The Theology of Money

NOTES OF A SERMON PREACHED IN CONNECTION WITH THE SYSTEMATIC BENEFICENCE SOCIETY.)

“Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.” — Dzeovr. viii. 18.

“Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him.” — 1 Cor. xvi. 2.

AFORETIME I have addressed those who are advanced in life upon the dedication of property: some believed, “some mocked, and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.” I propose at this time to turn away from the old, the prejudiced, and the unimpressible, and to address those who are just beginning to understand their relations to money, — the young, whose hand is about to be laid on the property of the world, and who are open to conviction as to the uses and responsibilities of their stewardship. They, I presume, are willing to be instructed as to the theology of money.

The word “stewardship” involves the vital principle of the whole question. It brings us at once to the first text, — “Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.” Remember that, and industry is turned into a sacrament. Remember that, and you will feel yourself working side by side with God, in the field, the warehouse, the bank, the shop, the office, the pulpit. What a blow this text strikes at one of the most popular and mischievous fallacies in secular life. That fallacy is, that man is the maker of his own money. Men who can see God moulding worlds, and circling through the heavens with a comet in His right hand, cannot see Him suggesting an idea in business, smiling on the plough, guiding the merchant’s pen, and bringing summer into a brain long winter-bound and barren. We have dethroned the Most High in the realm of commerce; and in place of the heavenly Majesty have erected unclean and pestiferous idols: we have put into the holy place the foul little gods named Trick and Cunning; and over our completed fortunes have prepared incense for our own nostril. We have locked God up in the church; we have crushed Him into the Bible like a faded rose-leaf; we have shut upon. Him the iron gate of the market-place; we have forced commerce into widowhood, and compelled trade to babble the idiotic creed of atheism.

There is always a danger of becoming entangled in the intricacies of second causes. The element of mediation enters so largely into God’s government:

one world lighting another; one man depending on another; and one influence diffusing itself in a thousand directions, and entering into the most subtle and complicated combinations; all this, I say, intercepts our vision of the absolute and divine. We have a difficulty in understanding anything but straight lines. If money fell from the firmament like rain, or snow, or sunshine, we could, perhaps, more readily concede that it came from God; but because it comes through circuitous, and sometimes obscure channels, we feel not upon it the warmth of the divine touch, and see on it no nobler image than Ceesar’s. We are guilty as the ancient harlot, on whose giddy head God poured out His wrath: “She said, I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.” But God hedged up her way with thorns, He caused her to lose her paths, and said, in a tone which combined complaint and anger, — ‘“For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.” He who pours down the light of the sun, pours out the oil. He who arrays Lebanon and Bashan in all the pomp of summer foliage, gives wool and flax to cover the nakedness of man. The great world is one sky-domed church, and there is nothing common or unclean.

God wishes this fact to be treasured in the memory of His saints. “Thou shalt remember.” It is to be ever present in our recollections; it is to be a star, beaming on the troubled waters, by which we are to strike our course; it is to be a cloud, a fire, for the day and night of our long pilgrimage. Mark the happy consequences of this grateful recollection. First of all, God and wealth are ever to be associated. ‘The silver and the gold are mine.” There is but one absolute proprietor. We hold our treasures on loan; we occupy a stewardship. Consequent upon this is a natural and most beautiful humility. “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” When the merchant sits down in the evening light to count his day’s gains, he is to remember that the Lord his God gave him power to get wealth. When the workman throws down the instrument of his labour, that he may receive the reward of his toil, he is to remember that the Lord his God gave him power to get wealth. When the young man receives the first recognition of his remunerative industry, he is to remember that the Lord his God gave him power to get wealth. Thus the getting of money becomes a sacred thing. Money is a mighty power; wealth occupies a proud position in the parliament of action. Trade thus becomes a means of grace, and commerce an ally of religion. In one word, every act of life is restored to its direct and vital relation to the centre of the universe. There are men who assert that the voices of the pulpit should never be heard in the emporium of commerce. Fools, and blind. They forget that they could not move a muscle but for the grace of God. They could not originate or apply an idea but for the mercy of heaven. They have no objection to hear a short sermon once a week, and with that they rock their conscience into a six days’ repose. I hold, in opposition to this atheistic commerce, that every ledger should be a Bible, true as if written by the finger of God; that every place of business should be made sacred by the presence of righteousness, verity, honour, and justice. The man who can be atheistic in business could be atheistic in heaven itself. The man who never turns his warehouse into a church will never fail to turn the church into a warehouse. Even christian men are anxious that too much of what they call religion should not be introduced into places of trade. They speak about God with a quivering whisper, as if they were speaking about a ghost, whose hollow eye was fixed upon them. When they refer to Him it is with a backward motion of a trembling finger, or a jerk of the voice, which indicates anything but moral repose. There is no filial jubilance of spirit; no leaping of the heart, as if it would go straight up to God. They will come once on a Sunday to the sanctuary; they will snarl because there are so many collections; they will sing a hymn, but must sit down before finishing the last line of the last verse. Men who make money with both hands, who run greedily after gain, and serve Mammon with uncooling zeal, are not likely to remember that the Lord their God gave them power to get wealth. Memory is occupied with other subjects. The heart is foreclosed. The whole nature has signed, sealed, and delivered a bond to entertain no such recollections. In enumerating the happy consequences arising from a grateful recognition of God’s relation to wealth, the check upon all wastefulness and extravagance might be mentioned. Christianity enjoins frugality upon its disciples; its command is, “Gather up the fragments.” The man who wastes money would also waste his moral dowry. An extravagant Christian — that is, a man who outruns his resources — is dishonest, and his life is a continual felony. Money is one of the limitations of power, and to overstep that is a practical blasphemy, an unpronounced but most terrible reproach upon divine arrangements.

