Covetousness: Its Company and Its Character
“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” — Col. iii. 5.
Covetousxess is simply a thirst for gain, not necessarily accompanied with the envy that would unjustly possess itself of what belongs to another. When that thirst burns in a man’s breast, he must make some effort to obtain relief. He must try either to extinguish it, so that it shall not make any demand, or to satisfy the demand which it makes. He must either starve it by a religious self-denial, or feed it by a carnal indulgence. Mammon still maintains his place as the god of this world. His is not merely a pageant throne — a nominal sovereignty. A very great proportion of our more respectable citizens do him homage and obey his laws. His sendee is hard, yet his subjects are loyal; they groan beneath their burden, and yet daily add to its load.
I speak not here of the multitude, on the other extreme, who live like the beasts that perish, and 8 ( 55 )
never look beyond the present hour; but of the class who are clear from the charge of improvidence, too many are caught and carried away by the passion for making money. The wide prevalence and disastrous effects of this raging appetite, are sufficient to alarm any one who has the prosperity of his country at heart. It sweeps over the land like a flood, and its course is marked by the desolation that it leaves in many a heart and many a household. “When this passion is permitted to swell in the bosom of one man, its consequences are not confined to himself, or even to his family. That lust produces a desolating surge, that spreads far and wide over the neighborhood, submerging suddenly many a happy home — making beggars of a multitude who were dwellers in security. This sin, like others, brings suffering in its train, and the innocent suffer with the guilty. The burning lust of gain, cherished and brooded over in the hearts and at the desks of Mammonserving men, bursts forth at last with a power which themselves cannot control, and shoots like a fiery meteor through the city’s crowded and helpless population, leaving behind it a hideous trail of hopes disappointed and hearts broken — silent distrust and angry recrimination* — iudustry J aid prostrate and inheritances alienated — orphans naked and widows in want of broad.
We are in amazement. We are kept in perpetual alarm. Before we have recovered from the effects of one unexpected blow, we are stunned by another. “When we go forth in the morning, it is with anxiety that we meet a friend, or open a newspaper. We know not whence the next stroke may proceed, or where it may fall. Matters seem verging to that state in which no man can trust his fellow. We begin to ask, is there aught of fixed principle or fair dealing among men; and some, distracted and overwhelmed by the inextricable maze of deceit, and greed, and stupidity, and dishonesty, with which they are surrounded, may be tempted to cry, “What is truth?”*
Among the elements of the nation’s greatness lie the seeds of its sure decay. The very abundance of our material resources, and the very excess
[* The picture here given of this present world is at once truthful and alarming. How much do professed Christians contribute to fill up the sketch? Where shall we find the Christian doctrines which unfold to men their special duties in their intercourse with men? Where is the Christian social science which should leaven this whole mass of worldliness? Christ has left us the laws — the principles, which reach the case; where is our commentary? What man will pretend to say that any» adequate exposition of Christ’s teachings, in their bearing on the social philosophy and daily avocations, has yet appeared? — C] p 22 of our mercantile enterprise, seem to be forcing into earlier maturity the vices that will lay our glory in the dust. “Righteousness exalteth a nation, hut sin is a reproach to any people.” The sin of covetousness, cherished by its own success into enormous magnitude, is even now working the ruin of this people. The church shares with the nation in the rottenness of root,. and shares also in the danger of a downfall. The condition of Judah in Jeremiah’s time seems the counterpart of our own: “I am full of the fury of the Lord; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days. And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord. For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them, every one is given to covetousness.” — (Jer. vi. 11-13.)
“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” — (Tsa. lix. 19.) The Spirit of the Lord is beforehand with the enemy. Already in the Scriptures a standard has been lifted up against
ITS COMPANY AXD ITS CHARACTER. 5(J
every onset. There is no effort of the wicked one that has not “been foreseen by the Lord, and foretold to his people. Before they call, He has answered them. So bulky an object was covetousness in the future of Christ’s church, when the prophetic spirit looked down the ages, that warnings against it must occupy a prominent place in the written Word. Accordingly, when we turn to the Scriptures, we find that in this, as in other things, faithful is He that calleth us. He has given us line upon line, precept upon precept. It would be well for the members of the church in this land, and in these days, to remember oft the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness.”
