How can one approve those who seem to dominate in this world, if they do less than they can? The Scripture praises precisely the one who could have sinned but did not, who did not run after gold. Gold must follow you, and not you gold. In fact, gold is a good thing—certainly God created nothing evil.^[1] Don’t you be evil, then, and the gold good. See here, I place some gold between an upright person and a dishonest one. If the dishonest person takes it, the poor are oppressed, magistrates corrupted, laws broken, social life upset. Why? Because a dishonest person took the gold. If the upright person were to have it, the poor would be sustained, the naked clothed, the oppressed liberated, prisoners redeemed.^[2] How much good is derived from the gold the honest person has, and how many evils from the gold of the dishonest person! To what end, therefore, do you say in disgust, And what if gold did not exist at all? You should not love gold. If you are dishonest, you will follow gold. If you are upright, it will follow you. What does it will follow you mean? That you will rule it and not be made its servant, because you will possess it, rather than being possessed by it.

If we go back to the beginnings of the world, we find that the Spirit of God guided all of the saints before the flood, and for this reason they are also called children of God, since, as the apostle says, All those who are guided by the Spirit of God are children of God.^[1] And because, neglecting to obey the ancestors, they became involved in illicit and reprobate marriages, and because of this wicked communion were judged worthy of extermination, the Lord said, My Spirit will not remain forever with these people, for they are flesh.^[2] From this it is clear that this people, whose history is narrated year by year in an orderly manner, was first spiritual, that is, having a will that was guided by the Holy Spirit, in such a way however that this government and guidance did not take away their freedom to turn toward sin. If the people had not exercised this freedom, they would not have abandoned God. Nor would they have been abandoned by God, and they would rather have been that of which it is written, Happy the one who could have sinned but did not. Therefore, as long as they remained with God, they remained in the will that God inspired in them and by which he would have governed them. The will, as it is written, is predisposed by the Lord.^[3]