SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 59 



swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech 

 you that ye would confirm your love toM^ard him." 2 Cor. 

 2 : 6-8. Is this whole business feigned, for the sake of car 

 rying on a continuation of story through the two epistles ? 

 The church also, no less than the offender, was brought by 

 St. Paul's reproof to a deep sense of the impropriety of their 

 conduct. Their penitence, and their respect to his authority, 

 were, as might be expected, exceeding grateful to St. Paul : 

 " We were comforted not by Titus' coming only, but by the 

 consolation wherewith he was comforted in you, when he 

 told us your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent 

 mind toward me ; so that I rejoiced the more. For though 

 I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I 

 did repent : for I perceive that the same epistle hath made 

 you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, 

 not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to re- 

 pentance : for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, 

 that ye might receive damage by us in nothing." Chap. 

 7 : 7-9. That this passage is to be referred to the incestu- 

 ous marriage, is proved by the twelfth verse of the same 

 chapter : " Though I wrote unto you, I did it not for his 

 cause that had done the wrong, nor for his cause that suf 

 fered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God 

 might appear unto you." There were, it is true, various 

 topics of blame noticed in the first epistle ; but there were 

 none, except this of the incestuous marriage, which could 

 be called a transaction between private parties, or of which 

 it could be said that one particular person had " done the 

 wrong," and another particular person "had suffered it." 

 Could all this be without foundation ; or could it be put in 

 the second epistle merely to furnish an obscure sequel to 

 what had been said about an incestuous marriage in the 

 first ? 



3. In the sixteenth chapter of the first epistle, a col- 

 lection for the saints is recommended to be set forward at 

 Corinth : " Now concerning the collection for the saints, ag 



