An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

The words are a profession of Pauls charitable esteem and loving apprehensions of them, though sometimes he doth rebuke them very sharply. If he had said, I have no hopes of you, no Epistle, or writing will do you any good, this might have more hardened them in obstinacy. Yea as Chrysostom well observeth on this place, He speaketh more hopefully and confidently of these Corinthians, then he doth of the Thessalonians: For, 1 Thess. 2. 2, 3, 4, 5. he there discovereth the holy jealousy and fear he had, lest they should be oot much moved with the afflictions that do accompany the Gospel, When I could no longer forbear (saith he) I sent Timotheus to establish you, that no man should be moved by these afflictions. Again he repeateth it, When I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter should tempt you. By these vehement and doubled affectionate expressions, you see with what a holy jealousy he was possessed concerning them, but he speaketh ⟨p. 246⟩far more confidently about these Corinthians, Our hope of you is steadfast, That which the Apostle here calleth his hope, he doth often in other places name his persuasion, Heb. 6. 9. We are persuaded better things of you. 2 Tim. 1. 5. I am persuaded that the same faith dwelleth in thee also. 1 Pet. 5. 12. The Apostle speaking of Silvanus, calleth him a faithful brother, (1 Pet. 5. 12.) as I suppose. The word doth not there denote any doubt or fear about him; for that is contrary to the Apostles scope, who intends to commend him; but it signifieth a firm and steadfast judgement concerning his faithfulness. Now the Question is, What is that hope and persuasion, or knowledge, ¹which Paul had concerning other men? To understand this you must know, Paul had a two-fold hope, A Divine Hope, and a Charitable or Prudential Hope, which we may call a Moral Hope. Divine Hope is a supernatural grace wrought by God in the heart of Paul, and so in every believer, whereby he is enabled to put his confidence in God, expecting from him only what he stands in need of. So that of Divine Hope God is the efficient, and God also is the object on which it is determined, and as we must not believe in any thing, but God, so nether hope in any thing but God.