But what marks still more the
rarity of the cases in which one is bound to give charity, is his
remark, in another passage, that the poor man must be so ill off,
"that he may conscientiously rob the rich man!" This must surely be
a very extraordinary case, unless he will insist that a man may be
ordinarily allowed to commit robbery. And so, after having cancelled
the obligation to give alms out of our superfluities, he obliges the
rich to relieve the poor only in those cases when he would allow the
poor to rifle the rich! Such is the doctrine of Vasquez, to whom you
refer your readers for their edification!
I now come to your pretended Impostures. You begin by enlarging on
the obligation to alms-giving which Vasquez imposes on
ecclesiastics. But on this point I have said nothing; and I am
prepared to take it up whenever you choose. This, then, has nothing to
do with the present question. As for laymen, who are the only
persons with whom we have now to do, you are apparently anxious to
have it understood that, in the passage which I quoted, Vasquez is
giving not his own judgement, but that of Cajetan. But as nothing
could be more false than this, and as you have not said it in so
many terms, I am willing to believe, for the sake of your character,
that you did not intend to say it.
You next loudly complain that, after quoting that maxim of
Vasquez, "Such a thing as superfluity is rarely if ever to be met with
among men of the world, not excepting kings," I have inferred from it,
"that the rich are rarely, if ever, bound to give alms out of their
superfluity.
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