consists in determining the
meaning of the Apostle in this illustration. In the first Epistle to
the Corinthians, just before the dose of it, he gives the Corinthian
Church a precept, similar to the one he had given all the other
Churches he established;--that they should lay by every Lord's Day,
as God had prospered them, for the relief of the poor Saints. It
appears, by the Apostle's remarks in the second Epistle to the same
Church that there were some who desired to impute base motives to him
as though he wished to share in this bounty. He accordingly evinces
his disinterestedness, by declining all provision for himself. He
tells them, however, that he did not decline receiving any thing from
them because he loved them less than other Churches by whose
liberality he had been once and again supplied, but that he might cut
off occasion from those who desired occasion to malign his motives.
And he once more excuses himself, in the next Chapter, from being a
participator of the bounty which they had laid up, and to which he
had encouraged them for the purpose of supplying the wants of the
poor Saints in Judea; and he employs an illustration drawn from the
common practice of mankind. "The Children," says he, "ought not to
lay up for the Parents, but the Parents for the Children." And this
illustration he employs as he does many others; just, for example, as
he illustrates the Christian Race by circumstances and practices
attendant on the Olympic games. It is essential to the illustration
of this passage to consider that the whole argument of St. Paul does
not refer to the providing against his future possible wants, with
which alone this Essay has to do, but to the relief of his present
actual necessities. It is evident indeed that the words cannot be
taken strictly. The Apostle begins with asserting that Children ought
not to lay up for their Parents, that is, ought not to provide for
their present necessities; for, if this be not his meaning, the words
have no reference to the question between the Apostle and the
Corinthians, and therefore cease to be an illustration at all; since
that question referred to present necessity on the one handy and to
present supply on the other. His simple object appears to be to
decline their bounty without giving pain; for it is clear from this
very epistle that he was in the habit of receiving assistance from
other Churches, of which he was as much the Spiritual Parent as of
the Church