319
guage increases in strength. — Id/wga, I persecuted) Believers even after repentance take guilt to themselves for the evil, which they have once perpetrated.
10. Xdpin , by grace) alone. — o g//x/, what I am) i.e. an apostle, who saw Christ. — oO xevri, not vain ) Paul proves the authority of the gospel and of his testimony to it by its effects. — dvr&v, than they) This word is referred to ver. 7. — vdvrcov, all) individually. — adv s/mi) with me) The particle with is suitable because he says, I laboured : comp. Mark xvi. 20.
11. Kripvaao/iev, we preach) all the apostles with one mouth. — smcr sugars, ye believed) Faith once received lays the foundation for subsequent faith : and its first firmness not only obliges [binds] those wavering, but also often retains them.
12. E/) if [since], an affirmative particle. — rrug, how) The con- nection between the resurrection of Christ from the dead and the resurrection of the dead was extremely manifest to Paul. Those, indeed, who held a resurrection in general as a thing impossible, could not believe even in the resurrection of Christ. — rmg) some , no doubt, of the Gentiles, Acts xvii. 32.
13. e7 3s, but if) He now begins a retrospect, and enume- rates all that he alleged at 3—11.
14. Kevlv — ), vain — vain) contrary to what you yourselves have acknowledged, ver. 11 . — 7uvr,y without reality, differs from pura'ia, vain, ver. 17, without use.
15. Ysvdo/idprvpsg, false witnesses) It is not lawful to declare concerning God what is not so ; although it may seem to give glory to Him. False witnesses are, for instance, traders, who, for the sake of their gain, give fictitious accounts of earth- quakes, inundations, and other great calamities, which have happened in distant countries, and lead souls otherwise not too credulous to thoughts and conversations concerning divine judg- ments, good in the proposition (thesis), but erroneous in the supposition (hypothesis) on which the proposition rests.
17. 'A /lapr/aig, in your sins), even those of blind heathenism ; ver. 34, [ deprived of the hope of life eternal. — Y. g.]
18. ’ AndXovro, perished) they were , they are not. Paul speaks conditionally : the heathen denying the resurrection might, if that supposition were true, regard the dead just the same as if they had never been. Nor was there here any necessity for
320