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"NOT as if we had not power; but that we might give ourselves a pattern
to you to imitate us." He lays bare the reason why he imposed such labour
on himself: "that we might," says he, "give a pattern to you to imitate us,
that if by chance you become forgetful of the teaching of our words which
so often passes through your ears, you may at least keep in your
recollection the example of my manner of life given to you by ocular
demonstration. There is here too no slight reproof of them, where he says
that he has gone through this labour and weariness by night and day, for no
other reason but to set an example, and that nevertheless they would not be
instructed, for whose sakes he, although not obliged to do it, yet imposed
on himself such toil. "And indeed," he says "though we had the power, and
opportunities were open to us of using all your goods and substance, and I
knew that I had the permission s of our Lord to use them: yet I did not use
this power, lest what was rightly and lawfully done on my part might set an
example of dangerous idleness to others. And therefore when preaching the
gospel, I preferred to be supported by my own hands and work, that I might
open up the way of perfection to you who wish to walk in the path of
virtue, and might set an example of good life by my work."
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