Question XL: Whether the order of charity is considered in the affection, and in the effect

I assert, that the order of charity is to be observed with respect to both.

It is proved by St. Bonaventure, first from 1 John 3: Let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth.

Secondly from St. Gregory homil. 30. on the Gospels: The proof of love is the exhibition of work.

Thirdly. Let us work good toward all, especially toward the household of the faith, exhorts the Apostle Galatians 6. Therefore, other things being equal, goods are rather to be bestowed upon relatives, as Valent. also notes disp. 3. quaest. 4. p. 5. So also a distinguished friend, from whom you have received outstanding benefits, is to be loved more than a kinsman not nearly so close. So Valentia at the place cited; yet not more than an intimate one, for instance a brother, etc.

You will say. Proverbs 18 says: A man friendly in society shall be more a friend than a brother.

He answers — the Holy Doctor gives the answer in the text;¹ for he speaks of the affection of society, insofar as someone can take more delight in the conversation of a friend than of a brother, and as regards companionship it is more pleasant to converse with friends than in prayer with God. Yet the Holy Doctor says ad secundum that this is not tolerable in the servant of God who is religious, whose it is to taste and see how sweet the Lord is: But parents especially are to be preferred to all, as Aristotle has, 8 Ethics, last chapter, where he says: To gods and parents there is not rendered an equal return. But that charity has more regard for order in its own elicited acts than in those commanded, the Holy Doctor observes ad 1. With this affection I ought first to will eternal life for myself; then for my father, and others in due order, as Valentia also notes. ¹ Editor's note: the print/OCR reads 'Respondet Respondet S. Doct. in textu haberi responsum' — the verb duplicated; rendered with a single 'Respondet' introducing the answer.

But the imperative affection, by which we will and procure a temporal good, is not ordered so strictly.

But if the benefit regards a particular person, then the aforesaid order is well observed, other things being equal.

Yet if the benefit regards the common utility, this is rightly to be preferred to one's own utility. Therefore he gravely admonishes that dignities, ecclesiastical benefices, and the like are not to be given out of private affection to kinsmen, but to those who better serve the universal good of the Church or of the Republic; and these are reproached in Habakkuk 1: Woe to him that buildeth Sion in bloods, and Ezek. 44: Let it suffice you, O house of Israel, that you bring in the uncircumcised into the sanctuary of God. There are reproached those who confer ecclesiastical benefices rather on their own households than on others, as the Holy Doctor observes in the last argument. Hence in the answer he says that, as to these, the order of Charity is not to be observed by reason of union, but by reason of the object, which is an absolute good, or respectively a better one; and the common good is better than the private.