2 Corinthians 1

The comfort of the Spirit is distinct from the anointing; this comfort is very sweet, sweeter than the honey drops from the comb; it is the Manna in the golden pot, it is Vinum in pectore; a drop of this heavenly comfort, is enough to sweeten a sea of worldly sorrow. It is calle…

9. We glorify God by walking cheerfully: it is a glory to God when the world sees a Christian has that within him that can make him cheerful in the worst times: he can with the nightingale sing with a thorn at his breast. The people of God have ground of cheerfulness, they are j…

When David would have assurance, he prays, Take not away your Spirit from me (Psalm 51:11). He knew it was the Spirit only that could make him hear the voice of joy: The Spirit is [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], the Comforter, he seals up assurance (2 Corinthians 1:22). Therefore m…

Be of good cheer, Paul. When God was about to give Paul a cup of blood to drink, he spiced it with joy (2 Corinthians 1:5). As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds.

In the text we are kept by the power of God to salvation; every person in the Trinity has a hand in making a believer persevere. God the Father establishes (2 Corinthians 1:21), God the Son confirms (1 Corinthians 1:8), God the Holy Ghost seals (Ephesians 1:13), so that it is th…

Fifthly, if you would persevere, cherish the grace of faith. Faith does stabilire Animum (2 Corinthians 1:24). By faith you stand.

1. The relation of a Father (2 Corinthians 6:18). I will be a Father to you: A Father is full of tender care for his child: Who does he settle the inheritance upon but his child? God being our God will be a Father to us; a Father of mercy (2 Corinthians 1:3). the everlasting Fat…

Thirdly, in the chief good, there must be not only fullness but variety; where variety is wanting, we are apt to nauseate; to feed only on honey, would breed loathing; but in God is [illegible] all variety of fullness (Colossians 1:19). He is a universal good, commensurate to al…

Secondly, affliction has its light side as well as its dark. God can sweeten our afflictions, candy our wormwood (2 Corinthians 1:5). As our sufferings abound, so does also our consolation.

Mercy is the name by which God will be known (Exodus 34:6): The Lord passed by, and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious. Mercy proceeds primarily and originally from God; he is called the Father of mercies (2 Corinthians 1:3), because he begets all those me…

All the affections of parents come from God, but a spark from his flame. He is the Father of mercies (2 Corinthians 1:3). He begets all the mercies and bowels in the creature: His love to his children is a love which passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19).

A parent's love to his child makes him always giving. Position 9. All the mercy in the creature is derived from God, and is but a drop of this ocean: the mercy and pity a mother has to her child is from God; he that puts the milk in her breast puts the compassion in her heart: t…

He who has grace is sure of heaven, for he has heaven begun in him. A believer has an evidence of heaven (Hebrews 11:1): Faith is the evidence of things not seen; he has an earnest of glory (2 Corinthians 1:22): Who has also given us the earnest of his Spirit; an earnest is part…

Lord if you use so much gentleness and correct in measure, your will be done. 12. There is kindness in affliction, in that God often sweetens it with divine consolation (2 Corinthians 1:4). Who comforts us in all our tribulation: after a bitter potion, a lump of sugar.

What was this for? Not so much for any personal cause of his own as to make him able to comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:4-5). For that comfort which answers a temptation in one man's heart will answer the same in another's — the same key will unlock twenty locks that have the sa…

Is it not that we may learn that lesson of Romans 8:26 — that it is the Spirit who helps our weaknesses and that we of ourselves know not what nor how to ask? In like manner, for the same end does he sometimes hide and then again sometimes reveal himself — to show that he is the…

Do you need comfort as well as pardon? He is both 'Father of mercies and God of all comfort' — that is his name (2 Corinthians 1:3). Do you need peace of conscience being filled with terrors?

Fourthly, afflictions serve to make God's children to go out of themselves to seek sincerely unto GOD, and to rely only upon him: which in prosperity they will not do. This, Paul confesses of himself and others: We (says he) received the sentence of death in ourselves, because w…

And it contains more than men at the first would imagine: It signifies, certainly, so be it, or it shall be so. 2 Corinthians 1:20. It is often taken for a bare assent of the people, saying Amen to the minister: but in this place it contains more; for every point in this prayer…

Secondly, in prayer we learn, that we must be persuaded of two things, and build upon them; God's power, and will: his power, in that he is able; his will, in that he is careful to perform our requests, as it was noted in the preface: the first of these is signified by kingdom a…

Answer: Small, in respect. In this world, we receive, as Paul says, not the tenths, but the first fruits of God's spirit (Romans 8:23): and the earnest of the spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22). Now the first fruits properly are but as a handful or two of corn, to a whole corn field, c…

The Papists to elude this reason, allege that the spirit of God does indeed witness of our adoption, by some comfortable feelings of God's love and favor, being such as are weak and oftentimes deceitful. But by their leave, the testimony of the Spirit is more than a bare sense o…

These experiences are food for your faith in a wilderness condition (Psalm 74:14). By this David kept his heart in times of danger (1 Samuel 17:37), and Paul his (2 Corinthians 1:10). It was sweetly answered by Silenziarius, when one told him that his enemies lay in wait to take…

But your Father has more blessings for you than one. His name is the Father of mercies (2 Corinthians 1:3). He can beget and create as many mercies for you as he pleases; relations and the comforts of them are at his command.

Isa. 63. 9. In his love, and in his pity he redeemed them. God is the Father of mercies, 2 Cor. 1. 3. Mercy doth naturally issue from him.