In the present lecture I propose to point out two things in connection with covetousness, both found in the text, and abundantly corroborated by other Scriptures.
These are: — I. What it is associated with; and
n. What it is declared to be,
Its Company, and
Its Character.
It is associated with fornication and all uncleanness, and
It is declared to be idolatry. We know it by the company that it keeps, and the definition that has been assigned to it in the Word of God.
I. It is the compayiion of adultery. In the text the two stand chained together, exposed to the gaze of every generation as it passes by. You observe, that under different names these are the two things that occupy the verse. This text of the Word brings forth fornication and covetousness to be condemned in couples. The conjunction is too pointed, and too frequent in Scripture, to allow the supposition of accident. Observe some instances of the juxtaposition of these two things that at first sight seem not very similar. The same apostle unites them in 1 Cor. v. 11, “But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous.” Again, Eph. v. 3, “But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not once be named among you as becometh saints.” See to the same effect the judgment of another apostle, 2 Peter ii. 14, “Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls; an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children.”
“When a man has plunged into some vice to which the fashion of the day gives countenance, he is indignant to find that the law affords him no indulgence, but makes him stand side by side with more vulgar convicts. It is so with covetousness — the thirst for gain — in this impartial law of the Lord. Of design and habitually it is made to pair off with one of the most loathsome vices that our fallen nature knows. It is not without a reason in their own nature, as well as an advantage in giving effect to the admonition, that the Scriptures associate them so closely as kindred sins. There is a real similarity of nature which suggests and justifies the classification that obtains in the Bible. It is the principle that like draws to like, and not a mere arbitrary juxtaposition that has produced the phenomenon exhibited in these texts of Scripture. The names are associated, because the natures are similar.
In pointing out that similarity, I have an object in view analogous to that of the judge, who, finding a certain crime so favoured by fashion that it is scarcely accounted criminal, pronounces the sentence of the law against the man who has been convicted of it — sets him up side by side with another ruffian, meaner, but not more guilty — shackles the two together — and marches them off to the same punishment. The aim of the judge is to strip a favorite vice of the respectability that a distempered fashion had invested it withal, and to cover it with the shame that naturally belongs to it; so, finding the sin of covetousness screened by the numbers who practise it, and almost raised into a virtue by the goodly character they bear, I desire to drag it down from the place which it has impudently usurped, and chain it to the comrade assigned to it by the Lawgiver and Judge of men.
Observe, now, some marks of kindred between these associated sins, —
1. Covetousness — that is, a greed of gain, a haste to be rich — is like the sin of uncleanness, in that it is the unlawful direction and acting of desires that are not in themselves unlawful. It is in this peculiarity that its great strength lies. All the anxious purposes and busy actings that the lust of gain wields to compass its own end, are lawful instruments, and may be lawfully employed. They are called into existence, and set agoing in the service of a virtuous industry; and then they constitute an agency already organized to do the work of the demon who glides in and assumes the control. There would be comparatively little danger of a province rising in formidable rebellion against its prince, if the constitution of its government from the beginning provided that no soldiers should be raised and exercised within its borders. In such a case, the very first band of men that should come together would be accounted, and would be, an overt act of rebellion. The power of the sovereign would be employed to crush it in the bud. But if it were permitted and required by the constitution that this province should raise and maintain an effective army, on its own territory, and under its own officers, the army raised without suspicion might more readily be employed to enforce a disloyal claim. It is thus with the whole apparatus of virtuous industry. A man is not only permitted, he is bound to ply his handicraft, or prosecute his merchandise. With a view to the support of his family, it is his duty to strike out vigorously on some of the lines that lie open to enterprise in this great commercial community. The complex apparatus of the manufactory and the counting-house is there. It has been innocently — dutifully constructed and set in motion; and it is this ready-made machinery of virtue that an insidious vice seizes, and controls, and perverts. Who shall tell the moment when the goodly apparatus ceases to be impelled by virtue, and begins to be impelled by vice? Who shall tell how far this prosperous merchant is pleasing God by industry, and how far proyoking Him by covetousness? The inner chamber where the whole is set in motion is the human heart; and who can search it but God? When the evil spirit enters and takes possession of the powers that industry had wielded, it is a stealthy entrance. He enters in disguise. He has accomplices in the penetralia of that heart before him. Those desires within that would not admit of waiting, knocking Jesus, open at the whisper of Mammon. The whole operation is conducted under cover of a consummate hypocrisy. The banner of industry still floats aloft on the flagstaff of the busy manufactory. When Mammon gets the power, he allows others to retain the name. The change has taken place — a change characteristic, vital, permanent, and yet no one knows. It will never be known till the clay reveal it, at what precise moment and by what particular means the change was effected, and yet the change is fraught with consequences great as the soul’s worth, and lasting as eternity. The love of money has now taken the place of a God-fearing, man-loving sense of duty as the motive power in this man’s soul. The affections and energies of an accountable, immortal being, that started in a virtuous effort to win daily bread, and seem to be so employed still, are now animated by a sordid lust, and prostituted to objects hateful to God, and hurtful to his creatures.
