“For even when we were with you, &c.” At Thessalonica in person, and first preached the Gospel to them, “we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat;” The Ethiopic version reads in the singular number, “when I was with you, I commanded you”; using the above words, which were a sort of a proverb with the Jews, and is frequently used by them, lyka al yad, or sygn al y[l, “that if a man would not work, he should not eat”. And again, “he that labours on the evening of the sabbath (or on weekdays), he shall eat on the sabbath day; and he who does not labour on the evening of the sabbath, from whence shall he eat (or…

“Not because we have not power, &c.” To forbear working, or require a maintenance from the churches to whom we minister, since Christ has ordained, that they that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel; (see 1 Corinthians 9:4-6,14). This the apostle says to preserve their right of claim, when and where they should think fit to make use of it; and lest other ministers of the word, who could not support themselves as they did, should be hurt by such an example; and lest covetous men should make use of it to indulge their sin, and improve it against the maintenance of Gospel ministers: wherefore the apostle observes to them, that they did not do this, as conscious that they had no right…

“Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought &c.” Or freely, at free cost, without paying for it; he signifies, that what they ate, they bought with their own money, and lived on no man, without giving him a valuable consideration for what they had; though if they had not paid in money for their food, they would not have ate it for nought, since they laboured among them in preaching the Gospel to them; and such labourers are worthy of their maintenance, (Luke 10:7) though the former sense is the apostle's here: “but wrought with labour and travail night and day:” Not only laboriously preaching the Gospel to them, as often as they could have opportunity, but working very hard and incessantly with…

“For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us, &c.” The apostle goes on to dissuade from that which denominates persons disorderly walkers, and exposes them to the censure of the church, and that partly by the example of the apostles, and partly by their command. He appeals to them, to their knowledge and judgment, it being a thing well known to them, that they ought to walk as they had the apostles for ensamples; for who should they follow but their spiritual fathers, shepherds, and guides? and especially so far as they were followers of Christ, as they were, in the case referred unto, working with their own hands: “for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you;” They could appeal to them as witnesses,…

“Now we command you, brethren, &c.” The apostle is now come to the main thing itself he has in view in this part of the epistle, which is to encourage a regard to the discipline of God's house; and to exhort this church to excommunicate, or remove from communion, all disorderly persons; and those who are to do this he points out, and calls upon, and even commands; and these are the fraternity, the “brethren”, the society of believers, all the members of the church; for to them to whom belongs the power of receiving members, to them only belongs the power of excluding offenders: the executive power lies in the hands of the elders or pastors of churches; they are the persons by whom…

“And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, &c.” By which may be meant either the love with which God is loved. This is the sum and substance of the first and chief commandment in the law, and is what every man in a state of nature is destitute of; it is implanted in the heart in regeneration, and is a fruit of the Spirit of God; and where it is it oftentimes grows cold, and needs to be stirred up and reinflamed, by the Spirit of God, which may be intended, by a directing of the heart into it, that is, to a lively exercise of it: or else the love with which God loves his people is designed, which is…