SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. G\ 



week, let every one of you lay by in store as God hath pros 

 pered him."* 1 Cor. IG : 2, 



* The following observations will satisfy us concerning the purity 

 of our apostle's conduct m the suspicious business of a pecuniary con- 

 tribution : 



1. He disclaims the having received any inspired authority foi th.3 

 directions which he is giving : "I speak not by commandment, but by 

 occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of 

 your love." 2 Cor. 8 : 8. Who that had a sinister purpose to answer 

 hy the recommending of subscriptions, would thus distinguish, and 

 thus lower the credit of his own recommendation ?* 



2. Although he asserts the general right of Christian-ministers to 

 a mamtenance from their ministry, yet he protests against the making 

 use of this right in his own person : "Even so hath the Lord ordained 

 that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. But I 

 have used none of these things : neither have I written these things 

 that it should be so done unto me : for it were better for me to die, 

 than that any man should make my glorying," that is, my profession? 

 of disinterestedness, "void." 1 Cor. 9: 14, 15. 



3. He repeatedly proposes that there should be associates with 

 himself in the management of the public bounty ; not colleagues of 

 his o'VATi appointment, but persons elected for that purpose by the con- 

 tributors themselves: "And v/hen I cq^ne, whomsoever ye shall ap- 

 prove by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto 

 Jerusalem. And if it be meet that I go also, they shall go with me." 

 1 Cor. 16 : 3, 4. And in the second epistle, what is here proposed 

 we find actually done, and done for the very purpose of guarding his 

 character against any imputation that might be brought upon it, in 

 the discharge of a pecuniary trust : "And we have sent with him the 

 brother, whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches ; 

 and not that only, but who was also chosen of the churches to travel 

 with us with this grace," gift, "which is administered by us to the 

 glory of the same Lord, and declaration of your ready mind : avoiding 

 this, that no man should blame us in this abimdance which is admin- 



* This remark seems to rest on an evident misinterpretation. The mean- 

 ing of St. Paul is not to disclaim a divine warrant for the advice he offers, buJ 

 to state emphatically that it is advice, and not a command, and that he would 

 have the offering to be free and spontaneous. The delicacy of thought and 

 feeling in the passage is greatly obscured, if we lose sight of the true nit-aning 

 of the expression. Some duties are plain and absolute, and these he enforces 

 with apostolic authority; others are indirect, and have' no value, unless as the 

 free utterance of Christian love. In this case the apostle, under the teaching 

 pf the same Spirit, disclaims the exercise of authority, and simply pleads witb 

 them as a Christian brother. — Ed. 



