as venial at least, if not altogether indifferent. On every thing necessary for their welfare, the Apostle here communicates his sentiments freely : but in the commencement of his epistle he makes no difference between the Corinthians and the purest of all the Churches. He knew that if many among them were corrupt, the great majority of them were sincere ; and therefore he comprehends them all in the first expressions of his regard, that he may afterwards have the more influence over those, whose errors he designed to rectify. And this by the way shews us, that, when we see in our Liturgy the same charitable expressions relative to the state of persons in our own Church, we ought not scrupulously to strain every word to the uttermost, but should allow the same latitude of expression in the one case as we do in the other. But not to dwell on this, we notice in this introductory acknowledgment of the Apostle,
I. The blessings which the Gospel imparts —
The Gospel is no other than " a testimony" of Jesus. This was " the spirit of prophecy" under the Old Testament^; and it is the spirit of all the writings in the New Testament. What the testimony was, is declared with great precision by St. John : " This is the record, that God hath given to us eter- nal life ; and this life is in his Son ; he that hath the Son, hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life^"
The believer has this testimony " confirmed in him." There are two ways in which this testimony is confirmed : the one is externally, by signs and miracles ; the other is internally, by the operation of the Spirit of God upon the soul. The Corinthians had had it confirmed to them in both ways : for no Church exceeded them in miraculous gifts "^ ; and in the change wrought upon their own souls, they had an evidence of the truth and power of the Gospel : they had an evidence of it in " the grace which had been given them by Jesus Christ."
« Rev. xix. 11. " 1 John v. 11, 12. = 1 Cor. xii. 10.