Book II, Part 1, Chapter 3. Remedies against Covetousness

1. Covetousness is an inordinate desire of riches ; and, therefore, not only he that steals from others, but he that passionately covets what is another man's, or is too solicitous in keeping his own, is properly accounted covetous. The apostle condemned this vice, when he said, " They who desire to be rich fall into temptation, and into the snares of the devil, and into a great many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which sink men down into destruction and perdition ; for covetousness is the root of all evil;" 1 Tim. vi. 9, 10. He could not have exaggerated the malignity of this vice in more proper terms : for this gives us to understand, that he who is subject to this vice is a slave to all others.

2. Whenever, therefore, you are attacked by this vice, you may arm yourself against it with the following considerations: Consider, in the first place, O covetous man, that your Lord and your God, when he came down from heaven on earth, did not desire to possess such riches as those you seek after ; on the contrary, he had such an extraordinary love for poverty, that he chose to take flesh of a poor and humble virgin, not of a rich and noble queen. After he was born, he would not live in great palaces, nor lie in a chamber well furnished, nor in a soft bed, but in a base and poor manger, and on a little straw ; Luke ii. 7. Besides this, he had a particular love for poverty during his whole life, and despised riches, since he chose poor fishermen for his ambassadors and apostles, and not princes or persons of great quality. What greater abuse can there be, than for a base worm to desire to be rich, when the sovereign Lord of all creatures became so poor for his sake ?

3. Consider, again, the vileness of your own heart, since you are willing for a little interest to throw away your soul, which was created to the likeness of God, and redeemed by his blood, in comparison of which all the world is nothing. God would not have given his life for the whole world, and yet he laid it down .or man's soul; this soul, therefore, must be of much greater value than the whole world. It is not silver, nor gold, nor precious stones, that are the true riches, but virtue, the inseparable

37 2 A companion of a good conscience. Lay aside the false opinion and judgment of men, and you will see that your silver and gold is nothing but a little earth, which receives all its worth from the erroneous opinions of men. Will you, who are a Christian, and are called to the enjoyment of greater goods, set such an esteem upon that which all the heathen philosophers contemned and slighted, as to make yourself its slave? for, as St. Jerome says, " He that looks after his riches like a slave is a slave to them ; but he that shakes off this yoke, possesses them as lord and master ;",Hierom. in c. 6. Matt.

4. Consider, also, that our Saviour says, no one can serve two masters, God and mammon (Matt. vi. 24), and that it is impossible for a man to contemplate God whilst he is running openmouthed after worldly goods ; he that loves temporal delights and comforts must not expect to possess the spiritual ; nor is there any possibility of joining false and true things together, high and low, eternal and temporal, spiritual and carnal, so as to enjoy them both at once. Consider, that the more success you meet with in your worldly concerns, the more miserable you are like to be, because of the occasions it gives you of trusting too much to this false happiness you enjoy. Oh ! that you did but know what misery attends this poor success ! The very desire, which proceeds from the love of riches, is a much greater torment than the possession of them can be a delight and pleasure, because it entangles the soul in many temptations, it engages it in many cares, invites it with its empty delights, excites it to sin, and disturbs its rest and quiet : besides all this, there is no getting of riches without pains and labor, there is no keeping of them without solicitude and care, and there is no losing of them without much grief and vexation ; but, what is worst of all, they are scarce ever to be heaped up without offending God ; for it is a common saying, " That a rich man is either a wicked man, or else a wicked man's heir."

5. Consider what a folly it is to be continually desiring those things which it is certain can never satisfy your wish, though they wTere all to be joined together ; on the contrary, they do but provoke and raise your desire the more ; as a dropsical man, the more he drinks, still the drier he is ; because, let your possessions be ever so large, you will be always coveting what you have not, and continually gaping after more. So that, whilst your heart is unhappily running after the things of this world, it tires itself without being ever satisfied ; it drinks, and yet cannot quench its thirst, because it takes no notice of what it has, and thinks of nothing but how to get more : and what is still worse, that which it irc already possessed of cannot give it so much ease and contentment as that, which it cannot obtain, gives it disturbance and trouble ; and whilst you are filling your coifers with gold, you fill your heart full of air and smoke. St. Augustine had a great deal of reason to be astonished at this kind of proceeding, and, therefore, he said, " How is it possible that men should be so insatiable in their desires, when even brute creatures observe a bound and measure in theirs ? For they never seek their prey but when they are hungry ; and as soon as ever they are satisfied, they give over. There is nothing but the covetousness of rich men that knows no limits; it is perpetually craving, and yet never satisfied." St Aug. Serm. 25. de Verbis Domini.

