There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and [there is] that withholdeth more than is meet, but [it tendeth] to poverty.
Ver. 24. There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth.] Bounty is the most compendious way to plenty; neither is getting but giving the best thrift. The five loaves in the Gospel, by a strange kind of arithmetic, were multiplied by a division and augmented by subtraction. So will it be in this case.
But it tendeth to poverty.] St Augustine descanting upon those words, "They have slept their sleep, all the rich men, and have found nothing in their hands," - for so he reads that text Psa 76:5 - and why is this? saith he. Nihil invenerunt in manibus suis, quia nihil posuerunt in manu Christi. They found nothing in their own hands, because they feared to lay up anything in Christ's hands. Manus pauperum gazophylacium Christi, saith another father - the poor man's hand is Christ's treasury.