swallowed up with overmuch sorrow unless you forgive him, wherefore confirm your love to hira.' The latter method is to be preferred, though the sense is substantially the same. I beseech you, TrapaKaAco, the same word which in the preced- ing verse is used in the sense of consoling. Paul not unfre- quently uses the same word in the immediate connection in different senses. 1 Cor. 3, 17. 11, 23. That ye looulcl coiv- firm, literally, to confirm, Kvpdcrai. The word properly means to ratify with authority by some public or formal act. Gal. 3, 15. And this sense is generally adopted here. The apostle is understood to call upon them by a formal act to reinstate the offender in the communion of the church, to assure him of their love, so that he might not have to infer it merely from their treatment of him. The word, however, may mean nothing more than is expressed in our version. ' I exhort you to make your love towards him a matter of certainty.' But as the im23lication is that they had already begun to manifest their brotherly affection for him, the probability is that the apostle wished them to give their love a formal ratification.
9. Por to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things.
Verses 9 and 10 are sometimes regarded as a parenthesis, so as to connect the 11th verse Avith the 8th. ' Confirm your love towards him, lest Satan get an advantage over us.' But a parenthesis is never to be assumed Avhere the grammatical construction continues unbroken, and the logical connection is uninterrupted. The 11th verse is naturally connected with the 10th, and the 9th with the 8th. 'Confirm your love to him, for the object of my writing to you to exclude him from your fellowship, has been accomplished.' To this end means the end specified in the latter part of the verse. I icrote, eypaxj/a, a form of the verb which is often in the epistolary style used of the letter in the process of being written. Rom. 15, 15. 1 Cor. 9, 15. 1 Pet. 5, 12, &c. The whole context, how- ever, shows that Paid refers to his former letter. See vs. 3. 4. He did not write this letter to test their obedience, though that was one of the objects of his former epistle. Paul says, 'I also wrote.' This also may indicate that it was the object of his former letter as well as of the exhortation which he had just given them, to test their ol^edience. But such was not