7. But there are some rich women, and wealthy in the fertility of means, who prefer their own wealth, and contend that they ought to use these blessings. Let them know first of all that she is rich who is rich in God; that she is wealthy who is wealthy in Christ; that those are blessings which are spiritual, divine, heavenly, which lead us to God, which abide with us in perpetual possession with God. But whatever things are earthly, and have been received in this world, and will remain here with the world, ought so to be contemned even as the world itself is contemned, whose pomps and delights we have already renounced when by a blessed passage we came to God. John stimulates and exhorts us, witnessing with a spiritual and heavenly voice. “Love not the world,” says he, “neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not from the Father, but is of the lust of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever, even as God also abideth for ever.”18    1 John ii. 15–17. Therefore eternal and divine things are to be followed, and all things must be done after the will of God, that we may follow the divine footsteps and teachings of our Lord, who warned us, and said, “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.”19    John vi. 38. But if the servant is not greater than his lord, and he that is freed owes obedience to his deliverer, we who desire to be Christians ought to imitate what Christ said and did. It is written, and it is read and heard, and is celebrated for our example by the Church’s mouth, “He that saith he abideth in Christ, ought himself also so to walk even as He walked.”20    1 John ii. 6. Therefore we must walk with equal steps; we must strive with emulous walk. Then the following of truth answers to the faith of our name, and a reward is given to the believer, if what is believed is also done.

VII. Sed sunt aliquae divites et facultatum ubertate locupletes, quae opes suas praeferant et se bonis suis 0446B uti debere contendant. Sciant primo illam divitem esse quae in Deo dives est, illam esse locupletem quae locuples in Christo est, bona illa esse quae sunt spiritalia, divina, coelestia, quae nos ad Deum ducant, quae nobiscum apud Deum perpetua possessione permaneant. Caeterum, quaecumque terrena sunt in saeculo accepta et hic cum saeculo remansura , tam contemni debent quam mundus ipse contemnitur, cujus pompis et deliciis jam tunc renuntiavimus cum meliore transgressu ad Deum venimus. Joannes nos excitat et hortatur spiritali et coelesti voce contestans: Nolite, ait, diligere mundum neque ea quae in mundo sunt . Si quis dilexerit mundum, non est charitas Patris in illo; quoniam omne quod in mundo est, concupiscentia carnis est, et concupiscentia oculorum, 0447A et ambitio saeculi, quae non est a Patre, sed ex concupiscentia saeculi. Et mundus transibit et concupiscentia ejus. Qui autem fecerit voluntatem Dei, manet in aeternum, quomodo et Deus manet in aeternum. (I Joan. II, 15-17). Aeterna igitur et divina sectanda sunt, et omnia de Dei voluntate facienda sunt, ut Domini nostri vestigia et magisteria divina sectemur , qui monuit et dixit: Non descendi de coelo ut faciam voluntatem meam, sed voluntatem ejus qui me misit (Joa. VI, 38). Quod si non est major domino suo servus et liberatori debet obsequium liberatus, qui esse cupimus christiani, debemus quod Christus dixit et fecit imitari. Scriptum est, et legitur et auditur et in exemplum nostri Ecclesiae ore celebratur: Qui dicit se in Christo manere debet quomodo ille ambulavit et ipse 0447B ambulare (I Joan. II, 6). Ambulandum est igitur vestigiis paribus, aemula ingressione nitendum est. Tunc respondet ad fidem nominis sectatio veritatis, et credenti praemium datur si quod creditur et geratur.