of you all. Paul in saying that he wished all causes of painiiil collision might be removed out of the way before he went to Corinth, did not isolate himself from the people, as though concerned only for his own peace of mind, but was satisfied that what made him happy would make them happy. My joy will be the joy of you all. This does not mean merely that it would give them pleasure to see him happy, but also that obe- dience on their part, and the consequent purity and prosperity of the church, were as necessary to their happiness as to his. Paul says he had this confidence in them all^ although it is abundantly evident that there were men among them who were his bitter opponents. These latter he here leaves out of view, and speaks of the majority, probably the great body, of the church as thouo-h it were the whole.
4. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears ; not that ye should be grieved, but that ye may know the love which I have the more abundantly towards you.
The connection is either with the immediately preceding clause, ' I have confidence in you, for otherwise it would not have given me so much pain to write as I did ; ' or, what is more natural because more direct, the reference is to the mo- tives which dictated his letter. ' I was influenced by the de- sire of j^romoting your happiness, for to me it was a most painful duty.' Out of {Ik) indicates the source. His letter flowed from a broken heart. Affliction and anguish refer to his inward feelings, not to his outward circumstances, for both are qualified by the word heart. It was out of an afflicted, an oppressed heart, that he wrote. W^ith many tears^ (Sta,) through many tears. The union of fidelity and love which renders parental discipline peculiarly eflective, gives also pe- culiar power to ecclesiastical censures. When the ofiender is made to feel that, while his sin is punished, he himself is loved ; and that the end aimed at is not his sufiermg but his good, he is the more likely to be brought to repentance. Every pastor must see in the apostle's love for the Corinthians, and in the extreme sorrow with which he exercised discipline in the case of ofi"enders, an instructive example for his imitation. Kot that ye should he grieved^ my object in writing was not to cause you sorrow, hut that ye may know the love that I