I beseech you not to compel me when present to make a bold display of the confidence with which I reckon I shall show my `courage' against some who reckon that we are guided by worldly principles.
in order that in our case the requirements of the Law might be fully met. For our lives are regulated not by our earthly, but by our spiritual natures.
For if men are controlled by their earthly natures, they give their minds to earthly things. If they are controlled by their spiritual natures, they give their minds to spiritual things.
Did I display any vacillation or caprice in this? Or the purposes which I form–do I form them on worldly principles, now crying »Yes, yes,« and now »No, no«?
I use the language of self-disparagement, as though I were admitting our own feebleness. Yet for whatever reason any one is `courageous' –I speak in mere folly– I also am courageous.
For this reason I write thus while absent, that when present I may not have to act severely in the exercise of the authority which the Lord has given me for building up, and not for pulling down.
Those who cling to their old sins, and indeed all of you, I have forewarned and still forewarn (as I did on my second visit when present, so I do now, though absent) that, when I come again, I shall not spare you;