And will, or can, folks expect that for which they have no promise? The Scripture is plain and peremptory in this, as namely (Acts 4:12), there is no other name under heaven whereby a sinner can be saved, but by the name of Jesus; he is the door (John 10), the way, the truth, an…

And though the godly do steadfastly believe their salvation is in a castle, above losing; yet in reason, sin bringing broken bones, (Psalm 51:10), a sad cloud, the damming up of a spring of Christ's love spread abroad in the heart, a temporary hell in the soul, it must be sorrow…

Asser. 5. Those are not moral preparations which we perform before conversion, nor have they any promise of Christ annexed to them; as, He that is humbled under sin, shall be drawn to Christ: He that wishes the Physician, shall be cured, and called to repentance: we read of no s…

Object 4. If the man be dead and buried, then farewell he, there is an end, no more of him. Yet Christ (2 Corinthians 1:9; John 5:25) raises the dead, and gives life to dry bones (Ezekiel 37). 2. Some fear they have nothing but an empty profession.

"It had been good for that man he had never been born" — so may we say of all our souls: it had been good for us we had never been born, if we die without grace, we shall then have our portion with hypocrites and unbelievers, and therefore let spiritual life be more sweet to you…

Our adoption assures us of God's nature to be ours, whereby God takes us to be his children, and he is one that is full of grace and goodness, nothing is wanting on his part; he is a Father to us, and that is a great matter. And in regard that Christ is our Advocate and Atonemen…

There is a likeness and a participation of the divine nature, and we are made partakers of the like grace in Christ Jesus, and that grace for grace: look what grace anywhere, you see in Christ, the resemblance of it is stamped upon every child of God, by the spirit of Christ. He…

It is an uncomfortable sign to you; the life of sanctification is not so shed abroad in your hearts, that you may gather you have life, but if you find that in the multitude of your thoughts within you, God's comforts delight your soul (Psalm 94:19-20). In the midst of sorrow yo…

And you have it so as not to lose other things. 2. Stability (2 Corinthians 1:20): "All the promises of God in him are yes, and in him Amen." And (Hebrews 6:18): "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation," etc.

Moreover, the cross of Christ does not signify that piece of wood which Christ did bear upon his shoulders, and to which he was afterwards nailed, but generally it signifies all the afflictions of the faithful, whose sufferings are Christ's sufferings. 2 Corinthians 1: The suffe…

In (Jeremiah 4:2) there is the form of an oath, The Lord lives, and here only confession is expressed. The form of swearing, I call God to witness to (or upon) my soul (2 Corinthians 1:23), expresses the third part, namely invocation. The words (Ruth 2:17): The Lord do thus and…

The major or first part, is expressed in the Word; the minor or second part is found true by experience, and by the testimony of the conscience, which is a certain testimony. For Paul says, "This is my rejoicing, the testimony of my conscience" (2 Corinthians 1:12). And the conc…

Answer: For six. For illumination of our minds (1 John 2:27; 1 Corinthians 2:12); for regeneration, whereby the image of God is restored in us (John 3); for the government of our counsels, wills, affections, actions (Isaiah 11:1; Romans 8:14); for the effecting of that union, wh…

In himself, in the comfortable testimony of a good conscience. Our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity, and godly pureness, we have had our conversation in the world (2 Corinthians 1:12). The one, is glorying before God; the other, before men.

It seems the Prophet breaks off his speech to speak of Jesus Christ: but we must call to mind what we have said elsewhere: to wit, that it is usual with the Prophets in promising any thing, hard to be believed, forthwith to make mention of Christ: because all the promises are co…

Having discoursed of the redemption to come, he now descends to speak of Christ, under whose leading, the people were delivered from the captivity of Babylon, as in old time they were out of Egypt. Now it was needful the former prophecy should be confirmed with this present doct…

I forewarn you touching these things in time, to the end you should not faint nor turn aside by reason of your ill success, as though something unexpected were befallen you. Add moreover, that he is commanded to detect their blind obstinacy openly, as if of set purpose he should…

Thus the people dared very well urge God with his promise, and importune him by their prayers, in regard he had voluntarily obliged himself both to their fathers, and to their children. But now, seeing all promises are ratified and confirmed in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20), and t…

But how should he be favorable without Christ, in whom he has freely adopted us for his chosen, and always receives us to mercy? According to which Saint Paul says, That in Christ all the promises of God are yes and Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20). As often then as God sent any succor…

The same apostle calls it, in another passage, an Embassy by which the reconciliation of the world to God, once accomplished by the death of Christ, is daily offered to men, (2 Corinthians 5:20) Secondly, Paul means not only that Christ is the pledge of all the blessings that Go…

The Apostle, in instructing and counselling Timothy, concerning the Work of the Ministry, informs him that the great End of that Word which a Minister is to preach, is Love or Charity, 1 Timothy 1. 3, 4, 5. And another Affection which God has appointed Preaching as a Means to pr…

Before Christ would answer the Request of the Woman of Canaan, he first seemed utterly to deny her, and humbled her, and brought her to own herself worthy to be called a Dog; and then he showed her Mercy, and received her as a dear Child; Matthew 15:22, et cetera. The Apostle Pa…

This Notion greatly debases that high and most exalted Kind of Influence and Operation of the Spirit, which there is in the true Witness of the Spirit. That which is called the Witness of the Spirit, Romans 8:16 is elsewhere in the New Testament called the Seal of the Spirit, 2…

When our hearts reproach us not, and we resolve they shall not as long as we live; we are conscious to ourselves of no base designs, we propose nothing to ourselves, wherein we apprehend cause to decline God's eye; we walk in the light, and are seeking no darkness or shadow of d…

From this Topick faith argues, and that very strongly and conclusively. So did David's faith in many exigencies: when he was to encounter the Champion of the Philistins, it was from former Providence that he encouraged himself, 1 Samuel 17:37 And the Apostle Paul improves his ex…