Mammon, or, Covetousness the sin of the Christian Church

PART I. Selfishness — tiie Antagonist of the Gospel

Page

Sect. 1. — The Universe designed to display and enjoy the Love of

2. — Sin, as Selfishness, is the Frustration of the Divine Plan - 3

4. — The Gospel, as a System of Benevolence, opposed to Self¬

ishness . g

5. — Selfishness, the Sin of the World, has long since become

the Sin of the Church . 18

6. — The Forms of Selfishness in the Church . 22

Part II

Covetousness— tiie principal Form of Selfishness— in its Nature, Forms, Prevalence, especially in Britain, Disguises,

Tests, Evils, Doom, and Pleas.

Sect. 1. — The Nature of Covetousness . ■ - - 35

2. — Forms of Covetousness . . . - -- -- - 3S

A 2

VI

CCLNTENTS

Sett, 4.—' The present Predominance of Covetousness in Britain - - 56

7. — The Guilt and Evils of Covetousness --.----.91

9. — Excuses of Covetousness for its want of Liberality - - - 137

PART III. Christian Liberality explained and enforced

Sect. 1.— Christian Liberality explained - -- -- -- -- -165 2.— Christian Liberality enforced . - - - - 188

ORIGINAL ADVERTISEMENT,

Many of the wisest and best of men are of opinion* that there is no sin so prevalent among professors of the gospel as the love of money , and yet there is no subject on which so little has been written well. The late Andrew Fuller says, “ It will, in all probability, prove the eternal overthrow of more characters among professing people, than any other sin, because it is al¬ most the only crime which can be indulged, and a pro¬ fession of religion at the same time supported.” One Hundred Guineas , besides the profits of its publication, will be presented to the author of the best Essay on this subject. Preference will be given to the most scriptural, poignant, and affectionate appeal to the judgment and conscience of those who professedly recognise the authority of revelation on avaricious hoarding, and on unchristian-like expenditure to gratify the lust of the eye and the pride of life, whilst they avow their obligations to redeeming mercy, and profess that themselves and all they have is not their own, but belongs and must be accounted for to Him who has said, “ Occupy till I come ;” then ee give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer stew¬ ard,” The work wanted is one that will bear on self-

Vlll

Preface

ishness , as it leads us to live to ourselves, and not for

God and our fellow-men. It is requested that reference

may be made to the different estimates of man who %/

blesseth, and of God who abhorreth the covetous. Psalm x. 3 ; and to the tremendous consequences of accumulating property, as this sin is associated with the vilest of crimes, which exclude from the kingdom of heaven, Ephes. v. 5. The manuscript is to be sent to Dr. Conquest, 13, Finsbury-square, on or before the 1st of November, 1835, with a sealed letter containing the address of the writer. The Hon. and Rev. W. Baptist Noel, and the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith, have kindly engaged to be the arbitrators, and the award will be adjudged on the 1st of May, 1836.

ADJUDICATORS’ ADVERTISEMENT,

In the early part of the last year, we were made ac¬ quainted with the proposal of a Christian friend, John Tricker Conquest, M.D., F.L.S., Jo confer a prize of one hundred guineas (which, with the accompany¬ ing expenses, amounts to the donation of about one hundred and fifty guineas) upon any Essay produced in competition, with the usual precautions to preserve the secrecy of the authors, upon the Sin of Covet¬ ousness ; particularly with regard to the duties of piety and beneficence which, at the present time, are so incumbent on all men, but especially on those who would not abdicate the name of Christians. The request was made that we would be the umpires in determining to whom, in such a friendly competition, that prize would be the most righteously due. To that request we assented with many feelings of difficulty and reluctance ; but the opinion of duty induced us to suppress them.

The requisite care was taken, that, till we had given our decision, we should not have the slightest know¬ ledge, or any ground of conjecture whatsoever, con-- cerning the writers of the Essays, which were no fewer than one hundred and forty-three.

x adjudicators’ advertisement.

