Scripture always uses wine in a mystical sense, as a symbol of the holy blood, and always repudiates any intemperate use made of it.

As it is said, The priest and the prophet were deranged by wine.^[1] Wine is licentious, drunkenness is bold. The person who indulges in them will not be exempt from sin. Wine is a good thing if you drink it with moderation. If you set your eyes on cups and goblets you will walk naked as a pestle.^[2] Therefore, all who have prepared to become disciples of Jesus should abstain from wine and drunkenness.

Those who eat the heavenly bread become heavenly without doubt! Wine teaches us in that it makes those who are familiar with it like itself: for it hates those who are fond of it and is intoxicating and maddening and a mocker of them.

In this place it openly speaks of Christ as the king, for the one who irritates Christ with [his] sin, sins against his own soul.

The slothful, in neglecting to do things that are necessary, imagines certain difficulties and harbors certain unfounded fears. So when they find something they may reasonably fear, they satisfy themselves that they have good reason for remaining indolent. . . . Indeed sluggards do not plow because of the cold, when they find an excuse for not doing the good things which they ought to do. Sluggards do not plow because of the cold, when they are afraid of small evils that confront them and leave undone things of the greatest importance. It is well said, They shall beg in summer, and it shall not be given to them. For those who do not toil now in good works will beg in summer and receive nothing, because, when the burning sun of judgment shall appear, they will then beg in vain for entrance into the kingdom.

All the righteous, our fathers, in all that they did were victorious through faith, as the blessed apostle also testifies about them all, They prevailed by faith.^[1] Solomon also said, Many men are called merciful, but who can find a faithful man?

A human being is of great value since he is made in the likeness of God. If he adds to this the practice of mercy in practical matters he then becomes an honorable man. He, who does this wisely and faithfully, finds the work [he was created to do].

No human, therefore, is without sin. Labor therefore to the utmost of your power to be unblamable; and be solicitous of all the parts of your flock, lest any one be scandalized on your account and thereby perish.

Let us not therefore give up in despair; for to fall is not so grievous as to lie where we have fallen. It is not so dreadful to be wounded as it is to refuse healing after being wounded. For who shall boast that he has his heart chaste? or who shall say confidently that he is pure from sin? These things I say not to make you more negligent but to prevent your despairing.

Whose soul, then, is pure from stain? How has anyone not been struck by vanity or been trodden down by the foot of pride? Whose hand has never been touched by sin? Whose feet have never run toward evil? Who has not been polluted by a roving eye or been defiled by an undisciplined ear? Whose taste has never been preoccupied by its enjoyment, whose heart has remained unmoved by vain emotions?

The merciful God has provided for the inhabitants of earth repentance as the medicine of salvation. Some endeavor to dispense with repentance, saying of themselves that they are clean. In their great madness they do not understand that to entertain such an idea of themselves is full of all impurity. For no man is free from defilement, as it is written.

Who can say, writes the wise man, I have made my heart clean? The stars are not pure in the Lord’s sight; how much less people whose whole life is one long temptation.^[1]

If there were two persons to be judged, one being given more consideration and the other less consideration, with a judge standing between both and making them equal by depriving only the one who has more than enough, the judge can be said to have failed to the extent that the adjudged party is injured. He who does not first have true justice instilled in his soul, but is corrupted by money or favors his friends or seeks vengeance against his enemies or reveres power, is unable to effect justice. . . . For rectitude in judgment is evidence that someone’s soul is well disposed toward equity and law. Hence, it prohibits this in what follows, saying, Large weights and small weights are abominable before God, with inequality in judgment being indicated in Proverbs under the title of weights.

Every kind of unfair action is shameful. Even in common things, false weights and unjust measures are accursed. And if fraud in the market or in business is punished, can it seem free from reproach if found in the midst of the performance of the duties of virtue?

He who commands must always keep to the exact scope of the commandments, and he who distributes tasks must observe equity in looking into them, for a false balance is an abomination to the Lord.^[1] There is, then, an excess and a defect in weight, but the church acccepts neither, for excessive and defective weights and diverse measures, both of them are alike abominable in the sight of the Lord.

We must strive not to have unfair weights in our hearts nor double measures in the storehouse of our conscience. We must not overwhelm those to whom we are to preach the word of the Lord with precepts that are too strict and heavier than we ourselves can bear, while we take for granted that for ourselves those things which have strict rules are to be softened and relaxed. For when we do this, what is it but to weigh and measure the goods and fruits of the Lord’s commands with a double weight and measure? For if we dispense them in one way to ourselves and in another to our brothers and sisters, we are rightly blamed by the Lord because we have unfair balances and double measures, in accordance with the saying of Solomon which tells us that a double weight is an abomination to the Lord, and a deceitful balance is not good in his sight.

When people burn to be filled at once with all manner of wealth, let them hear what Scripture says, He that makes haste to be rich will not be innocent.^[1] For certainly those who are determined to increase their wealth do not seek to avoid sin; and, being caught like birds, while looking greedily at the bait of earthly things, they are not aware they are being strangled in the noose of sin. When they long for the gains of the present world and are ignorant of the losses they will suffer in the world to come, let them hear what Scripture says, An inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning will in the end not be blessed. For indeed we derive our beginning from this life, that we may come to the destiny of blessing. They, therefore, that make haste to an inheritance in the beginning cut off from themselves the destiny of blessing in the end. Since, while they crave to be increased in goods here through the iniquity of avarice, they become disinherited there of their eternal patrimony. When they either solicit very much, or succeed in obtaining all that they have solicited, let them hear what Scripture says: What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?^[2]

Do they suppose, accordingly, that God moves the wills of those whom he has wished to the creation of earthly kingdoms but that he does not move them to the attainment of a heavenly kingdom? But I think that it was in reference to the kingdom of heaven, rather than to an earthly kingdom, that it was said . . . The steps of a man are guided by the Lord, but how does a mortal understand his own ways? Let them hear, Every man seems just to himself, but the Lord directs the hearts.^[1] Let them hear, As many as were ordained to life everlasting believed.^[2] Let them hear these words, and whatever others I have not quoted, by which it is shown that God prepares and converts people’s wills also for the kingdom of heaven and for eternal life. And think how strange it would be for us to believe that God moves people’s wills for the establishment of earthly kingdoms but that for the attainment of the kingdom of heaven people move their own wills.

The steps of man are directed by God. A mortal, that is a sinner [as such], cannot [of himself] know the ways of the Lord; in fact, since he is mortal, he has [of yet] neither died nor lived with Christ. Therefore in the journey to the kingdom of heaven the steps of man are directed by the Lord.

You maintain that all are governed by their own free choice. What Christian can bear to hear this? For if not one, or a few or many but all of us are governed by our own free choice, what becomes of the help of God? And how do you explain the text, A man’s goings are ordered by the Lord?

It calls gray hair wisdom. For only then will the city be well ordered, only then will the administration of the holy church be conducted properly, when all the strong men pursue the necessary works and when the elders, endowed with greater prudence, meditate advantageously on what must be done.

The sick are to be admonished to consider how great a gift bodily affliction is, which washes away sins that we have committed and restrains those which we might commit, and which inflicts on the troubled mind wounds of penitence derived from outward stripes. As Scripture says, The blueness of a wound cleanses away evil, and stripes cleanse the secret parts of the belly. The blueness of a wound cleanses away evil, that is, the pain of scourges cleanses iniquities, whether meditated or perpetrated. . . .

When we are outwardly smitten, we are recalled, silent and afflicted, to remember our sins and bring back before our eyes all our past evil deeds. Through what we suffer outwardly we grieve more inwardly because of what we have done.