• The church thus far gives authority to the Scriptures in the hearts of men, though it be an improper phrase to say it gives authority; for, as the men said to the woman of Samaria, ' Now we believe it ourselves, not be- cause thou toldest us,' &c., John iv. 42. The church allures us to respect the Scriptures ; but then there is an inward power, an inward majesty in the Scriptures, and that bears down all before it.
Again, here is a ground why St Paul alleged human authority sometimes in his epistles, and in his dealing with men ; because he was to deal with men, that would be chamed the more with them. Anything that may strengthen the truth in regard of the weakness of those with whom we have to deal, may be used in a heavenly policy. ' One of your own prophets,' saith St Paul, towards the end, i. 12. And so in the Acts of the Apostles, xvii. 28, he quotes a saying out of an atheist [b).
* This use of ' party' = person, which is not nncommon in Sibbes and his con- temporaries, shews that it is not the modern vulgarism (so-called) which precisians would make it. — G. t That is, ' advantageous.' — G.
10 OOMMENTAEY ON
* Timothy our brother.* 'Brother:' he means not only by grace but by caUing, As wo know in the law and other professions, those of the same profession are called before brethren ; so Timothy was St Paul's brother, not only by grace, but by calling ; and two bonds bind stronger. fHere is a treble bond, nature, grace, calling. They were men, they were fellow Christians, and they were teachers ^f the gospel. Therefore he saith, ♦ Timothy our brother.' Timothy was an evangelist, yet notwithstanding it was a greater honour to him to bo a brother to St Paul than to be an evan- gelist. An h}^ocrite may be an evangelist ; but a true brother of St Paul none but a true Christian can be. All Christians are brethren. It is a "word that levels all ; for it takes down the mountains, and fills up the valleys. The greatest men in the world, the mountains, if they be Chris- tians, they are brethren to the lowest. And it fills up the valleys. The lowest, if they be Christians, are brethren to the highest ; howsoever in worldly respects, they cease in death ; as personal differences, and dif- ferences in calling, they all cease in death. All are brethren ; therefore he useth it for great respect. St Paul was a great apostle; Timothy an in- ferior man, yet both bretEren, ' Timothy our brother.'
* To the church of God at Corinth.'' We have seen the persons from whom,- ' Paul and Timothy.' Now here are the persons to whom, ' to the church of God at Corinth.' Corinth was a very wicked city, as, where there is a great confluence of many people, there is a contagion of many sins of the people ; and yet notwithstanding in this Corinth there was a church. For as Christ saith, * No man can come to me, except my Father draw him,' John vi. 44 ; so where the Father will draw, who can draw back ? Even in Corinth God hath his church. He raiseth up a generation of men, a church, which is a company of creatures differing as much from the com- mon, as men do from beasts. And yet such is the power and efficacy of the blessed gospel of salvation, having the Spirit of God accompanying it, that even in Corinth, a wretched city, this word and this Spirit raised up a company of men, called here by the name of a church, and saints. And such power indeed hath the word of God with the Spirit, not only in wicked places, but in our wicked hearts too.
Let a man have a world of wickedness in him, and let him come and pre- sent himself meekly and constantly to the means of salvation, and God in time by his Spirit will raise a new frame of grace in his heart, he will make a new creation. As at the first he created all out of nothing, order out of confusion ; so out of the heart, which is nothing but a chaos of confusion, of blindness, and darkness, and terror (there is a world of confusion in the heart of man) ; God by his creating word (for his word of the gospel is creating, as well as his word was at the first in the creation of the world ; it hath a creating power) he raiseth an excellent frame in the heart of a man, he scatters his natural blindness, he sets in order his natural confusion, that a man becomes a new creature, and an heir of a new world.
Let no people despair, nor no person ; for God hath his church in ' Co- rinth.'
But what is become of this church now ? Why, alas ! it is under the slavery of the Turks, it is under miserable captivity at this day. At the first, Corinth was overthrown by Numeus,'!^ a Roman captain, for the abusing the Roman ambassadors ; it was ruinated for the unfit carriage to the ambassadors, who would not suffer themselves to be contemned, nor the * Qu. 'Mummius?' — Ed.