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. 1. Paul an Apostle, &c.

WE have considered Paul as a great sinner, yet made an Apostle, of dung made a pearl. Let us now take notice of him, as a learned man, and so made use of by God for the Ministry of the Gospel. That ¹Paul was endowed with much learning, was so evident to Festus, that he told him, Much learning had made him mad. And the Lycaonians called him Mercury, Acts 14. He was for a while educated at Tarsus, where he was born, and it is recorded by Strabo, as Lapide citeth him; That the Tarsenses were so wholly given to literature, that they did excel Athens and Alexandria. And that he had perused humane Authors, appeareth in that three times he allegeth Greek Poets. Now besides this, he went also to Jerusalem, and there was brought up at Gamaliel's feet, an eminent Doctor amongst the Jews. And if there were nothing else but his Epistles he wrote, this would abundantly declare the rare and admirable wisdom he was endowed with. Insomuch that Chrysostom 3. Hom. upon 1 Corinth. speaks of a Dispute between a Christian and a Grecian; Whether Paul was not to be preferred before Plato? though Chrysostom condemneth the Christians argument as ridiculous and absurd. Indeed the Apostle speaketh 2 Cor. 11. 6. That though he was rude in speech, yet not in knowledge. Now it's questioned by Interpreters, In what sense Paul saith, He was rude in speech? Austin thought, he said so only by concession, and in the repute of the false Apostles, who accounted him so. But Chrysostom, and others think, Paul speaketh properly, and that he was really so; not but that he was full of learning, only he did not use those affected ways of humane eloquence, as he speaks in another place. He did not write as a Demosthenes, whom Plato censured as [Greek or Hebrew] and [Greek or Hebrew], an hunter of words, and a curious Artificer therein; yet he hath masculine and strong eloquence; such as becomes the divine and admirable matter he propounds. And certainly, to paint a Jewel would take off the proper lustre of it. The more naked and plain divine truths appear, the more lovely they are, and do more immediately insinuate into the heart. And if he said of Tully's eloquence, because it's not so affected and fanciful, That he had made great progress in Rhetoric, who could delight in his Latin.