The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Corinthians — Section 44

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-11.-Further explanations ancl clireceions touching mattei·s just a;.scussed. The most copious writer in the New Testament is the man whose inward constitution and life are most fully brought into view. If the fact itself is noteworthy, the art of -its management is even more significant. Didactic treatises would have excluded this method of blending the abstract and the concrete, and therefore the epistolary form which St. Paul adopted. What do we mean by this form? Much more, indeed, than e, facile and graceful way of communicating facts and truths. In the Epistle we have the personality of the writer interblended with doctrine, duty, experience; so that in St. Paul's case we have not merely the gospel as a body of facts and truths, but the gospel in the consciousness of a leading exponent, and, in some respects, the most prominent representative of certain phases of thnt gospel. Gentile Christianity, as distinguished from the earlier Judaic Christianity, could never have been understood except for this intermingling of Christianity as a system and Christianity as a life in the -history of our apostle. Both the conditions met in him as they met in no other apostle. The two things must not be confounded. Many in our day foll into this error and speak of Christianity as if it were only "a life." It is a life, but it is something else besides and something antecedent to life. Now, the epistolary style, and still more its method of thought, allow full play to the wholeness of Uhristianity. Its dogmas are preserved. Its experimental nnd practical forces are maintained. Its individuation is provided for. And thus, while seeing the system, we see also its life in the soul. If the psalmist, King Dnvid, is the signal representative of formal and spiritual Judaism in the Old Testament, St. Paul is the corresponding figure in the N cw Testnment. At this point we are able to estimate the very great and specific value of the Second Epistlo to tho CorinthianA. Beyond any of his writings, this un[olds the author, and does it with such masterly skill and on so comprehensive a scale as to give a twofold insight into his system nnd life. What an extension of the "Acts" I No St. Luko could have done this. It was the " Acts '' in their secret head-springs in the man, and tho man only could record whnt they were. 'fhe account of his personnl feelings is resumed in this chapter. Not only for their sakes, but for his own, the visit had been post- poned, since he was unwilling to come in sorrow. The" rod" wo11ld have been painful to him ; they wero to oxercise discipline under the directions of his letter nod thus forestall an occasion of grief to him. If he had made them sorry, who hut they coukl give him joy? '!'his was tho reason for his writing, the reason too of deferring his visit; and thus the two things hnd been designed to co-operate in one result. A controversy is like n disease; the mode of treatment must be varied to suit its stages. No doubt personal presence, conversations, direct appeals, arc best at some times for adjusting difficulties; at other times, letters nre preferable. '!'he discernment of the apostle prompted him to write and then to aw!\i~ the effect; and it was nil in the interest of pence nnd for his and their consolation. Inspired by this conficlencc, he harl written them 11, severe rebuke. It was a most paiufol duty; it was a duty, however, of love; an<l. because ot this coincidence, conscia 1cu and alicction being nt work in his soul, 44- THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cH. u. 1-17.