1 Samuel 8:14

He will also take your fields and vineyards, etc. Also taking from you the most abundant stores of your spiritual virtues, and the fruits of fervent love, not to mention the sweetest gifts of shining mercy, he will subject them rather to the pleasures of unclean spirits.

8. There follows: "He will also take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants." What are the fields of good men, if not the devoted minds of their subjects? For while they willingly hear their words, they yield an abundant fruit of good works. And what are their vineyards, if not the minds of those who so advance by imitating the proficient that they even offer the word of life to others, and those whom they set ablaze by speaking into love of the Creator, they make drunk, as it were, by giving them drink? And what are the olive groves, if not the hearts of listeners who, by the example and exhortation of good men, advance in the work of mercy? But when a king is established, the fields are taken away: because when carnal men reach the height of governance, some of the good listeners take up examples of wickedness. The fields are therefore taken away when recently devoted hearts are led astray, when from the seed of wickedness they yield fruit in evil conduct. The olive groves and vineyards are taken away when, by the example of a wicked superior, works of mercy and the words of holy preaching that ought to be displayed and spoken are abandoned. And rightly it is recorded that the taken fields, vineyards, and olive groves are given to the king's servants. For servants are those who, always subject to the authority of their masters, cannot escape the yoke of domination. The servants of the king, therefore, are those who through abundant iniquity so bind themselves to the wills of tyrants that they no longer depart from them. The servants therefore receive the taken fields, vineyards, and olive groves: because the reprobate supporters of carnal prelates, when they transfer deceived hearts to the purpose of wicked work, impose the title of tyrannical power, as it were, upon the fields, vineyards, and olive groves of the elect.

What are the fields, what are the vineyards, what are the olive groves that are taken from us by the right of rulers? But the holy preachers, when they speak for the correction of sinners, rebuke the pleasures of the flesh, the lusts of the mind, and the pretenses of good works. For if the pleasures of the flesh were not the fields of wicked possession, the Apostle would never say: "He who sows in the flesh, from the flesh shall reap corruption" (Gal. 6:8). To sow in the flesh, indeed, is to bury the purpose of the mind in the pleasures of the body. And they truly reap corruption from the flesh, because in the resurrection of the elect they shall in no way receive the renewal of eternal incorruption. By the name of vineyards, the lusts of the mind are also rightly represented, because they intoxicate the hearts of the reprobate and estrange them from the knowledge of truth. Criticizing the fruit of this vine, Moses says: "Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the suburbs of Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, and their cluster most bitter" (Deut. 32:32). For he draws his vine from the vineyard of Sodom and his shoot from Gomorrah, who fills his mind with the most abominable lusts. For he makes, as it were, a vineyard, who thereby forgets eternal things, by which he is also intoxicated through lusts; and he who refreshes himself as if under the shade of a vineyard and the pleasantness of depraved delight, prepares for himself the retribution of eternal fire. Hence, most fittingly setting forth the fruit of that same vineyard, he called it a grape of gall and a cluster of bitterness. For the grape is pleasing to the sight but gall to the taste — delighting the eye, embittering the palate — because indeed what it lusts after greatly pleases the reprobate mind, but in eternal punishment what is now sweet to it turns bitter. The king, therefore, takes away our fields when the chosen preacher by his words removes the joyful impulses of our flesh in its delight. He takes away the vineyards when he utterly cuts off the intoxicating lusts from our heart. He also takes away the olive groves when he rebukes the works of false mercy, when by rightly exhorting he suggests that there is no merit in a work unless it proceeds from the purpose of a good intention. But it must be earnestly inquired why these things are said to be given to the servants of the king.…