(4) And whether we be afflicted, [it is] for your consolation and salvation, which is (d) effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, [it is] for your consolation and salvation.
(4) He denies that either his afflictions with which he was often afflicted, or the consolations which he received of God, may justly be despised, seeing that the Corinthians both ought and might take great occasion to be strengthened and encouraged by either of them.
(d) Although salvation is given to us freely, yet because there is a way appointed to us by which we must come to it, which is the race of an innocent and upright life which we must run, therefore we are said to work our salvation; (Philippians 2:12). And because it is God alone that of his free good will works all things in us, therefore is he said to work the salvation in us by that very same way by which we must pass to everlasting life, after we have once overcome all incumbrances.