After much thought, and humbly seeking, by prayer and supplication, that we might be enabled to form a right judgment, we saw it to be our duty to declare the work now given to the public, to be the one entitled to Dr. Conquest’s munificent prize. But we did not arrive at this determination, without a high feeling of gratitude and admiration at the mass of sanctified talent which had been brought before our view. Many of the Treatises, some of which are considerable volumes, are so replete with knowledge of the divine word, of the heart and character of man, and are so marked with comprehensive research, deep penetration, and Christian candor, as to have made us feel considerable regret at the thought of their being withheld from the public. We are conscientiously satisfied with the decision which we thus announce ; but it is, at the same time, our earnest desire that some others of the Essays should be published. We are persuaded that the subject is not exhausted ; and if, by the respective authors, our request for the publication should be granted, we trust the great cause of religion will be eminently served, and that the minds of those excellent persons will enjby the delight which flows from exten¬ sive and the most important usefulness.

J. PYE SMITH.

BAPTIST W. NOEL. .

Near London , i

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE FIRST CANADIAN EDITION.

The Wesleyan Book Committee believe they can not render a more acceptable and useful service to the Canadian Christian Public, than by the re-publication of “ Mammon,” — a book that was ushered before the British Public with evidence the most conclusive of its intrinsic merit, — as the preceding advertisments will show, — and which is unexcelled in power of argument, and perhaps unequalled in beauty of diction and vivid¬ ness of illustration, on one of the most important, yet most neglected, subjects of our common Christianity. In less than three years, this work has passed through upwards of thirty editions in England, and several in the United States, and has been the means of awaken¬ ing many thousands to just views and a proper sense of their duty in regard to the right use of what- — from its too general prostitution to unrighteous purposes — has been termed the “Mammon of unrighteousness.” The English edition is sold at six shillings sterling per copy ; by this republication, it will be rendered accessible to the Canadian reader upon more moderate terms.

Wesleyan Book Room ,

City of Toronto , U. C., May , 1839.

PREFACE.

The history of this Essay is sufficiently explained by the Advertisements prefixed. But concerning its plan> as the reader may possibly expect that the following pages are confined exclusively to the subject of Co¬ vetousness, the writer may be permitted to state the reasons which have led him to introduce two other topics — Selfishness, and Christian Liberality.

A glance at the original Advertisement will showr, that while the sin of covetousness was the principal object in the eye of the benevolent Proposer, yet it was viewed and spoken of by him only as a part of the great system of selfishness. The writer felt himself, therefore, not merely permitted, but virtually required, to give this parent evil a primary place in his Essay. He is, however, free to confess, that had he not done so from a sense of obligation, he should most likely have done it from choice, since he deems it an appro¬ priate introduction to the principal subject. On this account, then, Selfishness, as the great antagonist of Christianity, and the source of Covetousness, forms the First Part.

Covetousness — the prevailing form of selfishness — is the Second, and principal, Part. Had the writer concluded with this part, he could not have considered the Essay complete unless a closing section had been added on the Cure of the evil under consideration. In

a

XIV

PREFACE.

that case, it would have been obvious to insist on a variety of familiar prudential maxims. But the love of money can only be remedied by “ the expulsive power of a new affection.” If we would not have the ivy to creep on the ground, we must erect an object which it can embrace, and, by embracing, ascend ; and if we would detach the heart from embracing the dust, we must give it to another and a nobler object. The utter inefficacy of every thing short of this is evi¬ dent. Hippocrates advised a consultation of all the physicians in the world for the cure of covetousness. The animadversions and appeals of Socrates not only failed to remedy the evil as it existed at Athens, but, judging from certain expressions in Plato’s Apology of Socrates, they were the means of enraging his enemies, and of procuring his condemnation. And about the time that the apostle Paul was denouncing the sin in his epistle to Timothy, Seneca was decaying the same evil, and composing his ethics; but, as if to show the impotence of his own precepts, (( he was accused of having amassed the most ample riches,” — a circum¬ stance which, though not the ostensible, was no doubt the real, cause of his finally falling a victim to the jea¬ lousy of Nero. But if such be the inefficacy of the precepts of the heathen philosopher, what is the pre¬ scription of the Christian apostle? Aware that the same means which destroy cupidity produce liberality, he does not concern himself so much with the death of covetousness as with the birth of charity. He says less about the sin when seeking its removal, than about the duty which is to displace it. He commands benevolence. He enjoins the “ man of God” not only to flee the evil, but to follow the opposite virtues, and to flee the one by following the other. “0 man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness,

godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness . Charge

them that are rich in this world. . . .that they do good,

PREFACE.

