A DISCOURSE ON THE DANGERS
OF WEALTH AND COVETOUSNESS.
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. Again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
‘When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, with men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
“Then answered Peter and said unto him, behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, verily I say unto you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”—Matt. 19:23—28,
Covetousness defined, and the sin at large described by Harris—difficulty in approaching and impressing the rich—inconsistency of men in general, and of Christians in particular, in reference to riches— a few rich persons have been saved with difficulty.
There is one sin which, more than any other, unfits the mind for the enjoyment of spiritual things; that sin is covetousness. “A rich man,” in the passage we have read, is equivalent to a covetous man. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a covetous man to enter the kingdom of God. And a covetous man is defined by Jesus as one who “trusts in riches,” that is, sets his attention and heart upon them, and pursues them as the chief business of his life. Mark 10:24. As, then, we have the word of the Lord for it that it is dangerous to be rich, because it is nearly impossible to become rich unless the principle of covetousness prompt to the application necessary to secure wealth; it shall be our task now to unveil this sin of covetousness, that you may escape the fatal snare of idolatry; for a covetous man, says Paul, “is an idolater.” Eph. v: 5. But as I find a clear and lucid essay on this subject, from the pen of Mr. Harris, in the first place I will present you a few extracts, and then conclude the discourse by some remarks of our own.
“THE NATURE OF COVETOUSNESS.
“If selfishness be the prevailing form of sin, covetousness may be regarded as the prevailing form of selfishness, This is strikingly intimated by the apostle Paul, when, describing the “perilous times” of the final apostasy, he represents selfishness as the prolific root of all the evils which will then prevail, and covetousness as its fruit. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous?’
“In passing, therefore, from the preceding outlines of selfishness in general, to a consideration of this form of it in particular, we feel that we need not labor to magnify its importance. A very little reflection will suffice to show that, while the other forms of selfishness are partial in their existence, this is universal; that it lies in our daily path, and surrounds us like the atmosphere; that it exceeds all others in the plausibility of its pretences, and the insidiousness of its operations; that it is, commonly the last form of selfishness that leaves the heart; and that Christians, who have comparatively escaped from all the others, may still be unconsciously enslaved by this. If there be ground to fear that covetousness “will in all probability, prove the eternal overthrow of more characters among professing people than, any other sin, because it is almost the only crime which can be indulged, and a profession of religion at the same time supported;” and if it be true also, that it operates more than any other sin to hold the church in apparent league with the world, and to defeat its design, and to rob it of its honors as the instrument of the world’s conversion, surely nothing more can be necessary to reveal the appalling magnitude of the evil, and to justify every attempt that may be made to sound an alarm against it.
Covetousness denotes the state Of a mind from which the Supreme Good has been lost, laboring to replace him by some subordinate form of enjoyment. The determinate direction which this craving takes after money, is purely accidental, and arises from the general consent of society, that money shall be the representative of all property, and, as such, the key to all the avenues of worldly enjoyment. But as the existence of this conventional arrangement renders the possession of some amount of property indispensable, the application of the term covetousness has come to be confined almost exclusively to an inordinate and selfish regard for money.
Our liability to this sin arises, we say, from the perception that “money answereth all things.” Riches in themselves, indeed, are no evil. Nor is the bare possession of them wrong. Nor is the desire to possess them sinful, provided that desire exist under certain restrictions. For in almost every stage of civilization, money is requisite, to procure conveniences, and even the necessaries of life; to desire it therefore as the means of life, is as innocent as to live. In its higher application, it may be made the instrument of great relative usefulness; to seek it, then, as the means of doing good, is not a vice but a virtue. But, perceiving that money is so important an agent in society—that it not only fences off the wants and woes of poverty, but that, like a centre of attraction, it can draw to itself every object of worldly desire from the farthest circumference—the temptation arises of desiring it for its own sake; of supposing that the instrument of procuring so much good must itself possess intrinsic excellence. From observing that gold could procure for us whatever it touches, we are tempted to wish, like the fabled king, that whatever we touch might be turned into gold.
“But the passion for money exists in various degrees, and exhibits itself in very different aspects. No classification of its multiplied forms, indeed, can, from the nature of things, be rigorously exact. All its branches and modifications run into each other, and are separated by gradations rather than by lines of demarcation. The most obvious and general distinction, perhaps, is that which divides it into the desire of getting, as contradistinguished from the desire of keeping that which is already possessed. But each of these divisions is capable of subdivisions. Worldliness, rapacity, and an ever-craving, all-consuming prodigality, may belong to the one; and parsimony, niggardliness, and avarice to the other. The word covetousness, however, is popularly employed as synonymous with each of these terms, as comprehensive of them all.
