“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
He reasoneth first of Charity, the excellency whereof he first showeth by this, that without it, all other gifts are as nothing before God which thing he proveth partly by an induction, and partly also by an argument taken of the end, wherefor those gifts are given. For to what purpose are those gifts, but to God’s glory, and the profit of the Church, as is before proved? so that those gifts, without Charity, have no right use. A very earnest kind of amplifying a matter, as if he said, If there were any tongues of Angels, and I had them, and did not use them to the benefit of my neighbor, it were nothing else but a vain and prattling type of babbling. That giveth a rude and no certain sound.