From Bad to Worse on a Rotten Foundation

Those, then, who are possessed by such distrust of mind, and who through the devil’s own lack of faith fall away from that spark of faith by which they seemed to be kindled in the early days of their conversion, begin to watch more anxiously over the money they had once begun to give away. They store it up with greater greed, like men who cannot get back what they have once wasted. Or, what is still worse, they take back what they had formerly thrown away. Or else, and this is a third and most disgusting kind of sin, they collect what they never possessed before, and so are convicted of having gone no further in forsaking the world than taking the mere name and title of monk. With this beginning, then, and on this bad and rotten foundation, it follows as a matter of course that the whole building of faults must rise. Nothing can be built on such vile foundations except what will bring the wretched soul to the ground in a hopeless collapse. [a]