2 Corinthians 1:3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Blessed be God— St. Paul begins with justifying his former letter to them which had afflicted them, (see ch. 2 Corinthians 7:7-8.) by telling them that he thanks God for his deliverance out of his afflictions, because it enables him to comfort them, by the exampleboth of his affliction and deliverance, acknowledging the obligation that he had to them and others, for their prayers, and for their thanks for his deliverance; which he presumes they could not but put up for him, since his conscience bears him witness (which was his comfort) that, in his behaviour to all men, and to them more especially, he had been direct and sincere, without any selfish or carnal interest; and that what he wrote to them had no other design than what lay open, and they read in his words,—and did also acknowledge, and he doubted not but they would always acknowledge, (part of them doing so already,) that he was their minister and apostle, in whom they rejoiced; as they would, he trusted, be his rejoicing in the day of the Lord, 2 Corinthians 1:3-14. From what St. Paul says in this passage,—which, if read attentively, will appear to be written with great address,—it may be gathered, that the opposite action endeavoured to evade the force of the former epistle, by suggesting, that whatever he mightpretend, St. Paul was a cunning, artificial, self-interested man, and had some hidden design in it; which accusation appears in other parts also of this epistle. It is observable, that eleven of St. Paul's thirteen epistles begin with exclamations of joy, praise, and thanksgiving. As soon as he thought of a christian church planted in one place or another, thereseems to have been a flow of most lively affection accompanying the idea, in which all sensibility of his or their temporal afflictions was swallowed up, and the fulness of his heart must vent itself in such cheerful, exalted, and devout language.