, in this Commandment it can be clearly seen how all good
works must be done in faith; for here every one most surely feels that
the cause of covetousness is distrust and the cause of liberality is
faith. For because a man trusts God, he is generous and does not doubt
that he will always have enough; on the other hand, a man is covetous
and worries because he does not trust God. Now, as in this Commandment
faith is the master-workman and the doer of the good work of
liberality, so it is also in all the other Commandments, and without
such faith liberality is of no worth, but rather a careless squandering
of money.

IV. By this we are also to know that this liberality shall extend even
to enemies and opponents. For what manner of good deed is that, if we
are liberal only to our friends? As Christ teaches, Luke vi, even a
wicked man does that to another who is his friend. Besides, the brute
beasts also do good and are generous to their kind. Therefore a
Christian must rise higher, let his liberality serve also the
undeserving, evil-doers, enemies, and the ungrateful, even as his
heavenly Father makes His sun to rise on good and evil, and the rain to
fall on the grateful and ungrateful.

But here it will be found how hard it is to do good works according to
God's Commandment, how nature squirms, twists and writhes in its
opposition to it, although it does the good works of its own choice
easily and gladly. Therefore take your enemies, the ungrateful, and do
good to them; then you will find how near you are to this Commandment
or how far from it, and how all your life you will always have to do
with the practice of this work. For if your enemy needs you and you do
not help him when you can, it is just the same as if you had stolen
what belonged to him, for you owed it to him to help him. So says St.
Ambrose, "Feed the hungry; if you do not feed him, you have, as far as
you are concerned, slain him." And in this Commandment are included the
works of mercy, which Christ will require at men's hands at the last
day.

But the magistrates and cities ought to see to it that the vagabonds,
pilgrims and mendicants from foreign lands be debarred, or at least
allowed only under restrictions and rules, so that knaves be not
permitted to run at large under the guise of mendicants, and their
knavery, of which there now is much, be prohibited. I have spoken at
greater length of this Commandment in the Treatise on Usury.

Thou sh