contempt, we meekly bless, and pray for our enemies; being persecuted, we endure it patiently, 13 unable to right and help ourselves. Being 13 Being defam. blasphemed, and spoken of in the most scanda- ed, we entreat: we lous, and, considering our sacred character, of the world, and are the most impious terms; we only entreat that men would more impartially examine our pretensions, that they may entertain more favourable sentiments concerning us; and in the mean time, we freely forgive them their rash and injurious censures. And on the whole, such is the usage we meet with, that we are made and treated like the very filth of the world, like the wretches, which being taken from the dregs of the people, are offered as expiatory • Filth of the world.] The word abnguala has a force and meaning here which no one word in our language can express; I have given, what I am persuaded is the true meaning of it in the paraphrase, and must refer to Dr. Hen. More, (Theol. Works, p. 63,) and Dr. Whitby in loc. for the illustration of this bold and noble figure. Suidas says that these wretched victims were called nabaguala, as their death was esteemed an expiation; and he tells us the word μala, which we render off. scouring, was also applied to them; and Bos, (Exercit. p. 125,) illustrates this sense of the word by a very large and judicious collection of Greek quotations. See also are made as the filth Dr. Ridley's Christian Passover, p. 22. It appears from some of these passages, that when the ashes of these unhappy men were thrown into the sea, these very words were used in the ceremony, yr wigitsua, you xabagua; but the former of these titles was given them, in reference to that original signification of the words, which the paraphrase on the end of the verse expresses. That so wise and ancient a republic as that of Marseilles, originally a Greek colony, should have retained this savage usage, is astonishing; yet Servius expressly asserts it. Serv. in Æneid. Lib. III. Lin. 75. The apostle writes these things for their warning. 233 1 Cor. the the offscouring of all sacrifices to the infernal deities among SECT things unto this day. Gentiles, and loaded with curses, affronts and viii. injuries, in the way to the altars, at which they are to bleed: [or like] the refuse of all things to iv. 13 this day, the very sweepings of the streets and stalls, a nuisance to all around us, and fit for nothing but to be trampled upon by the meanest and vilest of mankind. warn you. 14 I write not I do not write these things to shame you, or 14 these things to in any degree to stain your credit with other shame you, but as my beloved sons, I churches, by such a representation, as if you were unmindful of my sufferings for the gospel; but considering the relation in which we stand to each other, and looking upon you as my beloved sons, I warn [you] of those dangers to which I fear you may be exposed, and of the regard which it is your duty and interest to pay to those who voluntarily subject themselves to so many evils on your account, that you ought surely to be the last to increase their 15 For though you burdens. And I may particularly urge this 15 have ten thousand with respect to myself; for if you have ten instructors in Christ, thousand instructors in Christ, be they ever so yet have ye not many fathers: for many, or ever so valuable, yet [you have] not in Christ Jesus I many spiritual fathers, for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you Paul have begotten you by the gospel: I preachthrough the gospel. ed it first among you, and was the happy means of your spiritual birth, and all the privileges of 16 Wherefore I God's children which you receive by it. I be- 16 beseech you, be ye seech you therefore, [that] with filial piety and duty ye be all imitators of me, keeping strictly to the faith which I taught you, and carefully copying my meekness and humility. followers of me. 17 For this cause For this reason, that you may be the better 17 have I sent unto you able to trace my steps, and may be animated Timotheus, who is to do it with the greater care, I have sent to my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, you Timothy, who is my beloved son, or dear who shall bring you convert, (Acts xix. 22,) and who, though yet into remembrance of but a young man, is remarkably faithful in the in Christ, as I teach Lord, an excellent Christian, who will be able every where in eve- more perfectly to bring to your remembrance the ry church. my ways which be VOL. 4. ways of Christ, as I am every where teaching in 31 234 And declares his purpose to come to them shortly. I would not come to SECT. Some, I hear, are puffed up in vain and proud 18 Now some are viii. confidence, as if, after all I have said, I would puffed up, as though not come to you, and did not dare to appear in iv. 18 a place where I have now so many opposers. 