3. Nor do they attend to this, that if another should say, that the Lord indeed, speaking in parables and in similitudes concerning spiritual food and clothing, did warn that not on these accounts should His servants be solicitous; (as He saith, “When they shall drag you to judgment-seats, take no thought what ye shall speak. For it will be given you in that hour what ye shall speak: but it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.”4    Matt. x. 19, 20 For the discourse of spiritual wisdom is that for which He would not that they should take thought, promising that it should be given unto them, nothing solicitous thereof;) but the Apostle now, in manner Apostolical, more openly discoursing and more properly, than figuratively speaking, as is the case with much, indeed well-nigh all, in his Apostolic Epistles, said it properly of corporal work and food, “If any will not work, neither let him eat:” by those would their sentence be rendered doubtful, unless, considering the other words of the Lord, they should find somewhat whereby they might prove it to have been of not caring for corporal food and raiment that He spoke when He said, “Be not solicitous what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed.” As, if they should observe what He saith, “For all these things do the Gentiles seek;” for there He shows that it was of very corporal and temporal things that He spake. So then, were this the only thing that the Apostle has said on this subject, “If any will not work, neither let him eat;” these words might be drawn over to another meaning: but since in many other places of his Epistles, what is his mind on this point, he most openly teaches, they superfluously essay to raise a mist before themselves and others, that what that charity adviseth they may not only refuse to do, but even to understand it themselves, or let it be understood by others; not fearing that which is written, “He would not understand that he might do good.”5    Ps. xxxvi. 3, (35, 4.) “noluit intelligere ut bene ageret.”

CAPUT II.

3. Refelluntur, quia ut sensum Evangelii ex aliis et aliis verbis Domini habent, ita locum Apostoli ex aliis ejus dictis intelligendum esse non attendunt. Nec attendunt quia si alius diceret, Dominum quidem in parabolis et in similitudinibus loquentem de victu et tegumento spirituali monuisse, ut non inde sint solliciti servi ejus (sicut dicit, Cum vos attraxerint ad judicia, nolite cogitare quid loquamini. Dabitur enim vobis in illa hora quid loquamini: non enim vos estis qui loquimini, sed Spiritus Patris vestri, qui loquitur in vobis [Matth. X, 19 et 20]. Sermo quippe sapientiae spiritualis est, de quo illos noluit cogitare, promittens quod eis nihil inde sollicitis praestaretur;) Apostolum autem jam more apostolico apertius disserentem, et magis proprie quam figurate loquentem, sicut multa ac pene omnia sese habent in Epistolis apostolicis, proprie de opere corporali ciboque dixisse, Qui non vult operari, non manducet: redderetur illis dubia sententia eorum, nisi caetera dominica verba considerantes, invenirent aliquid unde probarent eum de victu et vestitu corporali non curando locutum fuisse, cum diceret, Nolite solliciti esse quid manducetis, et quid bibatis, et quo vestiamini; velut si animo adverterent quod ait, Haec enim omnia Gentes inquirunt: ibi enim ostendit de ipsis corporalibus et temporalibus se dixisse. Ita ergo, si hoc solum de hac re dixisset Apostolus, Qui non vult operari, non manducet; possent haec verba in aliam traduci sententiam: cum vero multis aliis locis Epistolarum suarum, quid hinc sentiat, apertissime doceat; superfluo conantur, et sibi et caeteris caliginem obducere, ut quod utiliter illa charitas monet non solum facere nolint, sed nec intelligere ipsi, aut ab aliis intelligi velint, non timentes 0551 quod scriptum est, Noluit intelligere ut bene ageret (Psal. XXXV, 4).