XV that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute* willing to communicate ; laying up in store for them¬ selves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.”

Instead, therefore, of ending with a section on the cure of covetousness, the writer thinks he has copied inspired example, and increased the practical effect of the Essay, and better consulted the intentions of the party who has occasioned it, by adding a Third Part, on Christian Liberality. The cross of Christ is not merely a perpetual protest against the selfishness of the world ; it has given a new object to our affections, and a new motive to our obedience—/^ object is Christ, and that motive is the love we bear to him. Till this love possess us, the sublimest maxims will fail to reach the heart ; but from the moment we begin to be actu¬ ated by it, cupidity and all the baser passions are doomed to destruction.

Diodorus Siculus relates that the forest of the Pyre¬ nean mountains being set on fire, and the heat pene¬ trating to the soil, a pure stream of silver gushed forth from the bosom of the earth, and revealed for the first time the existence of those rich lodes afterwards so celebrated. Covetousness yields up its pelf for sacred uses as unwillingly as if it were appointed to succeed the earth in the office of holding and concealing it ; but let the melting influence of the cross be felt, let the fire of the gospel be kindled in the church, and its ample stores shall be seen flowing forth from their hid¬ den recesses, and becoming “the fine gold of the sanctuary.”

The title which the writer has adopted for the Essay designates covetousness the sin of the Christian church . He is aware that by bringing even an ordinary evil near to the eye, and prolonging one’s gaze at it, it may go on swelling and enlarging in the apprehension, till it has come to fill the whole sphere of vision, to the

XVI

PREFACE.

exclusion and temporary oblivion of other evils of superior magnitude. That covetousness is not the only evil which the Christian church has to confess — that it is only one of many evils — he is quite sensible ; and he trusts that the view which he has taken of its sur¬ passing enormity is by no means chargeable with the effect of lessening our convictions of those other evils. All the sins of the Christian church stand closely related ; by action and reaction they are constantly producing and strengthening each other; and it is to its superior activity and influence in the production of those other sins that cupidity owes its bad pre-emi¬ nence. If the love of money then be the root of the evils in question, a description of its deadly nature should have the effect, not of diminishing, but aug¬ menting our aversion to its destructive fruits. The writer feels convinced that the best mode of acquiring a clear, comprehensive, and impressive view of all the existing defects of the Christian church, as a whole, is to view them first separately and in succession ; and that he who succeeds in laying open and correcting one of these defects, has gone far towards remedying all the rest. With the sincere desire that he may be the means of inflicting if only a single blow on the root of all evil , and of thus aiding the growth of that plant

“which is from above . full of mercy and of good

fruits,” he would place this Essay at the feet of Him who deigns to commend the widow’s mite.

Part The First. Selfishness The Antagonist Of The

GOSPEL.

Section I. The Universe Designed To Display And Enjoy The Love Of God

“ God is love:” — and the true theory of the uni¬ verse is, that it is a vehicle or medium constructed expressly for the circulation and diffusion of his love. Full of blessedness himself, his goodness burst forth, at first into a celestial creation, replenished with bright intelligences, invested with the high prerogative of approaching as near to the Fountain of excellence as created natures can, to derive their happiness immediately from himself, and to derive it to the full amount of their capacity for enjoyment.

