Matthew Poole and continuators on Galatians 4:14

14 And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected , but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus .

The Apostle saith they were so far from injuring him (as he had said verse 12.) that they had expressed great kindness to him: For though when he first came amongst them to Preach the Gospel, he was a man of no great presence; but, in the judgment of some, vise and base▪ or was full of bodily weakness and diseases; was persecuted by men. Yet they did not reject nor despise him, for those temptations he had in the Flesh: by which he means, the same things he before meant by infirmities, for both bodily weaknesses, and sufferings for the Gospel, are Temptations, as the word signifieth Trials.

Nay (saith he) you were so far from rejecting, or despising me upon that account, that (on the contrary) you received me, as if I had been an Angel; yea, if Jesus Christ himself had came amongst you, you could not have been more kind to him then you were to me. This he tells them, partly to let them know, that what he had spoken he had not spake out of any ill will or prejudice to them; partly to retain their good will, that they might not shew themselves uncertain and inconstant in their judgement and affections, and partly, (as the following verse testifieth) to shew the levity of some of them; who had too much forgotten their first judgment of him, and value for him.

Marginal references: Mal. 2.7.; Matth. 10.[illegible: 1 letter] John 13.2[illegible: 1 letter]