But he that hath made use of all these afforded him by the Spirit of God, viz. prophecies and voices from heaven, and such other evidences of divine revelation, ver. 13, he will be able to understand all these secrets perfectly, and being not himself persuaded by any other arguments but only by those that he hath thus received from the Spirit of God, he cannot reasonably be refuted by any other sort of arguments taken from human reason or worldly wisdom. And those methods and courses hath God pitched on, which are by the nobles and the potentates looked on as most despicable and empty and abject, that it may appear how empty are all those things that are most valued in the world, when these which they so much despise shall appear more effectual than they. That no man may have any reason to boast of his wisdom &c. in God's presence. But of God's special bounty it is that ye believe, and thereby are ingraffed into Christ, who is made by God to us the author of all true knowledge, the cause of our justification, our sanctification, and will be also of deliverance and rescue from all calamities that this life is subject to, yea, and from death itself, by raising us again: (see note [l] Rom. viii.) That all our good may be acknowledged to come from God, and none else. ## CHAP. II. AND I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. And I, brethren, although I was furnished with all manner of spiritual gifts, and was able to have revealed to you the highest mysteries, yet when I was among you I could not think fit to treat so with you, the greatest part of you being then but very slender proficients in the gospel, so far from spiritual men, (as some of you, the Gnostics, are wont to style themselves,) from men instructed by the Spirit of Christ, that you were gotten no higher than the imperfections and passions and sins of men, mere beginners in Christianity. This was the reason that I gave you such tender food, proceeded not to reveal the mysteries of Christianity to you, for you were not fit for any higher diet, nor indeed yet are ye. For ye are not yet raised to any pitch of spiritual or Christian temper, as may appear by the schisms and factions that are among you, which being so contrary to the commands of Christ, which are all for peace and charity, as long as they are among you, ye are advanced but little above the pitch of mere men, those which have nothing of spirit in them. And herein your carnality consists: one pretends to follow the doctrine of Paul, another of Apollos, in opposition to all other Christians, and they that hold with one hold against the other. And what is this uncharitableness but carnality? Where first it ought to be considered, that Paul or Apollos are not the authors of our faith, but only instruments of conveying the doctrine of Christ to us (and consequently must not be conceived to teach diverse doctrine) according to the different commissions given them by the Holy Ghost. And so though I have taught you the doctrine of Christianity, and made you believers of heathens, and * Apollos baptized you, when you had been thus ¹⁹ which shall instruct him. the King's MS. reads ἄνθρωποι. ¹ ye were not then able, οὕτω ἰδύνασθε. ² Or, men: for according to man, κατὰ ἄνθρωπον. * Ego de pagano catechumenon foci, Apollo catechumenon baptizavit.—Optat. And therefore there is no great matter imputable either to one or other, as that either of us should be deemed the author of your faith, but God only who hath made our endeavours so effectual to you. But then, secondly, the doctrine of both of us is but one, both of us have had the same design and purpose of settling men in the doctrine of Christ, though, according to the labour that either of us have taken in the work, we may have different degrees of reward; and, consequently, though one labourer may deserve more honour than another, yet ought not this to be an occasion of division or schism among you, because our design and doctrine being the same, your faith ought to be the same also. We indeed that preach, and they that baptize, are both servants or officers of God, and cooperate one with another in that great work of dressing and building up of souls, which, when it is wrought, must not yet be attributed to us the instruments, but only to God, the author and perfecter of all. God gave me abilities and commission to plant and preach the gospel, to do as the master-workman doth, to lay the foundation; and accordingly I have done, preached the faith, laid the foundation, Jesus Christ and him crucified, ch. ii. 2, and some others that came after me to this church which I had planted, ver. 6, (I mean not Apollos, for he only watered what I had planted, baptized and further instructed whom I had converted, ch. i. 5, 6, 7, but) some others, I say, which I hear have come in, have superstructed on my foundation somewhat which I never designed. But let them take heed what they do; for if they have superstructed any other but that one pure precious doctrine of Christ crucified, and constant confession of him in time of persecution, if from the Gnostics they receive any infusions contrary to these, let them look to it. For the faith of Christ being the foundation which I have laid, and that indeed the only one which can possibly be laid, * but, &c. But if it prove combustible matter, if the