17. What shall I do? Wicked men are driven to perplexity in their deliberations, because they do not know how any thing is to be lawfully used; (269) and, next, because they are intoxicated with a foolish confidence which makes them forget themselves. Thus we find that this rich man lengthens out his expectation of life in proportion to his large income, and drives far away from him the remembrance of death. And yet this pride is accompanied by distrust; for those men, when they have had their fill, are still agitated by insatiable desire, like this rich man, who enlarges his barns, as if his belly, which had been filled with his former barns, had not got enough. At the same time, Christ does not expressly condemn this man for acting the part of a careful householder in storing up his produce, but because his ravenous desire, like a deep whirlpool, swallows up and devours many barns; from which it follows that he does not comprehend the proper use of an abundant produce.
(269) “ Pource qu’ils ne scavent point quel est le droit et legitime usage des creatures de Dieu;” — “because they know not what is the proper and lawful use of the creatures of God.”