I call God for a record unto my soul, that for to favor you with all, I came not any more unto Corinthum. Not that we be lords over your faith: but helpers of your joy. For by faith ye stand.
The .ij. Chapter.
But I determined this in myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness. For if I make you sorry: who is it that should make me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me? And I wrote this same pistel unto you, lest if I came, I should take heaviness of them, of whom I ought to rejoice. Certainly this confidence have I in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all. For in great affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears: not to make you sorry, but that ye might perceive the love which I have most specially unto you.
If any man hath caused sorrow, the same hath not made me sorry: but partly, lest I should grieve you all. It is sufficient unto the same man that he was rebuked of many. So that now contrarywise ye ought to forgive him and comfort him: lest that same should be swallowed up with overmuch heaviness. Wherefore I exhort you, that love may have strength over him. For this cause verily did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye should be obedient in all things. To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also. And verily if I forgive any thing, to whom I forgave it for your sakes forgave I it, in the room of Christ, lest Satan should prevent us. For his thoughts are not unknown unto us.
When I was come to Troada for Christ's Gospel's sake (and a great door was opened unto me of the lord) I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but took my leave of them and went away into Macedonia. Thanks be unto God which always giveth us the victory in Christ, and openeth the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God the sweet savor of Christ, both among them that are saved, and also among them which perish: to the one part are we the savor of death unto death: unto the other part are we the savor of life unto life. And who is meet unto these things? For we are not as many are which chop and change with the word of God: but as they which speak of pureness, and as they which speak off God in the sight of God, so speak we in Christ.
The .iij. Chapter.
We begin to praise ourselves again. Need we as some other of pistels of recommendation unto you? or letters of recommendation from you? Ye are our pistel written in our hearts, which is understood and read of all men, in that ye are known, how that ye are the pistel of Christ, ministered by us and written, not with ink: but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. Such trust have we thorow Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as it were of ourselves: but our ableness cometh of God, which hath made us able to minister the new testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit: For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
If the ministration of death thorow the letters figured in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not behold the face of Moses for the glory of countenance (which glory nevertheless is done away) why shall not the ministration of the spirit be much more glorious? For if the ministering of condemnation be glorious: much more doth the administration of righteousness exceed in glory. For no doubt that which was there glorified is not once glorified in respect of this exceeding glory. Then if that which is destroyed was glorious, much more shall that which remaineth be glorious.
Seeing then that we have such trust we use great boldness, and do not as Moses, which put a veil over his face that the children of Israell should not see for what purpose that served which is put away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day remaineth the same covering untaken away in the old testament when they read it, which in Christ is put away: But even unto this day, when Moses is read the veil hangeth before their hearts. Nevertheless when they turn to the lord, the veil shall be taken away. The lord no doubt is a spirit. And where the spirit of the lord is, there is liberty. And now the lordis glory appeareth in us all, as in a glass: and we are changed unto the same similitude, from glory to glory, even of the lord which is a spirit.
The .iiij. Chapter.