Page:Ninety-nine homilies of S. Thomas Aquinas upon the epistles and gospels for forty-nine Sundays of the Christian year (IA ninetyninehomili00thom).pdf/167

 cast them out of his belly,” Job xx. 15. (3) Because they lead those wrongly possessing them to perpetual poverty: “ The rich man shall lie down, but he shall not be gathered: he openeth his eyes, and he is not,” Job xxvii. 19. (4) Because the contempt of them leads to eternal life: “ And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life,” S. Matt. xix. 29.

II. On the second head it is to be noted, that by riches man sins in four ways. (1) By acquiring them unjustly: “He that by usury and unjust gain increasetli his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor,” Prov. xxviii. 8. “ He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want,” Prov. xxii. 16. (2) By possessing them covetously: “ Riches kept for the owners thereof to their,” i.e., to the hurt of their Lord, “ perish by evil travail,” Eccles. v. 13, 14. (3) By being badly spent: “Give not thy substance to women,” Vulg., Prov. xxxi. 3; “to women,” to the corruptions of sin ; “ thy substance,” i.e., thy body and the riches of temporal things. Mystically it signifies thy heap of virtues, lest you be contaminated with the corruptions of vices. “The younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance in riotous living,” S. Luke xv. 13. (4) By trusting in them, and becoming proud of them: “ He that trusteth in his riches shall fall,” t.e., from eternal life, Prov. xi. 28; Gloss. Delighting himself in present good things, he does not think about or attend to future things, so that in the end he will lack eternal riches: “ Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God .... laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life,” 1 S. Tim. vi. 17-19.

III. On the third head it is to be noted, that spiritual riches are knowledge and virtue; riches of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge: “ The fear of the Lord is his treasure,” Isa. xxxiii. 6, Vulg.; “The fear of the Lord driveth out sin,” Ecclus. i. 27; “They that fear the Lord will prepare their hearts, and in His sight will sanctify their