THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.
THE attempts of certain modern writers to prove the authenticity of this and the former epistle, we must regard as labour superfluous and unrequired. Had the ancient churches no wisdom, and their councils no judgment, when they read these epistles in public worship, as books of divine inspiration? They were competent men, and had the manuscripts in their hands.
Cardinal Baronius fixes the time of writing this epistle to the twenty sixth year after the passion of Christ. Annal. Ecclesiastes vol. 1. p. 575. He adds, that it was written from Nicopolis, a city of Thrace, on the borders of Macedonia. Chronicles cap. ult. The three brethren, named at the close of the first epistle, Fortunatus, Achaicus, and Timotheus, having informed him of the salutary effects of his first epistle, in restoring discipline and order in the church; he wrote this second in the course of the year to comfort them after their sorrows, and to restore the incestuous offender, after the requisite fruits of repentance, lest he should be swallowed up of too much sorrow. The censures of the church have love for their source.
Further arguments are not necessary in this place, as they would only interfere with the illustrations, which properly belong to certain places in the comments.