"
It is thus that the saints recommend the rich to share with the
poor the good things of this earth, if they would expect to possess
with them the good things of heaven. While you make it your business
to foster in the breasts of men that ambition which leaves no
superfluity to dispose of, and that avarice which refuses to part with
it, the saints have laboured to induce the rich to give up their
superfluity, and to convince them that they would have abundance of
it, provided they measured it, not by the standard of covetousness,
which knows no bounds to its cravings, but by that of piety, which
is ingenious in retrenchments, so as to have wherewith to diffuse
itself in the exercise of charity. "We will have a great deal of
superfluity," says St. Augustine, "if we keep only what is
necessary: but if we seek after vanities, we will never have enough.
Seek, brethren, what is sufficient for the work of God"- that is,
for nature- "and not for what is sufficient for your covetousness,"
which is the work of the devil: "and remember that the superfluities
of the rich are the necessaries of the poor."
I would fondly trust, fathers, that what I have now said to you
may serve, not only for my vindication- that were a small matter-
but also to make you feel and detest what is corrupt in the maxims
of your casuists, and thus unite us sincerely under the sacred rules
of the Gospel, according to which we must all be judged.
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