6. Consider, again, where there are great riches, there are many to consume them, many to squander or steal them away. What can the richest man in the world get by all his riches, more than what is necessary for the support. of life? You may, if you will, put all your trust in God, and cast yourself wholly upon his providence, be free from this care, because he never forsakes those that rely on him ; for he that has subjected man to the necessity of eating, will never let him die for want of meat. How can it be thought, that God should take no notice of man, when he feeds the birds of the air, and clothes the lilies of the field (Matt. vi. 26, 28), and this especially when so little serves for the satisfying of nature ? Life is short, and death is continually advancing apace ; what need is there, then, of providing so much for so short a journey ? Why will you load yourself with so much riches, when the less you have the more free you will be, and the better able to walk ? And when you shall come to your journey's end, you will find no worse entertainment for being poor, than those that shall come hither richer fraught ; you will be less troubled for what you leave, and will have the less to answer for. WThereas the rich, when they come to their journey's end, will be grieved to the heart to leave those heaps of gold they so entirely loved, and will be accountable for what they possessed, to the great danger of their souls.

7. Consider further, O covetous man, for whom you heap up all those riches, since it is a plain case, that you are to go as naked out of the world as you came into it ; Job. i. 21. You were born poor in this life, and so you will be forced to leave it. This is what you are frequently to reflect on. For, as St. Jerome says, " It is an easy matter for him that thinks often of death, to despise the goods of this life ;" Ad Paulinum in Prologo Bibliae. At the very moment of your death, you must take your leave of all your temporal goods, and carry nothing away with you but the good or evil works you have done during your life ; then you will be deprived of all heavenly goods, if, whilst you lived, you took but little notice of them, and spent all your time and pains in procuring the temporal : for then all you have will be divided into three parts ; your body will be given to the worms, your soul to the devils, and your riches will fall into the hands of your heirs, who will perhaps be either ungrateful, extravagant or wicked. It would be better for you, according to the advice of our Saviour, to distribute your goods amongst the poor betimes, that you may have them carried by them before you, as great men have when they travel ; Luke xvi. 9. For what greater madness is there, than to leave your goods where you shall never go back to fetch them, and not to send them where you are to live for ever ?

8. Consider, further, that the sovereign Governor of the world, like a discreet master of a family, disposes of his goods, and the charges under him, in such a manner as that some he constitutes to look after the rest, and others he appoints to be subject to those whom he sets over them; some he has ordered to distribute what is necessary, and others to receive the distributions. And since you are one of those who are to distribute to others, what remains over and above your own necessary expenses, can you imagine, that you are allowed to keep that for yourself which has been given you for several others ? For, as St. Basil says, " the bread you lock up, belongs to the poor ; the clothes you hide, are for those who have none to put on ; and the money you hoard up, is to be distributed amongst those that want it;" Horn, de Diversis. Therefore assure yourself, that you have robbed as many persons as you have neglected to assist with what you had to spare, whenever it was in your power to do it. Consider, then, that the goods God has intrusted you with, are the remedies of human miseries, not the occasion of a bad life. Be sure, then, when you are in the midst of your prosperity, that you do not forget the Author of it ; nor make the means you have of assisting your neighbor in his distress, the subject of your pride and vanity: do not, therefore, love the place of your banishment more than your own country : do not make a burden of the provisions and necessaries for your journey : do not prefer the light of the moon before the sun at noon-day ; nor change the succors of this life into the instruments of everlasting death. Be content with the condition God has placed you in, and think of what the apostle says, Having enough for to feed and clothe ourselves with, we are content therewith (1 Tim. vi. 8) ; for, as St. Chrysostom says, " A servant of God ought not to dress himself out of vanity, or to indulge and please his flesh, but only to supply necessity and want." First seek the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added to you. For God will never deny you such small things as those are, when he is willing to give you the greatest you are capable of receiving.

