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Nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile? This expression occasions serious difficulty to the exegete. It may be that St. Paul is referring to the accusation made against him that, being a crafty man, he had caught the Corinthians with guile. He repudiates altogether such a charge, and pleads, as o, sufficient proof of his guilelessness, that no man could say he had ever used his official position to make personal gains. Archdeacon Farrar says, Being confessedly one who strove for peace and unity, who endeavoured to meet all men half way, who was ready to be all things to all men if by any means he might save some, he has more than once to vindicate his character from those charges of insincerity, craftiness, dishonesty, guile, man pleasing, and flattery which are, perhaps, summed up in the general depreciation which he so indignantly rebuts, that 'he walked according to the flesh,' or in other words, that his motives were not spiritual, but low and selfish." He paraphrases the sentence taken as our text thus: "But stop! though I did not burden you, yet 'being a cunning person, I caught you with guile.' Under the pretext of a collection I got money out of you by my confederates! I ask you, is that a fact?" A possible insinuation of the Corinthians is hereby anticipated and refuted; and we need not treat the statement of the text as any acknowledgment by St. Paul that he had adopted any guileful schemes. No man could have been more thoroughly genuine, more honorably straightforward. The subject for our consideration may be treated under three divisions.

I. THE IDEA OF "CAUGHT WITH GUILE" THAT IS INADMISSIBLE IN CHRISTIAN WORK.

1. Anything approaching to "doing evil that good may come" is inadmissible.

2. So is any altering or qualifying the fundamental truths, claims, and duties of the gospel.

3. So is any kind of action that is immoral, or of which the morality is even doubtful. Illustrate by some of the guileful principles enunciated by the Jesuit fathers, and so mercilessly exposed by Pascal in the 'Provincial Letters.' Sincerity and simplicity are first virtues in Christian workers; both the man and his labours must be such as can be searched through and through. Guile, as the world understands the term, must not be once known among us, as becometh saints.

II. THE IDEA OF "CAUGHT WITH GUILE" THAT IS ADMISSIBLE IN CHRISTIAN WORK. In the sense of adaptation to capacity it is an essential feature of Christian service. This may sometimes appear to the onlooker as guile. In teaching children or uneducated people, truth has to be simplified, to be set in figure and parable, and broken up into parts and pieces, and such guilefulness St. Paul recognizes as valuable. He fed the people with "milk" when he knew that they were unlit to receive "strong meat" of truth. Our Lord himself was guileful in this good sense, for at the close of his intercourse with his disciples he said, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." It may also be shown that there is a "quick wittedness" and skilful seizing of opportunities, which are gifts finding honourable spheres in the Christian Church.

III. THE IDEA OF "CAUGHT WITH GUILE" THAT NOBLE-MINDED MEN SHRINK FROM EMPLOYING. Such are the various sensational devices of modern revivalism. The masses are to be caught with the guile of trumpet, and drum, and dress, and excited meetings. We need not say that such things are inadmissible, because they are not morally wrong. But where there is a full sympathy with the Divine Lord, who "did not strive, nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets," all such guilefulnesses cannot but be painful. Anything approaching to an advertising of the gospel or the preachers of the gospel grieves the sensitive feeling of all who know that the gospel needs no such introductions, but is itself God's power unto salvation to every one that believes. Our "yea" had better be simple "yea;" with no blast of trumpet or roll of drum let us tell men of the life there is for all in Christ our living Saviour; and let our only guile be adaptation. - R.T.

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KJV: But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.

WEB: But be it so, I did not myself burden you. But, being crafty, I caught you with deception.