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TEXT.

21 For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world, by wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe.

22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.

PARAPHRASE.

studied in the learning of the Jews? Where the professor of human arts and sciences? Hath not God rendered all the learning and wisdom of this world foolish, and useless for the 21 discovery of the truths of the Gospel? For since the world, by their natural parts, and improvements in what, with them, passed for wisdom, acknowledged not the one, only, true God, though he had manifested himself to them in the wise contrivance and admirable frame of the visible works of the creation; it pleased God, by the plain, and (as the world esteems it) foolish doctrine of the Gospel, to save those who 22 receive and believe it. Since both the Jews demand extraordinary signs and miracles, and the Greeks seek wisdom: 23 But I have nothing else to preach to them but Christ crucified, a doctrine offensive to the hopes and expectations of

NOTES.

upon; otherwise it is not probable that St. Paul should name to the Corinthians a sort of men not much known or valued amongst the Greeks. This, therefore, may be supposed to be said to take off their glorying in their false apostle. 22 'Eneide xal, "since both." These words used here by St. Paul are not certainly idle and insignificant, and therefore I see not how they can be omitted in the translation.

'Ende is a word of reasoning, and, if minded, will lead us into one of St. Paul's reasonings here, which the neglect of this word makes the reader overlook. St. Paul, in ver. 21, argues thus in general: "Since the world, by their natural parts and improvements, did not attain to a right and saving knowledge of God, God, by the preaching of the Gospel, which seems foolishness to them, was pleased to communicate that knowledge to those who believed."

In the three following verses he repeats the same reasoning, a little more expressly applied to the people he had here in his view, viz. Jews and Greeks; and his sense seems to be this: "Since the Jews, to make any doctrine go down with them, require extraordinary signs of the power of God to accompany it, and nothing will please the nice palates of the learned Greeks but wisdom; and though our preaching of a crucified Messiah be a scandal to the Jews, and foolish. ness to the Greeks, yet we have what they both seek; for both Jew and Gentile, when they are called, find the Messiah, whom we preach, to be the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

25, 27, 28. He that will read the context cannot doubt but that St. Paul, by what he expresses in these verses, in the neuter gender, means persons; the whole argument of the place being about persons, and their glorying, and not about things.

TEXT.

24 But unto them, which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God:

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. 27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty:

28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

PARAPHRASE.

the Jews; and foolish to the acute men of learning, the 24 Greeks; But yet it is to these, both Jews and Greeks, (when they are converted,) Christ, the power of God, and Christ, the 25 wisdom of God: Because that, which seems foolishness in those who came from God, surpasses the wisdom of man; and that, which seems weakness in those sent by God, surpasses 26 the power of men. For, reflect upon yourselves, brethren, and you may observe, that there are not many of the wise and learned men, not many men of power, or of birth, among that are called. But God hath chosen the foolish men, you, in the account of the world, to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak men of the world to confound the 28 mighty: The mean men of the world, and contemptible, has God chosen, and those that are of no account, are nothing, 29 to displace those that are: That so there might be no room,

27

NOTE.

28 Tà μà ☀x, "Things that are not," I think may well be understood of the Gentiles, who were not the people of God, and were counted as nothing by the Jews; and we are pointed to this meaning by the words natasex and xatapyńcy, by "the foolish and weak things," i. e. by simple, illiterate, and mean men, God would make ashamed the learned philosophers and great men of the nations; but, by the pǹ vra, "things that are not," he would abolish the things that are, as, in effect, he did abolish the Jewish church by the Christian, taking in the Gentiles to be his people, in the place of the rejected Jews, who, until then, were his people. This St. Paul mentions here, not by chance, but pursuant to his main design, to stay their glorying in their false apostle, who was a Jew; by showing that, whatever that head of the faction might claim, under that pretence, as it is plain he did stand upon it, (see 2 Cor. xi. 21, 22) he had not any the least title to any esteem or respect upon that account, since the Jewish nation was laid aside, and God had chosen the Gentiles to take their place, and to be his church and people instead of them : vid. note on ch. ii. ver. 6. 'There one may see who are the xxтαрyouμEDO, "the abolished," whom God says here, xxрyhon, he will abolish.

TEXT.

30 But of him are ye, in Christ Jesus, who, of God, is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 31 That, according as it is written, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."

PARAPHRASE.

30 or pretence for any one to glory in his presence. Natural, human abilities, parts or wisdom, could never have reached this way to happiness: it is to his wisdom alone that ye owe the contrivance of it; to his revealing of it, that ye owe the knowledge of it; and it is from him alone, that you are in Christ Jesus, whom God has made to us Christians, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, which is all the dignity and pre-eminence, all that is of any value 31 amongst us Christians: That, as it is written, He that glorieth, should glory only in the Lord.

