For out of much affliction and anguish of heart
Being greatly pressed in his spirit, and grieved at his heart, for the abominable iniquities among them, which they seemed to take no notice of, and to be unconcerned about, yea, rather to be puffed up with:
I wrote to you with many tears;
as signs and expressions of, and by which were vented, the inward anguish and distress of his soul; and the letter he sent to them in some measure bore witness to it: which was written,
not that you should be grieved;
that is, not merely for the sake of grieving of them, in which he took no pleasure; not but that the apostle designed and desired to affect their minds with a holy grief and godly sorrow for sin, and hereby their amendment; but his chief view was, next to their spiritual good, and God's glory, to express the greatness of his love to them: as he says,
that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you;
as his love was very vehement towards them, he was desirous they should know it, and how exceeding abundant it was; and that it was even greater towards them, than to others; and he thought he could not give a greater proof and evidence of it, than by reproving them faithfully, and that sharply too, as the necessity of the case required.