Chapter XVI. 53. “Therefore be not anxious,” says He,” saying, What shall we eat?395 or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?396 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added397 unto you.” Here He shows most manifestly that these things are not to be sought as if they were our blessings in such sort, that on account of them we ought to do well in all our actings, but yet that they are necessary. For what the difference is between a blessing which is to be sought, and a necessary which is to be taken for use, He has made plain by this sentence, when He says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”398 The kingdom and the righteousness of God therefore are our good; and this is to be sought, and there the end is to be set up, on account of which we are to do everything which we do. But because we serve as soldiers in this life, in order that we 51 may be able to reach that kingdom, and because our life cannot be spent without these ne- cessaries, “These things shall be added unto you,” says He; “but seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” For in using that word “first,” He has indicated that this is to be sought later, not in point of time, but in point of importance: the one as being our good, the other as being something necessary for us; but the necessary on account of that good. 54. For neither ought we, for example, to preach the gospel with this object, that we may eat; but to eat with this object, that we may preach the gospel: for if we preach the gospel for this cause, that we may eat, we reckon the gospel of less value than food; and in that case our good will be in eating, but that which is necessary for us in preaching the gospel. And this the apostle also forbids, when he says it is lawful for himself even, and permitted by the Lord, that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel, i.e. should have from the gospel the necessaries of this life; but yet that he has not made use of this power. For there were many who were desirous of having an occasion for getting and selling the gospel, from whom the apostle wished to cut off this occasion, and therefore he submitted to a way of living by his own hands.399 For concerning these parties he says in another passage, “That I may cut off occasion from them which seek400 occasion.”401 Although even if, like the rest 395 Edemus…vestiemur; Vulgate, manducabimus…operiemur. 396 Edemus…vestiemur; Vulgate, manducabimus…operiemur. 397 Apponentur; Vulgate, adjicientur. 398 Matt. vi. 33. 399 Acts xx. 34. 400 Quærunt; Vulgate, volunt. 401 2 Cor. xi. 12. Chapter XVI 126 Chapter XVI