This, then, is our basis principle, — viz., that God giveth man power to get wealth, and, consequently, that God sustains an immediate relation to the property of the world. Take the case of a young man just entering business. If his heart is uneducated and unwatched, he will regard business as a species of gambling; if his heart be pivoted on right principles, he will esteem business a moral service, as the practical side of his prayers, a public embodiment of many aspirations and convictions. In course of time, the young man realizes money on his own account. Looking at his gold and silver, he says, “I made that.” There is a glow of honest pride on his cheek. He looks upon the reward of his industry, and the light of joy kindles in his eye. While he looks upon his first-earned gold, I wish to speak to him, gently and persuasively, these words, — “Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.” Instantly his view of the property is elevated, enlarged, sanctified. He was just about to say that his own arm had gotten him the victory, and to forget that though the image is Ceesar’s, yet the gold is God’s. What is the natural line of thought through which the young man would run under such circumstances? It would lie in some such direction as this, I venture to suggest : — “What can be the meaning of this word ‘remember’? Does it not call me to gratitude? Is it not intended to turn my heart and my eye heavenward? As God has given me ‘ power to get wealth,’ am I not bound to return some recognition of His goodness and mercy?” While these questions are agitating his mind, the apostle Paul says to him, “On the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered hum.” Thus the principle is turned to practical account. A time is named, a measure is fixed.

The time, God’s elect day; the measure, God’s gift of power. Can anything be more beautiful? anything, presumptively, more like God? The sabbath is emphatically a day of remembrance; memory is called to the awakening of the most sacred associations; the recollective faculty is to be engaged, from the rising of the sun until the going down of the same. Among the subjects of recollection is this of getting wealth, and Paul says that recollection is to be associated with distribution and sanctification.

I will assume that up to this point of the inquiry I have the full consent of the young man’s mind and heart: the question now occurs, How much shall he “lay by him in store”? The young man is anxious to acknowledge God’s goodness, and all he waits for is to ascertain the measure of his dedication. The answer is, “As God hath prospered him.” There is not a word about tenth, or fifth, or twentieth. The whole New Testament arithmetic of the case is purely moral. The student is at liberty, indeed, to go back into the oldest biblical records, and to discover what grateful men did in dividing and dedicating property, yet, so far as the New Testament is concerned, not a word is spoken as to an arbitrary and unchangeable proportion. The spiritual law is, “as God hath prospered him.” When the week has been unusually productive, the young man will “lay by” with unusual liberality; when the gains have been small, the “store” will be small; when there has been no gain there will be no dedication. All the details of working must be left to the individual conscience. It is a service of love, of gratitude, of memorial; and the heart will soon arrange the best methods of marshalling details. A thousand difficulties might be suggested by speculation which would never be seen by love. I cannot pause to enumerate detailed methods of dealing with a weekly account; all I venture to say is this ; — Man derives from God power to get wealth; that he should consequently make some recognition of his obligation; and that the most clear intimation of doing this is given by Paul, — * On the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him.” It is replied that this “order” was given in relation to a particular case of benevolence. What then? An object may be particular, when a method is universal. It is urged that this is the only instance in which the method is prescribed. What then? How often must a word be spoken in order to make it true? It is contended that there are difficulties in carrying out such an arrangement. What then? Point out any duty in life which is unattended with difficulty? If we work this plan up to the point that occasions insuperable difficulty, God will accept our service, and enrich the heart which renders it.

Let it be assumed that the plan of the Apostle is carried out with all willingness and diligence, what results would mark its adoption?

Ist. The fickleness and fitfulness of benevolence would be terminated. Benevolence is now very largely a question of impulse. Little or no preparation is made for the regular and constant administration of God’s bounty.

2nd. The benevolent operations of the church would be immensely facilitated. If I have a case which calls for sympathy and substantial support, I should find no difficulty with men who systematically store a portion for God. They know exactly what they have in their treasury; they know how they determine the relative merits of cases; and in a moment their answer, always genial and kind, even when not affirmative, may be returned. As it is now, persons who go a-begging, as it is termed, are sometimes actually affronted as if they were public nuisances; — théy make up their minds to be snapped at as if they were committing a species of masked felony.

3rd. The gratitude of the individual Christian would be kept in lively exercise. On the morning of every Lord’s day he offers God a portion of his week’s proceeds. Not only does he pray for the kingdom, he shows the reality of his word by the practical value of his deed. You may suggest that it is troublesome to be dividing every week; I answer, Is it troublesome to be recetving every week?

We speak of the “exceeding great and precious. promises” abounding in God’s word, but often overlook those which apply to our so-called secular life. Do you imagine that Almighty God is an unconcerned spectator of this service of dedication? Hear his word! “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase.” What then? what result will follow? “So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” We imagine that all God’s benefactions are spiritual; we have shut Him out from the field and the vineyard; but hear His word! “The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and He shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” We have cause and effect even in the religious administration of our worldly affairs : — “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” Yet our “sowing” must be done with a good motive, or the harvest will be scanty and worthless. “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.” Thus the hidden influences the revealed! What is the true motive? “The love of Christ constraineth us.” “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only un the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.”

If you remember the Lord your God, He will remember you, for “God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love.”