he had received from Christ. This confidence of the apostle that he was what God had called him to be, an able or fit minister of the gospel, was not a trait of natural character ; it was not a conclusion from his inward and outward experi- ence ; it was one of the forms in which the Spirit of God which was in him manifested itself; just as that Spirit mani- fested itself in his humihty, faith, courage, or constancy. It is easy to determine whether such confidence is self-infiation, or the strength of God in the soul. If the former, it has its natural concomitants of pride, arrogance, indifi:erence, con- tempt of others. If the lattei-, it is attended by self-abhor- rence, meekness, long-suflfering, a willingness to be the least and lowest, and by all other graces of the Spirit. To God- ward., 7rpo9 Tov 0€oi/. This may mean in reference to God, i. e. a confidence exercised toward God as its object. Or, Trpos may be used here as in Rom. 4, 2. Abraham, it is there said, had no Kavxr//>ta, ground of boasting., Trpos ©eoV, before God ; that is, none that could stand his inspection. Paul says he had a confidence before God ; that is, one which could endure in his siojht.
5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency (is) of God.
The apostle had strongly asserted his sufficiency or fitness for his work. He here tells us what was not, and then what was, the source of his sufficiency. N'ot that., i. e. I do not say, or, I do not mean, that we are sufficient of ourselves. In most of the older MSS. the words d<^' eavrtov, of ourselves., stand after Xoyit^aa-^ai rt, " sufficient to think any thing of ourselves," instead of, as in the common text, ' sufficient of ourselves to think any thing.' The former order of the words has greater authority, and gives perhaps the better sense. There is a dif- ference in the prepositions in Greek which is not expressed in the English. Paul says his sufficiency or ability to thhik any thing was not a<^' kavTiiiv ws e| kavToiv., not from himself as out of himself. He was not the source of this sufficiency either remotely or immediately. We should express much the same idea by saying, 'Our sufficiency is not in or of ourselves.' Comp. Gal. 1, 1. What he disclaims is sufficiency or ability to think any thing j the implication is any thing right or