Matthew Poole and continuators on 2 Corinthians 3:5

5 Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves: but our sufficiency is of God .

I would not have you think, that we judge our selves sufficient to work a change in the hearts of men; we are so far from that, that we have no sufficiency so much as to think one good thought (which is the lowest humane act) though the subject, upon which the Apostle is here discoursing, be a sufficiency to work a work of Grace in the hearts of men; yet here is a strong proof to prove the impotency of mans Will unto any thing that is truly and spiritually good: For though the Apostle declares here his own and all other Ministers insufficiency to the change of any mans heart, yet he proveth it by an Argument, concluding from the lesser to the greater; for if they be not sufficient of themselves, and as of themselves, to think any thing which is truly and spiritually good, they are then much less sufficient for so great a work, as the Conversion of Souls. Nor doth that term [as of our selves] any thing alter the matter▪ for if we can think good thoughts, in any sense, as of our selves, it is not of God, in the sense which the Apostle is speaking of. Who is not here speaking of God, as the God of Nature, (from whom indeed we derive our power of thinking) but as the God of Grace, from whom we derive our power of thinking holy thoughts, and such as are truly and spiritually good. The Apostle determineth all our sufficiency to spiritually good actions, to be from God; our sufficiency to the lowest, (which is thinking good thoughts) as well as to those of the highest sort; amongst which must those actions be accounted, by which men are made workers together with God, in the bringing of Souls out of darkness into marvellous light; opening their eyes, turning them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, Acts 26.18. Our sufficiency to think any thoughts, or to do any natural or moral actions, is from God, as he is the God of Nature. But it appeareth from all the preceding Discourse, That our Apostle is here speaking of that Sufficiency which floweth from God through the Mediation of Christ; our power of thinking floweth from the Providence of God towards all men: And if that had been all which the Apostle had meant in saying, Our sufficiency is from God, it had been no more than what they might have learned from the Heathen Philosophers, who would have acknowledged, That all mens sufficiency to natural actions, is from the Divine Being, or the first Mover.

Marginal references: Chap. 2.16.; Phil. 2.13.