doctrine or practice shall upon examination prove false and unchristian, and so will not bear that trial, (such are the Gnostics' doctrines of denying Christ when persecuted,) it shall then be so far from helping him to any advantage, as the Gnostic complier hopes it will, that it shall bring the greatest danger upon him; and if upon timely repentance, or by his not having actually denied Christ, (for all his superstructing of some erroneous doctrines,) he be more mercifully dealt with by Christ, and freed from having his portion with unbelievers, yet it shall go hard with him, as with one that is involved in a common fire, and hardly escapes out of it. [a] he shall suffer loss] Of the word ζημιωθήσεται here it may first be inquired, whether it belong to the man or to his work, both immediately precedent, εἴ τινος τὸ ἔργον, if any man's work. That which inclines it to signify the work is the αὐτὸς δέ that follows, but himself For who can be imagined to know more of God's mind than he doth who is informed by the Spirit, that so he should teach him God's mind? Certainly nobody. And consequently nobody can teach you more of the truth of God than we (to whom Christ hath revealed his whole will as far as concerns any man to know) have or are able to do. AND I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, eren as unto babes in Christ. By this that I say you cannot but discern what care you are obliged to take, to beware of these false seducing teachers that creep in among you: you are a church of God's plantation, built as the temple among the Jews, God's direction given for every part of it; ye have had the Spirit of God to teach you all true doctrine and pure practices by your apostolical [b] For who hath known the—] That this is a citation from Isa. xl. 13 there is no question, as also that the first words, Τίς γὰρ ἔγνω νοῦν Κυρίου; For who hath known the mind of the Lord? are set down, after this apostle's manner, out of the Septuagint. Now the same apostle citeth that place again, Rom. xi. 34, and there in the latter part also sets down the Septuagint's words, καὶ τίς αὐτοῦ σύμβουλος ἐγένετο; and who hath been his counsellor? which words being not here read, but to τίς γὰρ ἔγνω τὸν νοῦν τοῦ Κυρίου, these other immediately subjoined, δὲ συμβιβάσει αὐτόν; who shall instruct him? there will be no reason to think these latter words to be another rendering of that second part of the verse in Isaiah. For when the Septuagint had translated it truly out of the Hebrew, why should the apostle, who constantly useth the Septuagint's translation, and that sometimes when that varies from the Hebrew, here use a new rendering of his own, and for καὶ τίς αὐτοῦ σύμβουλος ἐγένετο; who hath been his counsellor? set only δὲ συμβιβάσει αὐτόν; who shall instruct him? For this there is no probable reason to be given; and therefore it must be resolved, that no more than the first words are taken out of that place of Isaiah, and that the latter words are the apostle's own, to bring them to his present purpose, Who hath known the mind of the Lord, which shall instruct him? that is, who doth know the Lord's mind so well as to be fit to inform and instruct the spiritual man? ver. 15, for that αὐτόν, him, should signify the Lord, (as they conclude that make these words all one with the latter part of the verse in Isaiah,) would be very strange, not only because it would be far different from ver. 15, of which it is brought for a proof, but also because knowing the mind of God, although it be a fit preparative to instructing of others, yet is not so for the instructing of God himself. And therefore if any false teacher shall bring in any unclean heretical doctrine into such a church of God's planting, a place of God's residence, and so pollute or defile God's dwelling-place, (as when Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire on God's altar,) then, as they were devoured by fire from heaven, so he must expect severe punishment; for all ye that are Christians make up this one temple of God's, and that being a consecrated society must not be profaned or polluted with such impure doctrines as the Gnostics every where infuse. And for that other conceit of theirs by which they get so many proselytes, that of the lawfulness of denying Christ in time of persecution, by which they promise themselves security from all the present evils, let no man cheat himself with this persuasion; any man that thus thinks to be more provident than other men, and by this means to secure himself, let him know that this will not thrive with him, he will find himself deceived at last, (see ver. 15, and Rev. iii. 18,) there is no such prudent way for him to secure himself as to lay aside this worldly wisdom, and constantly and cheerfully to adhere to Christ, when in the eye of the world it seems most foolish to do so. For God is wont to take off and preserve the plain simple person that avowedly adheres to him, and to outwit the subtle designer; and it will soon befall those pretenders, according to that of Job v. 13, they that think to be wiser than other men are by so much verier fools than others, and so are discerned to be. And to the same purpose is that of psalm xciv. 11, that all the subtle contrivances of crafty worldly-minded men prove vain and improsperous. Let no man therefore factiously