11. And he goes on, and
adjoins, lest perchance any should imagine that he only therefore
received not, because they had not given: “But I have not written
these things that they may be so done unto me: good is it for me
rather to die than that any make void my glory.”2501
What
glory, unless that which he wished to have with
God, while in
Christ suffering with the
weak? As he is presently about to say
most openly; “For if I shall have
preached the
Gospel, there is
not to me any
glory: for necessity is laid upon me;”
2502
that is,
of sustaining this
life. “For woe will be to me,” he saith,
“if I
preach not the
Gospel:” that is, to my own will shall I
forbear to
preach the
Gospel, because I shall be
tormented with
hunger, and shall not have whereof to
live. For he goes on, and
says; “For if willingly I do this, I have a
reward.” By his
doing it willingly, he means, if he do it uncompelled by any
necessity of supporting this present
life; and for this he hath
reward, to wit, with
God, of
glory everlasting. “But if
unwilling,” saith he, “a dispensation is entrusted unto
me:”
2503
that is,
if being
unwilling, I am by necessity of passing through this
present
life, compelled to
preach the
Gospel, “a dispensation is
entrusted unto me;” to wit, that by my dispensation as a
steward,
because
Christ, because the
truth, is that which I
preach,
howsoever because of occasion, howsoever seeking mine own,
howsoever by necessity of earthly emolument compelled so to do,
other men do
profit, but I have not that glorious and
everlasting
reward with
God. “What then,” saith he, “shall be my
reward?” He saith it as asking a
question: therefore the
pronunciation must be suspended, until he give the answer. Which
the more easily to understand, let, as it were, us put the
question
to him, “What, then, will be thy
reward, O
Apostle, when that
earthly
reward due to good
evangelists, not for its sake
evangelizing, but yet taking it as the consequence and offered to
them by the
Lord’s appointment, thou acceptest not? What shall be
thy
reward then?” See what he replies: “That,
preaching the
Gospel, I may make the
Gospel of
Christ without charge;” that is,
that the
Gospel may not be to
believers expensive, lest they
account that for this end is the
Gospel to be
preached to them,
that its
preachers should seem as it were to sell it. And yet he
comes back again and again, that he may show what, by warrant of
the
Lord, he hath a right unto, yet doeth not: “that I abuse
not,” saith he, “my power in the Gospel.”
2504
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