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

For if I make you sorry, &c.— "For if I were to do any thing that would be a trouble to you, whom I so dearly love, nothing but a sense of duty, and hope of rectifying what was amiss among you, could ever reconcile me to it, much less give me any satisfaction in it: and which of you, in that case, could exhilarate my spirits, and make me rejoice again; unless it were the very person, or persons, whom I should have made uneasy by sharp rebukes, both of the principal offenders, and of others among you that were puffed up, and countenanced them, instead of mourning over them, and taking care to purge the church of them? See 1 Corinthians 5:2; 1 Corinthians 5:7. It is only the repentance of such, and their recovery from the guilt which they respectively had contracted, that could turn my own sorrow into joy."