“FORMS OF COVETOUSNESS.
“By worldliness, we mean cupidity in its earliest, most plausible, and most prevailing form: not yet sufficiently developed to be conspicuous to the eye of man, yet sufficiently characteristic and active to incur the prohibition of God. It is the quiet and ordinary operation of the principle which abounds most with excuses; which is seldom questioned even by the majority of professing Christians; which the morality of the world allows and even commends; which may live, unrebuked, through a whole life, under the decent garb of frugality, and honest industry, and which thus silently works the destruction of multitudes without alarming them.
“Rapacity is covetousness grasping—“making haste to be rich.”— This is the true “wolf in the breast” ever feeding, and yet ever craving; so ravening that nothing is like it except death and the grave. It is a passion which compels every other feeling to its aid; the day. seems too short for it; success is looked on as a reward and a spur; failure as a punishment for some relaxation of the passions: the wealth of others seems to reproach it; the poverty of others to warn it. Determined to gratify itself, it overlooks the morality of the means, despises alike the tardiness of industry, and the scruples of integrity, and thinks only of the readiest way to success. Impatient of delay, it scorns to wait for intimations of the divine will, or to watch the movements of Providence; and the only restraints which it acknowledges—though many of these it would gladly overleap—are such as our fears of each other have erected into laws, for the express purpose of confining it within bounds.
“Parsimony is covetousness parting with its life blood. It is the frugality of selfishness—the art of parting with as little as possible. Of this ’disposition it can never be said that it gives, but only that it capitulates—its freest bestowments have the air of a surrender made with an ill grace.
Avarice is covetousness hoarding. It is the love of money in the abstract, or for its own sake. Covetousness, in this monstrous form, indeed, is but a rare occurrence. For as money is a compendium of all kinds of worldly good, or so much condensed world, it is mostly desired for the sake of the gratifications which it can purchase: it is sought and valued as a sort of concentrated essence, which can be diluted at pleasure, and adapted to the taste of every one who possesses it. But avarice is content with the bare possession of the essence—stopping short at the means, it is satisfied without the end. By a strange infatuation it looks upon gold as its own end; and, as the ornaments, which the Israelites transferred into the hands of Aaron became a god, so gold, in the hands of avarice, becomes an ultimate good: to speak of its utility, or its application to practical purposes, would be almost felt as a profanation. Other vices have a particular view to enjoyment, (falsely so called,) but the very term MISER is a confession of the misery which attends avarice; for, in order to save his gold, the miser robs himself:
“Throws up his interest in both worlds;
First starved in this, then damn’d in that to come.”
He cannot be said to possess wealth; wealth possesses him; or else lie possesses it like a fever which burns and consumes him as if molten gold were circulating in his veins. Many vices wear out and are abandoned as age and experience increase, but avarice strikes deeper root as age advances; and, like the solitary tree of the desert, flourishes amidst sterility where nothing else could survive. Other passions are paroxysms, and intermit: but avarice is a distemper which knows no intervals. Other passions have their times of relaxation; but avarice is a tyrant which never suffers its slaves to rest. It is the fabled dragon with its golden fleece, and with lidless and unslumbering eyes it keeps watch and ward night and day.
Prodigality, though directly opposed to avarice or hoarding, is compatible with cupidity; and is, indeed, so frequently found in combination with it, that it may be regarded as one of its complex forms. The character which Sallust gives of Catiline, that ‘-he was covetous of other men’s wealth, while he squandered his own,” is one of very common occurrence. And we notice it here to show, that although men may occasionally be heard pleading their extravagance to clear themselves from the charge of cupidity, it yet originates in the same cause, produces precisely the same effects, employs the same sinful means of gratification, and incurs the same doom. They must be covetous, that they may be prodigal; one hand must collect, that the other may have wherewith to scatter: covetousness, as the steward to prodigality, must furnish supplies, and is often goaded into rapacity, that it may raise them.. Thus prodigality strengthens covetousness by keeping it in constant activity, and covetousness strengthens prodigality by slavishly feeding its voracious appetite. Taking possession of the heart, “they divide the man between them,” each in turn becoming cause and effect. But prodigal self-indulgence not only produces cupidity, it stands to every benevolent object in the same relation as avarice, it has nothing togive. A system of extravagant expenditure renders benevolence impossible; and keeps a man constantly poor towards God.