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…

2 COR. 1. 8. Insomuch that we despaired even of life.

This last clause in the Text is a further Aggravation of the greatness of this trouble, which came upon him in Asia, and it is from the Event or Consequent; It was so great, that he could not escape death. The Greek word [Greek or Hebrew], hath an emphasis in the Preposition, and so is more than [Greek or Hebrew], for that doth properly signify, When a man is indeed doubting and full of debates within himself, not well concluding what to do. Joh. 13. 22. Gal. 4. 20. but when this Preposition [Greek or Hebrew] is added it denoteth such a perplexing that a man cannot any way evade out of it. Therefore the Apostle, you would think, speaketh the contrary to this passage (as we showed he did seemingly to the former.) For 2 Cor. 4. 8. there the Apostle doth expressly say, [Greek or Hebrew]. This word is used only there and in my Text. It may seem then a contradiction for the Apostle here to say, He was without all help or means, and there to say, The godly never are. But the answer is easy. For when in the Text Paul saith, He was without all help or means, he meaneth natural and visible; There was no outward way to help him. Not but that God might deliver him in a way he did not see or apprehend; and so indeed God did deliver him, as appeareth afterwards. Therefore when in that fourth Chapter he saith, The godly are never so destitute as to be without help, he meaneth so as to have neither divine or humane help. Even as in the same place Paul saith of the godly [Greek or Hebrew], We are not distressed; yet 2 Cor. 6. 4. he saith, He was in necessities, in distress, [Greek or Hebrew], so 2 Cor. 12. 10.