or schismatically divide from the unity of the church, following such or such a master or instructor, and so quarrelling or contending with others, ver. 4; for all the gifts that are in the church were given for your use, and whatsoever any man can boast of it is not peculiar to him, but belongs as well to every other person in the church. He that planted the faith among you, and he And though, I say, we are subservient to your uses, and are appointed so to be, ch. iii. 22, yet it will become you to look on us, though not as masters of your faith, yet as ministers of Christ, and that in the most honourable office of the family, that of the steward or ruler of the house, to whom among other things it belongs to dispense out every man his proportion of food, &c.; and so it is our part to dispense the gospel to you in that measure and by those degrees that we see fit. And above all things fidelity and honest discharging of trust is required of stewards; and if I should fail in that, I should be very worthy of blame. But for this I am not to be judged by you, by men, nay by myself. For though I can accuse myself of no fault in the execution of my apostolical office, yet is not this the clearing of me, only God, that searcheth and seeth all, must do this. Therefore be not you too forward in your censures of me, but leave it to God; and I make no doubt This, of not following or admiring the persons of men, I have thus said (see note [d] Rom. vii.) in the persons of myself and Apollos, under that figure to give you a general rule how to demean yourselves to any other dispensers of the gospel, viz. that in following of us ye go no further than the directions, ver. 1, that is, think of us not as masters of your faith, but as officers, stewards of Christ, to distribute that to you which he hath entrusted to us, and accordingly not to make it matter of pride to yourselves, or contemning of others, that ye are the disciples of such or such; in plain terms, to beware that you do not break out into factions, one to the despising of another, boasting, one that he hath received the faith from Paul and not from Apollos, another that he is a follower of Apollos and not of Paul, &c. [a] to think] What φρονεῖν signifies in this place will best be guessed by φυσιοῦσθε, puffed up, which follows on purpose to explain it. That signifying elation of mind to the despising of others, φρονεῖν must in all reason do so also. Thus the Scholiast on Thucydides, l. 1, saith of καταφρονεῖν, that it is τὸ ἅγαν φρονεῖν, καὶ οἷον ὑπερφρονεῖν, where φρονεῖν must be a degree of pride, as the other a great or high degree of it. So in St. Chrysostom, tom. 3. p. 177. l 4. τίνος ἕνεκεν θορυβῇ καὶ ταράττῃ καὶ εἰς μωρίαν ἀποκέχρησαι τῇ φρονήσει; "why art thou disturbed and abusest thy opinion of thyself, thy pride to folly?" and l. 6, διὰ φρονήσεως γενίσθαι μωρὸν is, "by elation of mind, by pride, to become a ⁹ T. 5. p. 467. lin. 28. ¹⁰ Orat. 1. p. 67. ¹¹ See Rigatius ad Artemidor. Oneiro. p. 43. ¹² Hist. tom. 2. p. 38. For this can be no matter of boasting to any of you, for by it is no man dignified before another; for by whomsoever you received the faith, it is clear that you received it; it is no acquisition of your own wit or parts, but merely a mercy of God's, that sent us to preach to you, and therefore cannot in any reason be matter of boasting to you. 8, 9. You forsooth are so full and rich, so furnished with all kind of knowledge and wisdom, (such the Gnostics bragged of,) that you despise your apostles and spiritual fathers that first converted you to the faith; since we parted from you, you have in your own conceits been in great tranquillity and security, had happy halcyonian days (see note on Rev. i. 6); and I wish it were so with you as you fancy it to be, that the tranquillity which the Gnostics (with their compliances with the persecutors, whether Jews or heathens,) promise you, were a true Christian tranquillity, that we which are so sharply persecuted might come to you as to a refuge, and enjoy some part of that great privilege with you; for certainly we have need of it; for we are so far from any security, We are vile and despised for the doing our duty, the exercise of our apostolical office, but you forsooth are very wise men, deeply learned in the doctrine of Christ; we weak, contemptible, mean persons, but you strong and gallant. As I was when I was with you, (see ch. ii. 3,) so I am still, in a condition of continual want and persecution, and transitory mutable estate, Taking excessive pains that I may preach the gospel, and get mine own living by my labour, that I might not put you to any charges, (see Acts xviii. 