The Sermon on the Mount (Bossuet)/Day 35
Thirty-fifth Day
The same subject: of shunning all avarice. — Luke xii. 15, 21.
IT is impossible to meditate too much on Our Lord’s admirable instruction to us, to ' take heed and beware of all covetousness.’ There are several kinds of avarice. One is of a sour and sordid description, which amasses wealth unceasingly, but never touches it for enjoyment. Of this kind, the Wise Man says: 'and what doth it profit the owner, but that he seeth the riches with his eyes?’[1]
But there is another sort of avarice, far more cheerful and liberal, which — like the former — desires to amass perpetually, but with the object of enjoyment and satisfaction. This was the avarice of the man depicted to us in this Gospel.
A covetous man of this latter kind feels great contempt for the miser who denies himself everything in the midst of abundance. He fancies himself far wiser, because he is enjoying his possessions: yet God calls him ' thou fool.'
In fact, one is a fool through too much saving, and through imagining that riches which he does not use can make him happy; and the other is equally a fool for his over-indulgence, and for believing himself secure in the ownership of goods that he may be deprived of any night. 'Take heed’ therefore ' and beware’ of every kind of covetousness: — alike of the spendthrift’s and the miser’s. Be ' rich towards God ’: make your sole treasure of Him and His goodness; for, where this Treasure is concerned, we may enjoy freely. It will never diminish by spending, because the more it is used the larger it grows.
- ↑ Eccles. v. 9, 10.