in the Lord^" Thus, in this epistle also he vindi- cates himself as ministering, not like the false teachers, who corrupted the word of God, but with a holy integrity befitting his high office''. Yet apprehensive lest he should be misunderstood, as though he felt a need of such commendations either from himself or others, he appealed to his converts themselves as proofs sufficient of his apostleship, even such proofs as carried, to the most thoughtless beholder, their own evidence along with them : " Ye are our epistle, &c. &c. :" that is, ' I need not epistles from men, since ye yourselves are epistles from the Lord Jesus Christ, testifying that I am his servant, and that the Gospel which I preach is the very truth of God."
In further considering these words, we may notice from them,
I. The character of all true converts — Christians are epistles of Christ, written for the instruction of the whole world. Epistles from man to man, such as were those which the false teachers carried with them as letters of recommendation from Church to Church, were written with ink ; but Christ's epistles are written with the Spirit of the living God ; and not, as the law of the ten commandments was, in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart ; to which God alone can have access, and on which God alone can make any valuable impressions. Mi- nisters indeed are used by him as instruments, as the word also is ; but these can effect no more than a pen or ink can without the hand of a writer : " Paul may plant, and Apollos may water ; but it is God alone who can give the increased"
By these epistles the Lord Jesus Christ teaches men,
1. What is that change that must be wrought on every child of man —
[Christians once walked after the course of this world, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
a 1 Cor. ix. 1,2. ''2 Cor. ii. 17. «■■ 1 Cor. iii. 5—7.