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CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS

(continued).

E come now to another section of S. Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. It is a section that often troubles people a good deal, because it seems to breathe a spirit

of boasting and self-assertion.

We are apt to forget that it is impossible to form a fair judgment unless we are in possession of the circumstances that called it forth. A man may be brought to such a pass, that self-assertion becomes a positive duty to him, and what sounds like boasting and vainglory, is found to be the best means of selfassertion, and that not for his own sake, but for the sake of others, and for the truth's sake.

There is many a man who, if he followed his own inclinations, would never emerge from private life, yet who is forced to enter upon a life of controversy and strife, and to be, like Jeremiah, a man of contention when he would fain be a man of peace.

It was so with S. Paul. Controversy and selfassertion were forced upon him. A man who is suddenly attacked cannot afford to be over nice in the choice of weapons, he must take what comes first to hand. Here were these Judaizers at Corinth leaving no stone unturned to undermine his character, to injure his reputation, to disparage his autho

rity, and to spoil his work. If he had not been first of all the servant and Apostle of Jesus Christ, if he had not been a witness for God's truth, he might have remained silent and allowed them to do their worst.

But feeling as he did the importance of the truth for which he witnessed, feeling that the purity of the Gospel of the grace of God would be sullied, its power limited, its embrace narrowed, unless he earnestly contended for it, S. Paul put aside his own personal feelings, and vindicated his authority as an Apostle of Christ. And was not such vindication necessary?

How could he hope to be believed, how could he give force to his convictions, if his enemies were allowed unopposed, and unanswered, to deny his claim to be the Apostle of Jesus Christ?

If he was not an Apostle, what was he? If Jesus Christ had not sent him, had not taught him, how could he enforce the truth? If he were not free from every human authority; if he were not absolutely independent of the very chiefest Apostles; if he were not inspired by the Holy Ghost; what claim had he to be listened to, if it could be made to seem that what he taught was not in perfect harmony with the received doctrine of the Church of Jerusalem, and the alleged teaching of the Twelve?

It was necessary therefore to show that he was an Apostle, and that his Apostleship was not derived from any human source, and was of equal authority with that of the original Apostles.

You will remember that one of the things which the Apostle's enemies said of him was, that however bold he might be in his letters when he was absent, he was feeble and timid at close quarters, and that

because he did not feel any confidence in his own position or authority.

It was to meet this charge in the first place that he wrote as follows:

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Ch. x. 1: Now I Paul myself intreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am of good courage toward you: yea, I beseech you, that I may not when present [be forced to] show courage with the confidence wherewith I count to be bold against some, which count of us as if we walked according to the flesh. . . . . For though I should glory somewhat abundantly concerning our authority (which the Lord gave for building you up, and not for casting you down), I shall not be put to shame: that I may not seem as if I would terrify you by my letters. For, his letters, they say, are weighty and strong; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account. Let such a one reckon this, that, what we are in word by letters when we are absent, such are we also in deed when we are present. . . . Would that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness: nay indeed bear with me.... I say again, Let no man think me foolish; but if ye do, yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little

.. Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.... Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labours more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in strifes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the City (i.e. Jerusalem), in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labour and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Beside those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the Churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness.

Is not this a wonderful description? If the great Apostle had been silent, if he had said nothing of all this, if he had not condescended to meet his adversaries on their own ground, and boast as they boasted; if he had been too great, too proud to speak of himself, as, according to his critics, he ought to have been, think what we, and the whole Church in every age, would have lost. It is very well for people who live in quiet and comfortable homes, whose Christianity has never caused them to suffer the slightest pain, has never cost them a single sigh or a single tear, it is all very well for them to say that it is unbecoming to boast of one's own doings as S. Paul did: but let them think what the solitary missionary, the pioneer of Christianity and civilization would have lost, if those miserable Judaizers at Corinth had not wrung this noble defence from the agonized heart of this great Apostle! How many men whose lives have been one long scene of poverty, loneliness, violence, persecution, and calumny, of pain and weariness, disappointment and despair, have been cheered and encouraged by reading of the sufferings of S. Paul!

What a list of sufferings, what a catalogue of perils it is!

We see that the narrative of the Acts, which extends much further into the life of S. Paul than the point at which we are now arrived, does not relate a tenth part of the labours and sufferings of S. Paul.

The shipwreck which is related with such fulness in the Acts was still in the future, and yet S. Paul

tells us that already he had thrice suffered shipwreck, and had besides been a night and day in the deep, clinging perhaps to some fragment of the ship or to some floating mast.

Already he had been publicly scourged five times in the synagogues of the Jews, as a heretic and false teacher. Three times, in spite of Roman citizenship, he had been beaten with the rods of the Roman lictors; and in addition to all these perils and persecution, he had to bear the ever-increasing burden of anxiety caused by the Churches he had founded.

Passing on from this description of his apostolic labours, S. Paul deals with the visions and revelations of the Lord which had been accorded to him. If his depreciators attached great importance to visions and revelations, what were any that they could pretend to, compared with what had been made to him? Which of them had been, like S. Paul, caught up into the third heaven and heard words unspeakable, which it is not lawful for a man to utter? But breaking off from a theme so mysterious, and so personal, he continues:

Ch. xii. 6: But I forbear, lest any man should account of me above that which he seeth me to be or heareth from me. And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations wherefore, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch. Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the strength of Christ may rest upon me. Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake for when I am weak, then am I strong.

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