We should note that this flood of temptations assails the church in three ways: one is tempted, drawn on and lured by one’s own desire,^[1] or is worn down by the depravity of false brothers or is assaulted by the more open snares of those outside [the church]. In another place the Lord calls these temptations the gates of the lower world, and rightly so, for if victorious they drag us down to eternal destruction. He says, I shall build my church on this rock, and the gates of the lower world shall not prevail against it.^[2] Although the gates of the devil strike against it, yet they do not overthrow Christ’s church; although the flood of faithlessness inundates it, it does not undermine the house of faith. For [the church] is able to say truthfully to its helper, When my heart was disquieted, you raised me up on a rock. It is not vanquished by external forces because, by suffering and acquiring the crown of martyrdom, it triumphs over the ferocity of the unbelievers who persecute it. It is not corrupted by false brothers because it refutes the dogmas of heretics by believing properly, and it avoids the vicious example of some Catholics by living soberly and justly and piously.^[3] It is not blinded by the smoke of private greed because it is inwardly aflame with the ardor of the Lord’s charity alone.

For that church^[1] is founded on a rock, as the Lord says: On this rock I will build my church.^[2] But they^[3] build on the sand, as the same Lord says: Every one who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.^[4] But that you may not suppose that the church that is on a rock is in only one part of the earth and does not extend even to its furthest boundaries, hear its voice groaning from the psalm, amid the evils of it pilgrimage. For it says, From the end of the earth have I cried to you; when my heart was distressed you did lift me up on the rock; you have led me, you, my hope, have become a tower of courage from the face of the enemy.^[5] See how it cries from the end of the earth. . . . See how it is exalted on a rock.

It is clear that this obligation and condition of life^[1] includes not only those who have responded so well to sound advice that they have sold their goods and distributed them to the poor, and, with their shoulders freed of every worldly burden, bear the light yoke of Christ.^[2] They also include the weaker soul, who is less capable of such glorious perfection but who nevertheless remembers that he is a Christian when he hears that he must give up Christ or lose all his possessions. He will rather lay hold on the tower of strength against the face of the enemy^[3] because, when he was building it by his faith, he took into account the charges with which it could be completed. He embraced the faith with the intention of renouncing this world, not in word only, because, if he bought something he was as one not possessing it, and if he used this world he was as one not using it,15 not placing his hope in the uncertainty of riches but in the living God.16