But heaven, with all its amplitude, was too confined for Infinite Love ; he must enlarge the sphere of his beneficence ; again his unconfined goodness overflowed, and this terrestrial creation appeared — an enlargement

B

THE UNIVERSE DESIGNED TO DISPLAY, &c.

of heaven. On that occasion, however, he chose to diversify the form of his love in the production of man, — a creature whose happiness, though equally with that of angels derived from Himself, should reach him through more indirect and circuitous channels. By creating, at first, one common father of the species, he designed that each individual should feel himself allied to all the rest, and pledged to promote their happiness. And by rendering us necessary to each other’s welfare, he sought to train us to an humble imitation of his own goodness, to teach us the divine art of benevolence — to find and fabricate our own happiness from the happiness of others.

Now, if the former, the angelic creation, was meant to exemplify how much his creatures could enjoy , the latter was intended to show how much they could impart ; for lie meant every heart and every hand to be a consecrated channel for his love to flow in. Had his great idea been realised, the world would have exhibited the glorious spectacle of a whole race in family compact; clothed in a robe of happiness, with charity for a girdle ; feasting at a perpetual banquet of beneficence ; hailing the accession of every new-born member as the advent of an angel, an addition to their common fund of enjoyment ; and finding greater blessedness than that of passively receiving happiness in exercising the godlike prerogative of imparting it; — a whole order of intelligent beings, having one hearty and one mind ; a heart beating in concert with heaven, and diffusing, with every pulse, life, and health, and joy, to the remotest members of the body. The mere

SIN, A FRUSTRATION OF GOD’S PLAN.

outline of the scene, as sketched by God in paradise, called forth audible expressions of his divine compla¬ cency ; on surveying it from the height of the excellent glory, he pronounced it good , and the light of his countenance fell upon it.

Section II. Sin, As Selfishness, Is The Frustration Of The

DIVINE PLAN.

But the awful invasion of sin frustrated the divine intention, destroyed it even in its type and model. Man aspired to he as God; and, from that fatal moment, his great quarrel with his Maker has been, a determination to assert a state of independence altogether alien to his nature and condition. The standard of revolt was then erected, and the history of all his subsequent conduct has been the history of an insane endeavor to construct an empire, governed by laws and replenished with resources, independent of God. The idolatry and sensuality, the unbelief, irreligion, and all the multiform sins of man, are resolvable into this proud and infernal attempt. Having by his apostacy cut himself off from God, he affects to be a god to himself, to be his own sufficiency, his own first and last.

Such, however, is the intimate dependence of man on man, that it is impossible for him to attempt to

SIN, A FRUSTRATION OF GOD’S PLAN, realize this enormous fiction without being brought, at every step, into violent collision with the interest of his fellows. Love to God is the all-combining principle which was to hold each individual in adhesion to all the rest, and the whole in affinity with God ; the loss of that, therefore, like the loss of the great law of attraction in the material world, leaves all the several parts in a state of repulsion to each other, as well as the whole disjoined from God. Having lost its proper centre in God, the world attempts not to find any common point of repose, but spends itself in fruitless efforts to erect an infinity of independent interests. Every kingdom and province, every family, every individual, discovers a propensity to insulate himself from the common brotherhood, and to constitute himself the centre of an all-subordinating and everenlarging circle. Such is the natural egotism of the heart, that each individual, following his unrestrained bent, acts as if he were a whole kingdom in himself, and as if the general well-being depended on subjection to his supremacy. Setting up for himself, to the exclusion of every other being, he would fain be his own end, — the reason of all he does.

Under the disorganizing influence of sin, then, the tendency of mankind is towards a state of universal misanthropy ; and were it not that some of their selfish ends can be attained only by partial confederations, the world would disband, society in all its forms would break up, every man’s hand would be turned into a weapon, and all the earth become a battle-field, in which the issues to be decided would be as numerous

ALL SIN IS SELFISHNESS.

as the combatants, so that the conflict could end only with the destruction of every antagonist.

