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"BECAUSE we were not restless among you." When he wants to prove by the
practice of work that he was not restless among them, he fully shows that
those who will not work are always restless, owing to the fault of
idleness. "Nor did we eat any man's bread for nought." By each expression
the teacher of the Gentiles advances a step in the rebuke. The preacher
of the gospel says that he has not eaten any man's bread for nought, as he
knows that the Lord commanded that "they who preach the gospel should live
of the gospel:" again, "The labourer is worthy of his meat." And so
if he who preached the gospel, performing a work so lofty and spiritual,
did not venture in reliance on the Lord's command to eat his bread for
nought, what shall we do to whom not merely is there no preaching of the
word intrusted, but no cure of souls except our own committed? with what
confidence shall we dare with idle hands to eat our bread for nought, when
the "chosen vessel," constrained by his anxiety for the gospel and his work
of preaching, did not venture to eat without labouring with his own hands?
"But in labour," he says "and weariness, working night and day lest we
should be burdensome to any of you." Up to this point he amplifies and
adds to his rebuke. For he did not simply say, "We did not eat bread for
nought from any of and then stop short. For it might have been thought that
he was supported by his own private means, and by money which he had saved,
or by other people's, though not by their collections and gifts. "But in
labour," he says, "and weariness, working night and day is, being specially
supported by our own labour. And this, he says, we did not of our own wish,
and for our own pleasure, as rest and bodily exercise suggested, but as our
necessities and the want of food compelled us to do, and that not without
great bodily weariness. For not only throughout the whole day, but also by
night, which seems to be granted for bodily rest, I was continually plying
the work of my hands, through anxiety for food.
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