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On Works and Alms.
1. Many and great, beloved brethren, are the divine benefits wherewith the large and abundant mercy of God the Father and Christ both has laboured and
2. The Holy Spirit speaks in the sacred Scriptures, and says, “By almsgiving and faith sins are purged.” Not assuredly those sins which had been previ
3. Let us then acknowledge, beloved brethren, the wholesome gift of the divine mercy and let us, who cannot be without some wound of conscience, heal
4. Finally, beloved brethren, the divine admonition in the Scriptures, as well old as new, has never failed, has never been silent in urging God’s peo
5. The remedies for propitiating God are given in the words of God Himself the divine instructions have taught what sinners ought to do, that by work
6. Neither, beloved brethren, are we so bringing forward these things, as that we should not prove what Raphael the angel said, by the testimony of th
7. Therefore in the Gospel, the Lord, the Teacher of our life and Master of eternal salvation, quickening the assembly of believers, and providing for
8. In fine, He calls those the children of Abraham whom He sees to be laborious in aiding and nourishing the poor. For when Zacchæus said, “Behold, th
9. If you dread and fear, lest, if you begin to act thus abundantly, your patrimony being exhausted with your liberal dealing, you may perchance be re
10. You are afraid lest perchance your estate should fail, if you begin to act liberally from it and you do not know, miserable man that you are, tha
11. Are you afraid that your patrimony perchance may fall short, if you should begin to do liberally from it? Yet when has it ever happened that resou
12. Unless you imagine that he who feeds Christ is not himself fed by Christ, or that earthly things will be wanting to those to whom heavenly and div
13. Wherefore do you applaud yourself in those vain and silly conceits, as if you were withheld from good works by fear and solicitude for the future?
14. You are mistaken, and are deceived, whosoever you are, that think yourself rich in this world. Listen to the voice of your Lord in the Apocalypse,
15. But you who are such as this, cannot labour in the Church. For your eyes, overcast with the gloom of blackness, and shadowed in night, do not see
16. But neither let the consideration, dearest brethren, restrain and recall the Christian from good and righteous works, that any one should fancy th
17. Thus that widow in the third book of Kings, when in the drought and famine, having consumed everything, she had made of the little meal and oil wh
18. Moreover, also, (you say) there are many children at home and the multitude of your children checks you from giving yourself freely to good works
19. Neither should you think that he is father to your children who is both changeable and infirm, but you should obtain Him who is the eternal and un
20. Be rather such a father to your children as was Tobias. Give useful and saving precepts to your pledges, such as he gave to his son command your
21. What sort of gift is it, beloved brethren, whose setting forth is celebrated in the sight of God? If, in a gift of the Gentiles, it seems a great
22. And that the indolent and the barren, and those, who by their covetousness for money do nothing in respect of the fruit of their salvation, may be
23. What do we reply to these things, dearest brethren? With what reason do we defend the minds of rich men, overwhelmed with a profane barrenness and
24. And therefore, dearest brethren, whose fear is inclined towards God, and who having already despised and trampled under foot the world, have lifte
25. Let us consider, beloved brethren, what the congregation of believers did in the time of the apostles, when at the first beginnings the mind flour
26. What, dearest brethren, will be that glory of those who labour charitably—how great and high the joy when the Lord begins to number His people, an