There is, be it observed, a wide difference between selfishness and legitimate self love. This is a principle necessary to all sentient existence. In man, it is the principle which impels him to preserve his own life, and promote his own happiness. Not only is it consis¬ tent with piety, it is the stock on which all piety, in lapsed man, is grafted. Piety is only the principle of self-love, carried out in the right direction, and seeking its supreme happiness in God. It is the act or habit of a man who so loves himself that he gives himself to God. Selfishness is, fallen self-love. It is self-love in excess, blind to the existence and excellence of God, and seeking its happiness in inferior objects, by aiming to subdue them to its own purposes.

Section III. All Sin Is Selfishness

Accordingly, selfishness, as we have already inti¬ mated, is the universal form of human depravity ; every sin that can be named is only a modification of it. What is avarice, but selfishness grasping and hoarding I What is prodigality, but selfishness deco¬ rating and indulging itself — a man sacrificing to himself as his own god I What is sloth, hut that god asleep, and refusing to attend to the loud calls of duty ? And

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ALL SIN IS SELFISHNESS.

what is idolatry, but that god enshrined, — man, worshipping the reflection of his own image ? Sen¬ suality, and, indeed, all the sins of the flesh, are only selfishness setting itself above law, and gratifying itself at the expense of all restraint. And all the sins of the spirit are only the same principle impatient of contradiction, and refusing to acknowledge superiority, or to bend to any will but its own. What is egotism, but selfishness speaking ? Or crime, but selfishness, without its mask, in earnest, and acting ? Or offen¬ sive war, but selfishness confederated, armed, and bent on aggrandizing itself by violence and blood? An offensive army is the selfishness of a nation embodied, and moving to the attainment of its object over the wrecks of human happiness and life. “From whence come wars and fighting among you ? Come they not hence, even of your lusts And what are all these irregular and passionate desires, but that inordinate self-love which acknowledges no law, and will be confined by no rules — that selfishness which is the heart of depravity? — and what but this has set the world at variance, and filled it with strife ? The first presumed sin of the angels that kept not their first estate, as well as the first sin of man, — what was it but selfishness insane ? an irrational and mad attempt to pass the limits proper to the creature, to invade the throne, and to seize the rights, of the Deity ? And were we to analyze the very last sin of which we ourselves are conscious, we should discover that selfishness, in one or other of its thousand forms, was its parent. Thus, if love was the pervading principle

ALL SIN IS SELFISHNESS.

of the unfallen creation, it is equally certain that selfishness is the reigning law of the world, ravaged and disorganized by sin.

It must be obvious, then, that the great want of fallen humanity, is, a specific against selfishness, the epidemic disease of our nature. The expedient which should profess to remedy our condition, and yet leave this want uprovided for, whatever its other recommen¬ dations might be, would be leaving the seat and core of our disease untouched. And it would be easy to show that in this radical defect consist the impotence of every system of false religion, and of every hetero¬ dox modification of the true religion, to restore our disordered nature to happiness and God. And equally easy is it to show that the gospel, evangelically inter¬ preted, not only takes cognizance of this peculiar feature of our malady, but actually treats it as the very root of our depravity, and addresses itself directly to the task of its destruction, — that, as the first effect of sin was to produce selfishness, so the first effect of the gospel remedy is to destroy that evil, and to replace it with benevolence.

Section IV. 'the Gospel, As A System Of Benevolence, Opposed To Selfishness

It is the glory of the gospel that it was calculated and arranged on the principle of restoring to the world the lost spirit of benevolence. To realise this enter¬ prise of boundless mercy, Jehovah resolved on first presenting to mankind an unparalleled exhibition of grace — an exhibition which, if it failed to rekindle the extinguished love of man , should, at least, have the effect of converting his angels into seraphs, and his seraphs into flames of fire. The ocean of the divine love was stirred to its utmost depths. The entire Godhead was — if with profound reverence it may be said — put into activity. The three glorious subsistencies in the Divine Essence moved towards our earth. Every attribute and distinction of the Divine Nature was displayed: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, embarked their infinite treasures in the cause of human happiness.

