(1) For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you: (2) For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many. (3) Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready: (4) Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting. (5) Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.
Paul useth the best of all arguments, to recommend every species of charity, both in this, and all his Epistles; namely, the relationship between Christ and his people. And very certain it is, that where the love of Christ is shed abroad in the heart, the streams of it will diffuse itself to all his members. And indeed, the charity, or love, which doth not begin in this source, hath no security for any continuance. And, even in the time that it flows, as it riseth only in creature affection, it is the subject only of what is fickle, and momentary; and either soon dries up of itself, or is stopped by caprice, or the changeableness of the human mind. It is only that love which begins in God, which is kept alive in communications from God; and being chiefly directed to his glory, hath a spring to depend upon for its continuance towards God's people forever!