19 But they are extremely mistaken, for I will 1 Cor. you. 19 But I will come certainly come to you, and that quickly too, if to you shortly, if the the power they have to vindicate their preten- of that authority in the church which they pre 20 sume to oppose to mine. For the kingdom of 20 For the kingGod is not in speech, in confident assertions, or dom of God is not in in elegant forms of address, but is established word, but in power. in the exertions of a miraculous power, conferred on the true and genuine apostles of our Lord by the effusion of his Spirit upon them, by virtue of which, his faithful subjects may be fully satisfied, they act according to his will, 21 in paying them the regard they require. What 21 What will ye? therefore do you on the whole desire, and shall I come unto choose? That I should come to you, as it were, in love, and in the you with a rod, or with a rod of correction in my hand, using spirit of meekness ? my apostolic power for your chastisement; or, which for your sakes I should much rather choose, in love, and in the spirit of meekness and gentleness, comforting and commending, instead of chastising? You will, I hope, think seriously upon the matter in time, before things are driven to such an extremity, as may not any longer leave it in my choice or yours. With a rod of correction.] That the apostles had often a miraculous power of inflicting death, and other temporal judg‐ ments, in case of aggravated offence, ap. pears from other passages of scripture. Acts v. 5-10, chap. xiii. 10, 11; 1 Tim. i. 20; and is referred to more than once or twice, in these epistles to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. v. 5; 2 Cor. i 23, chap. x. 6, 8, chap. xiii. 2, 3, 10. And I cannot mention these passages, without leading my reader to reflect on the wisdom of Providence, in permitting such opposition to arise against St. Paul, particularly at Corinth. It gave him an opportunity of making the strongest appeals to what they are supposed to know of his miraculous power; and had these appeals not been indeed founded on the most certain and evident truth, they must, instead of restoring him to their regards, as we find in fact they did, have been sufficient of themselves utterly to have ruin. ed all his reputation and interest among them, had it before been ever so great. Reflections on Paul's tenderness for his children in Christ. 235 IMPROVEMENT. viii. How adorable is the efficacy of Divine grace which bore those SECT. zealous and faithful servants of Christ through all their labours and fatigues, when they were made a spectacle to the world, to verse angels and men! How glorious a spectacle! worthy surely, as 9 any thing, since that wonderful scene on Calvary, of the eye of God himself. How little are we to judge of the Divine favour by external eircumstances, when those best of men were of all others the most miserable, farther, than as their heavenly hope supported and animated them? And when that is taken into the account, who would not emulate their lot, though hungry and thirsty, 11--13 though naked and destitute, without habitation, without protector, without friends? When we consider their share in the Divine friendship, when we consider the blessed effects of their labours, and the glorious crown which awaits them after all their suffer. ings; surely they must appear happy in proportion to the degree in which they seemed miserable, and glorious in proportion to the degree in which the world held them as infamous! That illustrious person, whose epistles are now before us, knew not the pleasures of domestic life, in many of its most endearing relations. But God made him a spiritual father to mul titudes; and no doubt, as he urges the consideration on his children in Christ, he felt the joy arising from it strong in his own 15 soul, when he said, I have begotten you in Christ Jesus by the gospel. Surely it ought never to have been forgotten by them; and if through the artifices of ill designing men, and the remaining infirmities of their own character, it was sometimes, and in some degree forgotten now, yet undoubtedly, it would be remembered by them in the heavenly world for ever; even by as many as the Lord his God had graciously given him. And if there 14 be any remembrance there, that they once grieved him, it will be an engagement to all those offices of an eternal friendship, which the exaltation of the heavenly state shall allow. In the mean time, his paternal affection for them wrought, not in a foolish fondness of indulgence, which in the language of Divine wisdom, is hating a son; but in the character of prudent and faithful parent, who, desirous that his children may be as wise and good as possible, will rather use the rod than suffer them to 21 be undone. Yet when he speaks of using it, he speaks with regret, as one who would rather choose to act in the spirit of gentleness, and without any mixture of severity, how necessary soever. The whole of his subsequent conduct to the Corinthians as far as it may be learned from this, or the following epistle bears a perfect consistency with these expressions, and illustrates their sincerity, |