2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 4. 77
gpirit, the most discreet spirit, to be witty to do good to others upon all advantages. There is the Christian that hath God's grace with his gifts. But for the other, * Knowledge puflfeth up,' saith the apostle, 1 Cor. viii. 1.* What edifies and builds us? ' Love edifieth,' 1 Cor. viii. 1. Knowledge gathers many materials, stone, and timber, &c. What builds the house the body of Christ ? It is a loving and humble spirit.
Therefore let us think that we have nothing in Christianity, by any parts we have, of memory or wit, or reading, &c., unless we have a humble spirit, that we can deny ourselves and debase ourselves to do good to others upon all the best advantages ; or else we have not the spirit of Christ, that sweet spirit of Christ that denied himself to do good to us.
Where grace is established once, and is in the right nature, there is a pubHc mind ; and it is one of the best signs of a heart that is fashioned to the image of Christ, who denied himself, and became all in all to us, to have a public mind, to have self-love killed, to think I have nothing to purpose as I should have, except I can make use of it to the good of others. There- fore let us be willing to do good in this kind.
And as I said, let us make use of comfort from others. Think that they are reserved to the times and place where thou hvest, that thou mightest make use of them. Therefore those that need comfort should not latter themselves in their grief, but humbly depend upon the means that God hath ordained. And let every man think, what if God have hid my com- fort in another man ? What if he have given him ' the tongue of the learned,' Isa. 1. 4, to speak a word in season unto me? Let no man think to master his trouble and grief by himself. We are members of the body, and the good that God will convey to us, must be from and by others. Therefore it is a mutual duty. Those that have comfort ought to comfort others ; and those that do need comfort, ought to repair to others. It is the ordi- nance of God, as Job saith, for one of ' a thousand to shew a man his righteousness,' Job xxxiii. 23. Though a man be never so wise, yet some- times he knows not his own comfort. He knows not that portion of com- fort that belongs to him, till some others discover it to him. Physicians will have others to heal themselves, to judge of their diseases ; and certainly one reason why persons that are excellent in themselves, have passed their days in darkness, it hath been this, that they think to overmaster their heaviness and distraction of spirit with their own reason, &e., which will not be. God, what he will do, he will do by his own means and ordinance.
Use 3. Let us therefore learn, hence, to see the goodness of God, that besides the ministry that he hath ordained, and the salvation that he keeps for us, and the promises that he hath given us, and the angels that attend us, &c., he doth even ordain others, that are men, and have bodies with ourselves, other fellow- Christians, to be instruments to convey comfort. He trains them up, that they may be able to comfort, and do good to us ; and he hides the good he intends to us in them, and convej-s it to us by them. It is a special goodness of God, that everything should tend to our good. Thus all things are for us. The sufferings of others tend to increase our comfort, and the comfort of others is for our comfort. There is such a sweet prudence in directing us to heaven, that God makes everything help ; not only our own troubles that we suffer ourselves, but he doth sweetly turn the troubles of others, and the comforts of others to our good.
It ministereth an argument of praising and blessing of God ; and that we should answer him in the like, that as he hath devised all the ways that may be of comforting us, of turning aU to our good, that that we suffer
78 COMMENTARY ON
ourselves, and that that others suffer ; so we should study by all means and ways to set forth his glory, and no way to grieve the Spirit of so gracious a God, that thus every way intends our comfort.
TERSE 5.
'For OS the sxtffcrinris of Clinst abound in ns, so our consolations also abound by Christ.' Here the blessed apostle shews the reason why his heart was so enlarged, as we see in ver. 3, in the midst of his troubles and persecutions, to bless God. There was good reason ; for as his afflictions, so his consolations abounded. It is a reason, likewise, of his ability to comfort others, the reason why he was fitted to comfort others, because he found comfort abound in himself in his sufferings. So they have a double reference to the words before. But to take the words in themselves,