9. Remember it is not poverty, but the love of it, that is a virtue. Those who are voluntarily poor, are like our Saviour himself, who, as rich as he was, made himself poor for our sakes. But those who are poor, and cannot help it, make a virtue of necessity, when they bear their poverty with patience, and contemn those riches which they have not. And as they "^ho aie poor conform themselves by their poverty to Jesus Christ, so they who are rich reform themselves by their alms for Jesus Christ. For we see, that not only the poor shepherds, but that wise and great men came to him, and made him presents of their riches and treasures. Do you, therefore, who have an estate large enough to do it, give alms to the poor, for it is God that receives what you give them, and look on it for certain, that what you bestow on them now, will be laid up for you in heaven, where you are to live for all eternity : but if you should hide your riches in this world, you must not expect to find any thing there, where you have not laid it up. With what justice, then, can we call those things good, which man cannot carry along with him, and which he unwillingly parts with? But spiritual goods, on the contrary, are what we may truly call such, because they do not leave their master, even at his death, nor can they be taken from a man without his own consent.

§ I. That no person ought to detain another Man's Goods. — 10. A word or two of advice here, on the danger there is in detaining other men's goods, will not be amiss. To which purpose you are to understand, that it is not only a sin to take what belongs to another, but even to detain it against the owner's will. And it is not enough to have a design of restoring it hereafter, if a man is able to do it now, because he is not only obliged to make restitution, but to make it immediately. It is true that if he cannot do it presently, or is so poor that he cannot do it at all, he is not in such a case obliged either to the one or to the other, because God does not oblige a man to any thing that is impossible.

11. There is no need of any more words to prove what I have said, than those of St. Gregory, in his letter to a gentleman of his acquaintance. " Remember, sir (says he), that the riches gotten by unlawful ways are to remain here, and the sins you have been guilty of in acquiring them are to go along with you. What greater folly can you commit than to leave the gain here, and to carry the loss with you where you are going ? to let another take the pleasure, whilst you undergo the torment, and to oblige yourself to suffer in the next world for that which others are to have the benefit of in this ?

12. " Besides, can there be a greater madness than to look less to yourself than to your estate ? to lose your soul rather than part with your money, and to expose your body to the danger of being run through, rather than part with your coat ? This is something like Judas, who, for a little money, sold justice, grace and his own soul. If, in fine, it is true, as without doubt it is, that you must make restitution at the hour of death, if you design to save your soul, how can you show yourself a greater fool than to continue here so long in sin, to sleep in sin, to awake in sin, to

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confess in sin, to communicate in sin, and to lose what a man in sin loses, which is worth much more than all the riches of the world, whilst, at the same time, you are so strictly obliged to pay off whatever you owe? We cannot look on him as a man of sound judgment or reason that will run such hazards as these."

13. Endeavor, therefore, to pay what you owe to the utmost farthing, and let not any one suffer for want of your doing so ; Deut. xxiv. Tob. iv. Let not the laborer's toil and sweat go unrewarded ; let him not run up and down and lose his time in seeking after its wages, and to take more pains in soliciting for them, when due, than he did in earning of them, as bad paymasters often do. If you be made an executor, do not defraud the souls departed of the succor and help that is due to them, lest they should suffer their torments longer on account of your neglect ; for all will fall heavy at last on your own soul. If you are indebted to your servants, endeavor to make all clear and even with them, that so you may disengage yourself; or, at least, agree with them on such terms whilst you live, that there may be no disputes nor differences after your death. Whatsoever you can perform of your own will, leave not to executors ; for how can you imagine, if you are so careless in your own concerns, that other persons will be more diligent in concerns which were none of their own ?

14. Endeavor to be indebted to no man, for by that means you will sleep quietly, enjoy peace of conscience, an easy life and a calm death. The means to obtain all this is, to put a stop to your irregular desires and appetites, and not to do every thing you have a mind to do ; to see that your expenses do not exceed your estate, but to moderate them according to your ability, and not according to your own desires, that so you may always keep out of debt. For they are our unruly appetites which make us run into debt ; moderation is worth more than a great estate and large revenues. Look on these as the chief and only true riches, which the apostle reckons as such, when he says, " Piety with content," in what condition God puts us in, " is great gain ;" 1 Tim. vi. 6. Men would always live in peace, did not they desire to be greater and happier in this world than God would have them ; but when they aspire to go beyond this bound, they must of necessity lose a great deal of their peace and quiet, for we must not expect that should prove successful which is not according to the Almighty's will.