children, and his brethren, and his sisters, yea and his own life too, cannot be my disciple.”  Here meaneth our Saviour Christ that no one can be his disciple unless he love him so far above all his kin, and above his own life, too, that for the love of him, rather than forsake him, he shall forsake them all.  And so meaneth he by those other words that whosoever do not so renounce and forsake all that ever he hath in his own heart and affection, so that he will lose it all and let it go every whit, rather than deadly to displease God with the reserving of any one part of it, he cannot be Christ’s disciple.  For Christ teacheth us to love God above all things, and he loveth not God above all things who, contrary to God’s pleasure, keepeth anything that he hath.  For he showeth himself to set more by that thing than by God, since he is better content to lose God than it.  But, as I said, to give away all, or that no man should be rich or have substance, that find I no commandment of.

There are, as our Saviour saith, in the house of his father many mansions.  And happy shall he be who shall have the grace to dwell even in the lowest.  It seemeth verily by the gospel that those who for God’s sake patiently suffer penury, shall not only dwell in heaven above those who live here in plenty in earth, but also that heaven in some manner of wise more properly belongeth unto them and is more especially prepared for them than it is for the rich.  For God in the gospel counseleth the rich folk to buy (in a manner) heaven of them, where he saith unto the rich men, “Make yourselves friends of the wicked riches, that when you fail here they may receive you into everlasting tabernacles.”

But now, although this be thus, in respect of the riches and the poverty compared together, yet if a rich man and a poor man be both good men, there may be some other virtue beside in which the rich man may peradventure so excel that he may in heaven be far above that poor man who was here on earth in other virtues far under him.  And the proof appeareth clear in Lazarus and Abraham.

Nor I say not this to the intent to comfort rich men in heaping up riches, for a little comfort will bend them enough thereto.  They are not so proud-hearted and obstinate but what they would, I daresay, with right little exhortation be very conformable to that counsel!  But I say this for those good men to whom God giveth substance, and the mind to dispose it well, and yet not the mind to give it all away at once, but for good causes to keep some substance still.  Let them not despair of God’s favour for not doing the thing which God hath given them no commandment of, nor drawn them to by any special calling.