Such is the insidious nature of this sin. Emotions and energies that are in themselves inno* cent, and that may be innocently put forth on lawful objects, are secretly turned aside; and, without any change in the outward appearance, are possessed by an unclean spirit, and wasted on low grovelling efforts that degrade and torment the man. Do we guard this exposed side? Do we watch and pray that Satan may not here obtain an advantage over us? What though we make money? If we lose our souls in making it, there will appear a loss on the transaction in the day when the books are opened — a loss total, irreparable, eternal.
2. The sin of covetousness is like its associate, in that it grows by indulgence. Unlawful gratification strengthens the appetite. It grows by what it feeds on. The progress of indulged lust constitutes a horrid picture. I shall not here track its footsteps over the slimy path by which it leads an immortal down to the second death. But the progress of covetousness is like it — more like than money-loving men are willing to allow. To yield up the soul to the love and pursuit of money, produces the same effect as the other and
Ob COVETOUSNESS —
kindred debauch. The desire of the mind, as well as the desire of the flesh, is inflamed by tasting its unhallowed gratification. It burns in the breast like a fire, and fuel added increases its burning. The more that you throw into this raging appetite, the more it craves. It bursts through the restraints of reason and the suggestions of policy, as Samson did through the green withs that bound him. I might adduce instances of the passion culminating into madness; but it is not necessary. Examples are patent to every eye. The world teems with them. The man who makes money an object to be aimed at for its own sake, instead of an instrument to be employed for the sake of the comforts it procures, is by common consent called a miser (miserable one) — evidence athat will not out,” indented on the very language of mankind, to prove that Mammon first entraps, and then tortures his victim.
You would be afraid to dally with approaches to lasciviousness. You would dread lest you should be caught, and carried down and die. You know of the strange woman that “her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell.” — (Prov. v. 5.) You therefore hear God’s word, and fear, and depart from evil. You avoid it, you pass not by. But the two lusts are born brothers.
Covetousness and uncleanness are brethren in iniquity; and while yon would not venture within reach of the one, will you cherish the embrace of the other? It will matter little whether you be debauched by this vice or by that, if your soul be debauched and destroyed. If at the last you lift up your eyes in torment, it will afford no consolation to reflect that you had the countenance and company of a multitude, in the unsuspected and respectable sin that beset and overcame you.
3. Covetousness is like the other sin, in that the least incipient indulgence displeases God, and sears the conscience. Although the disease may never grow to such a height that men will call you a miser; yet He who looketh on the heart is angry when he sees a covetous desire cherished there. He who has said, Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart, has not a more indulgent rule whereby to judge this kindred sin. In the balance of the sanctuaiy both will be weighed, and alas! how many of this community will in that clay be found wanting on the score of loving money, who kept far away from the less reputable vice!
On the whole, upon this head, I fear there is a leniency of judgment abroad in regard to the sin of covetousness, which the Scriptures do not sanction. In particular, of these two sins which the Bible makes equal in guilt, equal in punishment, this community selects one for special indulgence, and almost arrays the abominable vice in the garments of a virtue. I have pointed out that in fact the Scriptures set them side by side; and that in nature they are essentially alike. What God hath joined, whether good or evil, let no man put asunder. Let that which is classed with the filthy in the Word of God, be classed with the filthy in the estimation of men.