SECTION II. NO. 3.

CHAPTER II. 1-5.

CONTENTS.

FARTHER to keep them from glorying in their leaders, he tells them, that as the preachers of the Gospel, of God's choosing, were mean and illiterate men, so the Gospel was not to be propagated, nor men to be established in the faith, by human learning and eloquence, but by the evidence it had, from the revelation contained in the Old Testament, and from the power of God accompanying and confirming it with miracles.

TEXT.

1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God."

PARAPHRASE.

1 And I, brethren, when I came and preached the Gospel to you, I did not endeavour to set it off with any ornaments of rhetoric, or the mixture of human learning or philosophy; but plainly declared it to you, as a doctrine coming from

TEXT.

2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech, and my preaching, was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power.

b

PARAPHRASE.

2 God, revealed and attesteda by him. For I resolved to own or show no other knowledge among you, but the know3 ledge or doctrine of Jesus Christ, and of him crucified. All my carriage among you had nothing in it but the appearance 4 of weakness and humility, and fear of offending you. Neither did I, in my discourses or preaching, make use of any human art of persuasion to inveigle you. But the doctrine of the Gospel which I proposed, I confirmed and enforced by what

NOTES.

I a To papipio TOU OU, "The testimony of God," i. e. what God hath revealed and testified in the Old Testament; the apostle here declares to the Corinthians, that, when he brought the Gospel to them, he made no use of any human science, improvement, or skill; no insinuations of eloquence, no philosophical speculations, or ornaments of human learning, appeared in any thing he said to persuade them all his arguments were, as he tells them, ver. 4, from the revelation of the Spirit of God, in the predictions of the Old Testament, and the miracles which he (Paul) did among them, that their faith might be built wholly upon the Spirit of God, and not upon the abilities and wisdom of man; though μaplópion Tot zou, "The testimony of God" agrees very well with so much of St. Paul's meaning as relates to his founding his preaching on the testimony of God, yet those copies which read Thρiov, mystery, for μaplópion, testimony, seem more perfectly to correspond with St. Paul's sense, in the whole latitude of it. For though he owns the doctrine of the Gospel, dictated by the Spirit of God, to be contained in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and builds upon revelation, yet he everywhere teaches that it remained a secret there, not understood, till they were led into the hidden, evangelical meaning of those passages, by the coming of Jesus Christ, and by the assistance of the Spirit, in the times of the Messiah, and then published to the world by the preachers of the Gospel; and therefore he calls it, especially that part of it which relates to the Gentiles, almost everywhere, μvornpiov, mystery. See particularly Rom. xvi. 25, 26. 2b St. Paul, who was himself a learned man, especially in the Jewish knowledge, having, in the foregoing chapter, told them, that neither the Jewish learning nor Grecian sciences give a man any advantage, as a minister of the Gospel, he here reminds them that he made no show or use of either when he planted the Gospel among them; intimating thereby, that those were not things for which their teachers were to be valued or followed.

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3 St. Paul, by thus setting forth his own modest and humble behaviour amongst them, reflects on the contrary carriage of their false apostle, which he describes in words at length, 2 Cor. xi. 20.

TEXT.

5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

PARAPHRASE.

the Spirit had revealed and demonstrated of it, in the Old Testament, and by the power of God, accompanying it with 5 miraculous operations: That your faith might have its foundation, not in the wisdom and endowments of men, but in the power of God".

NOTES.

4 There were two sorts of arguments, wherewith the apostle confirmed the Gospel; the one was the revelations made concerning our Saviour, by types and figures, and prophecies of him, under the law; the other, miracles and miraculous gifts accompanying the first preachers of the Gospel, in the publishing and propagating of it. The latter of these St. Paul here calls Power; the former, in this chapter, he terms Spirit; so ver. 12, 14. "Things of the Spirit of God, and spiritual things," are things which are revealed by the Spirit of God, and not discoverable by our natural faculties.

5 Their faith being built wholly on Divine revelation and miracles, whereby all human abilities were shut out, there could be no reason for any of them to boast themselves of their teachers, or value themselves upon their being the followers of this or that preacher, which St. Paul hereby obviates.

SECTION II. NO. 4.

CHAPTER II. 6-16.

CONTENTS.

THE next argument the apostle uses to show them, that they had no reason to glory in their teachers, is, that the knowledge of the Gospel was not attainable by our natural parts, however they were improved by arts and philosophy, but was wholly owing to

revelation.

TEXT.

6 Howbeit we speak wisdom amongst them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought.

PARAPHRASE.

6 Howbeit, that which we preach is wisdom, and known to be so, among those who are thoroughly instructed in the Christian

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