rd it is to do good works
according to God's Commandment, how nature squirms, twists and
writhes in its exposition to it, although it does the good works
of its own choice easily and gladly. Therefore take your
enemies, the ungrateful, and do good to them; then you will find
how near you are to this Commandment or how far from it, and how
all your life you will always have to do with the practice of
this work. For if your enemy needs you and you do not help him
when you can, it is just the same as if you had stolen what
belonged to him, for you owed it to him to help him. So says St.
Ambrose, "Feed the hungry; if you do not feed him, you have, as
far as you are concerned, slain him." And in this Commandment are
included the works of mercy, which Christ will require at men's
hands at the last day. [Matt. 25:35 f.]

But the magistrates and cities ought to see to it that the
vagabonds, pilgrims and mendicants from foreign lands be
debarred, or at least allowed only under restrictions and rules,
so that knaves be not permitted to run at large under the guise
of mendicants, and their knavery, of which there now is much, be
prohibited; I have spoken at greater length of this Commandment
in the Treatise on Usury.[53]

_Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor._

[Sidenote: The Eight Commandment: The Duty of Truthfulness]

[Sidenote: In Worldly Matters]

This Commandment seems small, and yet is so great, that he who
would rightly keep it must risk and imperil life and limb, goods
and honor, friends and all that he has; and yet it includes no
more than the work of that small member, the tongue, and is
called in German _Wahrheit sagen_, "telling the truth" and, where
there is need, gainsaying lies; so that it forbids many evil
works of the tongue. First: those which are committed by
speaking, and those which are committed by keeping silent. By
speaking, when a man has an unjust law-suit, and wants to prove
and maintain his case by a false argument, catch his neighbor
with subtilty, produce everything that strengthens and furthers
his own cause, and withhold and discount everything that further
his neighbor's good cause; in doing which he does not do to his
neighbor as he would have his neighbor do to him. [Matt. 7:12]
This some men do for the sake of gain, some to avoid loss or
shame, thereby seeking their own advantage more than God's
Commandment, and excuse themselves by saying: _Vigilanti jura
subveniunt