“ God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that wdiosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” He could not give us more ; and the vast propensions of his grace could not be satisfied by bestowing less. He would not leave it possible to be said that he could give us more : he resolved to pour out the whole treasury of heaven,

GOSPEL OPPOSED TO SELFISHNESS.

give us his all at once. “ Herein is love !” — love defying all computation ; the very mention of which should surcharge our hearts with gratitude, give us an idea of infinity, and replace our selfishness with a sentiment of generous arid diffusive benevolence.

Jesus Christ came into the world as the embodied love of God. He came and stood before the world with the hoarded love of eternity in his heart, offering to make us the heirs of all its wealth. He so unveiled and presented the character of God, that every human being should feel it to be looking on himself, casting an aspect of benignity on himself. “ He pleased not himself.” He did nothing for himself ; whatever he did was for the advantage of man. Selfishness stood abashed in his presence. “ He went about doing good.” He assumed our nature expressly that he might be able to suffer in our stead ; for the distinct and deliberate object of pouring out its blood, and of making its soul an offering for sin. He planted a cross, and presented to the world a prodigy of mercy of which this is the only solution, that he “so loved us.” “ While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” He took our place in the universe, absorbed our interest, opened his bosom, and welcomed to his heart the stroke which we deserved.

And in all he did, he thought of the world . He loved man as man ; he came to be the light and life of the world. He came and stood as the centre of attraction to a race of beings scattered and dissipated by the repulsive power of selfishness. He proposed by the power of the cross to “ draw all men unto

THE GOSPEL, AS A SYSTEM, him.” His heart had room for the whole race ; and, opening his arms, he invited all to come unto him. The whole of his course was a history of pure and disinterested benevolence ; one continued act of con¬ descension ; a vast and unbroken descent from the heights of heaven, to the form of a servant, the life of an outcast, the death of a malefactor. His charac¬ ter is a study of goodness — a study for the universe ; it is the conception of a Being of infinite amiableness; seeking to engage and enamour the heart of a selfish \vorld. The world, having lost the original idea of goodness, and sunk into a state of universal selfishness, his character was calculated and formed on the princi¬ ple of a laborious endeavor to recall the departed spirit of benevolence — to baptize it afresh in the element of love.

The office of the Holy Spirit is appointed and concurs to the same end. The world could not be surprised out of its selfishness, and charmed into bene¬ volence by the mere spectacle even of divine love. That love can be understood only by sympathy ; but for this, sin had disqualified us. According to the economy of grace, therefore, the exhibition of that love in God is to be made the means of producing love in us ; the glorious spectacle of love as beheld in God, is to be turned into a living principle in us. For this end, the holy, unconfined, and infinite Spirit came down. His emblem is the wind ; he came like a rushing mighty wind — came with a fulness and a power, as if he sought to fill every heart, to replenish the church, to be the soul of the world, to encircle

OPPOSED TO SELFISHNESS.

the earth with an atmosphere of grace as real and universal as the elemental air which encompasses and circulates around the globe itself, that whoever inhaled it might have eternal life.

In the prosecution of his office, he was to take of the things of Christ, and show them unto men. Heaven stooping to earth ; God becoming man, dying upon the cross ; infinite benevolence pouring out all its treasures for human happiness, — these were the things which he was to reveal,— the softening and subduing elements with which he was to approach and enter the human heart. In his hands, these truths were to become spirit and life. From the moment they were felt, men were to be conscious of a change in their relation both to God and to each other. A view of the great love wherewith he had loved them, was to fill their minds with a grand and overpowering sentiment of benevolence, which should melt their obduracy, cause them to glow with gratitude, and bind them fast to himself in the strongest bands of love. That love, with all the communicativeness of fire, was to extend to their fellow-men. Every weapon of revenge was to fall from their hands ; every epithet of anger was to die on their lips ; and where, before, they saw nothing but foes, they were henceforth to behold magnificent objects of affection, immortal beings, whom it would be happiness to love, and godlike to bless. The love of Christ would constrain them ; glowing and circulating in their spiritual system, like the life-blood in their hearts, it would impel them to be active for his glory. Having communed with