DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3689#0053
a Devout and Holy Life. 51
tempers, in indulging our passions, and supporting a worldly,
vain turn of mind. For high eating and drinking, fine clothes,
and fine houses, state, and equipage, gay pleasures, and diversions,
do all of them naturally hurt, and disorder our hearts ; they are
the food and nourishment of all the folly and weakness of our
nature, and are certain means to make us vain and worldly in
our tempers. They are all of them the support of something,
that ought not to be supported; they are contrary to that
sobriety and piety of heart, which relishes divine things; they
are like so many weights upon our minds, that make us less able,
and less inclined to raise up our thoughts and affections to the
things that are above.
So that money thus spent, is.not merely wasted, or lost, but it
is spent to bad purposes, and miserable effects, to the corruption
and disorder of our hearts, and to the making us less able to live
up to the sublime doctrines of the Gospel. It is but like keeping
money from the poor, to buy poison for ourselves.
For so much as is spent in the vanity of dress, may be
reckoned so much laid out to fix vanity in our minds. So much
as is laid out for idleness and indulgence, may be reckoned so
much given to render our hearts dull and sensual. So much as
is spent in state and equipage, may be reckoned so much spent
to dazzle your own eyes, and render you the idol of your own
imagination. And so in everything, when you go from reason-
able wants, you only support some unreasonable temper, some turn
of mind, which every good Christian is called upon to renounce.
So that on all accounts, whether we consider our fortune as a
talent, and trust from God, or the great good that it enables us to
do, or the great harm that it does to ourselves, if idly spent; on all
these great accounts it appears, that it is absolutely necessary, to
make reason and religion the strict rule of using all our fortune.
Every exhortation in Scripture to be wise and reasonable,
satisfying only such wants as God would have satisfied; every
exhortation to be spiritual and heavenly, pressing after a glorious
change of our nature ; every exhortation to love our neighbour
as ourselves, to love all mankind as God has loved them, is a
command to be strictly religious in the use of our money. For
none of these tempers can be complied with, unless we be wise
and reasonable, spiritual and heavenly, exercising a brotherly love,
a godlike charity in the use of all our fortune. These tempers,
and this use of our worldly goods, is so much the doctrine of
all the New Testament, that you cannot read a chapter, without
being taught something of it. I shall only produce one re-
markable passage of Scripture, which is sufficient to justify all
that I have said concerning this religious use of all our fortune.
4—2
tempers, in indulging our passions, and supporting a worldly,
vain turn of mind. For high eating and drinking, fine clothes,
and fine houses, state, and equipage, gay pleasures, and diversions,
do all of them naturally hurt, and disorder our hearts ; they are
the food and nourishment of all the folly and weakness of our
nature, and are certain means to make us vain and worldly in
our tempers. They are all of them the support of something,
that ought not to be supported; they are contrary to that
sobriety and piety of heart, which relishes divine things; they
are like so many weights upon our minds, that make us less able,
and less inclined to raise up our thoughts and affections to the
things that are above.
So that money thus spent, is.not merely wasted, or lost, but it
is spent to bad purposes, and miserable effects, to the corruption
and disorder of our hearts, and to the making us less able to live
up to the sublime doctrines of the Gospel. It is but like keeping
money from the poor, to buy poison for ourselves.
For so much as is spent in the vanity of dress, may be
reckoned so much laid out to fix vanity in our minds. So much
as is laid out for idleness and indulgence, may be reckoned so
much given to render our hearts dull and sensual. So much as
is spent in state and equipage, may be reckoned so much spent
to dazzle your own eyes, and render you the idol of your own
imagination. And so in everything, when you go from reason-
able wants, you only support some unreasonable temper, some turn
of mind, which every good Christian is called upon to renounce.
So that on all accounts, whether we consider our fortune as a
talent, and trust from God, or the great good that it enables us to
do, or the great harm that it does to ourselves, if idly spent; on all
these great accounts it appears, that it is absolutely necessary, to
make reason and religion the strict rule of using all our fortune.
Every exhortation in Scripture to be wise and reasonable,
satisfying only such wants as God would have satisfied; every
exhortation to be spiritual and heavenly, pressing after a glorious
change of our nature ; every exhortation to love our neighbour
as ourselves, to love all mankind as God has loved them, is a
command to be strictly religious in the use of our money. For
none of these tempers can be complied with, unless we be wise
and reasonable, spiritual and heavenly, exercising a brotherly love,
a godlike charity in the use of all our fortune. These tempers,
and this use of our worldly goods, is so much the doctrine of
all the New Testament, that you cannot read a chapter, without
being taught something of it. I shall only produce one re-
markable passage of Scripture, which is sufficient to justify all
that I have said concerning this religious use of all our fortune.
4—2