3,) and when, instead of thanks, I meet with nothing but reviling for all this, I have no return to make them but that of my prayers for them; nay, when persecuted, I entertain no thought of revenge toward them: When calumniated and falsely accused, I pray to God for them by whom it is done; and this is no news to me; for we apostles of Christ are looked on and used as the unworthiest creatures of the world, and so continue until this time. [b] filth] Περικαθάρματα signifies those things that are used in the lustrating of a city among the Gentiles. ¹ Suidas hath described the custom in these words, Ὑπὲρ καθαρμοῦ πόλεως ἀνήρουν ἐστολωμένον τινὰ ὃν ἐκάλουν κάθαρμα, "For the purging and lustrating of a city they clothed a man (in foul and filthy garments, say others) and put him to death, and he was called a lustration or expiation:" thus, saith Eustathius, περικάθαρμα is "a lustration" for which the vilest persons were wont to be used, οἱ ῥυπαροὶ καὶ ἀπόβλητοι, "sordid, refuse people." For thus it was, when the city was under any plague or other great calamity, they chose out one of the nastiest persons in the city, and brought him to a certain place, with cheese, and dry figs, and a cake in his hand, and then beat him with rods about the secret parts, and then burnt him and the rods together in a ditch, and cast the ashes into the sea (τῷ Ποσειδῶνι θυσίαν ἀποτίνυντες, "paying a sacrifice to Neptune," saith Suidas) with these words, γίνου περίψημα, γίνου κάθαρμα, "Be thou a lustration" for us. This person was called κάθαρμα and περίψημα, and by Lycophron, and before him by Hipponax, φάρμακον, "a medicament," and by Philostratus, (saith Sardus de Ritib. l. 3. c. 19,) ἀποτροπάϊον, "a cure," or "averter of judgment" from the city. (But this is a mistake in Sardus; all that Philostratus saith being only this, that in the theatre, τὸ τοῦ ἀποτροπάϊον ἴδρυται, that is, "the statue of the deity that averteth judgment, plagues, &c. was set up.") By this it appears also what is meant by περίψημα πάντων, the refuse of all, in the next words, to wit, the very same thing in another expression, the vilest refuse creature in a city, such as used to be the expiation in a public calamity. So saith Suidas, Περίψημα, κάταγμα, which, I conceive, is a corruption from κάθαρμα, which differs but little from it; and Hesychius, Περίψημα, περικατάμαγμα (for περικάθαρμα I conceive) ἀντίλυτρα, ἀντίψυχα, ἢ ὑπὸ τὰ ἔχνη πάντων, the two words are of the same signification, and denote "those that are paid for others' ransoms, or put to death in others' stead," or else any thing that is most vile, "trodden under feet by all men." Thus Tob. v. 24, we have this phrase, περίψημα τοῦ παιδίου γίνοιτο, for, Let it be despised, a refuse, in respect of, or comparison to my son; this heathen custom, whence all this comes, being in a manner but a transcript of the Azazel among the Jews, the scape-goat, that was sent into the wilderness with all the sins of the people upon him, which was therefore called ἀποπομπάϊος, rejectaneus, or refuse. And though I have thus been used by some of you since these schisms have come in among you, yet I say it not to reproach or bring shame upon you for so doing, but out of the affections of a father, I advise and admonish you to behave yourselves more like children than ye have yet done. For though others may have taught you since, yet it is only I that planted the gospel first among you; and therefore there can be no occasion of schisms [b] saved; yet so as by fire] That σώζεσθαι signifies to escape, hath been often noted, but what σώζεσθαι διὰ, to escape by, here signifies, is the only difficulty, and that will be best explained by comparing it with other places of the same kind. Thus 1 Pet. iii. 20, διεσώθησαν δι' ὕδατος, they were saved out of, or through the water, the preposition διὰ perhaps (as other prepositions oft are in the New Testament) being taken loosely for ἐκ or ἀπὸ, out or from, or else, as the necessity of the matter imports, an escaping through water, implying consequently an escaping out of it also; and so the sense will be, that though there were a great flood ready to drown all the earth, yet for all this, by the help of the ark they did escape that danger. And so here σωθήσεται ὡς διὰ πυρὸς, he shall escape as one escapes out of the fire, that is, as Chrysostom expresses it, as one that, when in the midnight his house is set on fire, wakes and leaps out of the bed, and runs naked out of doors, οὐδὲν τῶν Ἰνδὸν λαβὼν, "taking nothing that is within" along with him, taking care only, (as he adds,) ὅπως τὸ σῶμα τὸ ἑαυτοῦ προεξαρπάζῃ τῆς φλογὸς, "that he may snatch his own body out of the flame." And it is a common observation that ὡς διὰ πυρὸς σώζεσθαι is a proverbial speech for those that get hardly out of a great danger; so ὡς διὰς ἐξηρπασμένος ἐκ πυρὸς, as a brand snatched out of the fire, Amos iv. 11, and so Jude 23, ἐν φόβῳ σώζετε, ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς ἁρπάζοντες, save them by snatching them out of the fire in time of danger, for so ἐν φόβῳ signifies, ἐν κινδύνῳ, in presence of any thing that men are afraid of. By this means that of 1 Pet. iv. 18 will be explained also, for this will be the meaning of μόλις σώζεται, (for which the Hebrew, Prov. xi. 31, reads חֲלִישִׁי, shall be recompensed,) he shall not escape without many losses and afflictions in that πύρωσις or combustion. So as in Julian, ἡ νῦξ ὀλίγους ἀπέσωσε μόλις, "the night did hardly or with great difficulty rescue a few;" and in Agathias, who having spoken of some that πυρπολεῖσθαι ἔμελλον, "were ready to be fired and burnt," adds, μόλις ἐνθένδε διεκπεσόντες καταφεύγουσι, "they hardly escape out of it." [c] a rod] The ῥάβδος or rod here is the power of inflicting punishments in the apostles, of death itself, as on Ananias, of diseases, as on Elymas; and so the Hebrew word מטה, for ῥάβδος, is rendered πληγῇ, a stripe, Isa. x. 24, and is all one with μάστιξ, scourge, Mark iii. 10; ¹ In the word Κάθαρμα.