H. Covetousness is defined to be idolatry. After looking to the company that it keeps, we inquire into the character that it bears.
“What saith the Scripture?” (1.) The Spirit in the text speaketh expressly, it “is idolatry.” Other portions less directly, but not less surely, teach the same doctrine. Eor example: — (2.) “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” — (Luke xvi. 13.) These two are principals in the contest for sovereignty in the human heart. Submission to Mammon is the rejection of God. When that enemy enters, he enters as the rival of the Almighty. The devotion of one’s soul to the making of money, is more than a violation of scriptural precepts; it is the creature renouncing his alleffiance to the Creator — the thins: made casting off the authority of God his Maker. (3.) “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God.” — (1 Tim. vi. 17.) The same two appear here, and they are set in opposition. It is a struggle for a throne, and both cannot win. The triumph of “uncertain riches” in the competition for a man’s heart, is the dethronement of the living God. If riches get in, as in point of fact the habitual trust of the heart, they come in place of God, and in defiance of him. (4.) “If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much; if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand; this also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge; for I should have denied the God that is above.” — (Job xxxi. 25-28.) Here the identity of covetousness and idolatry is assumed. In the mind of that ancient God-fearer, they stood side by side as forms of the same fundamental iniquity — the creature casting off the Creator — choosing a portion other than God. Confidence in gold, and worship of the sun, are classed by Job as mere varieties of the same idolatry. These instances are sufficient to show what rank the Scriptures assign to the “love of money,” among the manifold transgressions of men.
Consider these things. What hath the Lord spoken? Hear ye him: “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God; I am the Lord; that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” — (Isa. xlii. 8.) It is not the form or the name of the idol that he regards, but the heart-homage of the worshipper. It is not the height of the image, or the preciousness of its material, or the lowliness of the body’s bowing down: it is the immortal spirit that God has made admitting another than God to the inmost and uppermost place where He claims to be; it is the secret passion of the soul glutting itself on gold; it is this that stirs up His jealousy, and makes His wrath burn like lire.
This leads us back again to the topic of the first head, — indeed the whole Scriptures lead to this. You cannot illustrate the nature and guilt of idolatry without comparing it to uncleanness, for the Bible throughout does so. If we be God’s people, redeemed and renewed, He stands to us in the relation of a husband. He has betrothed his church to himself in everlasting love and faithfulness, and He will endure no rival in the supreme affection of a saved soul. It is only in this point of view that you can perceive the essential identity of covetousness and idolatry. In both cases it is the soul’s prostitution in an unlawful embrace of forbidden love. Our Maker claims to be our Husband; but the act of covetousness casts him out dishonoured and despised, while the soul is given over to a despicable intruder in an affection which, though forbidden, is felt to be sweet, — an indulgence which is greedily swallowed, and speedily resorted to again.
In thus endeavoring to characterise covetousness — the love of gain, — I am painfully aware that the description given, though true, may glide through the mind, pass off from the memoiy, and lodo’e no conviction in the conscience. To the quickening Spirit I must look for the power that will penetrate the defences of a covetous heart, force forth from its inmost fold the eager question, “Lord, is it I? “and give back the answer,” Thou art the man,” — printing it so deep, that the whole current of the world’s course rushing over it will not be able to efface it again. To that Teacher I desire to commit those lessons on covetousness that I have drawn from the Word. The subject now broached in its main principles I hope to follow out, in subsequent lectures, into practical details. But even in the mean time, and before we part, let me ask you — whether rich or poor, young or old, male or female — to examine what place you have allowed the love of gain to hold in your hearts. God is not mocked. He will not be satisfied with a respectful word, while another enjoys the real homage of your soul. Will you dismiss the Heart-searcher, as you do an unpatronized applicant for your bounty, with a polite word and a wave of your hand, and sit down to your desk again, glad that the unwelcome demand is silenced, — the unwelcome intruder out of sight? If it be true that God is treated thus, — that your wages and families, your manufactures and merchandise, claim and get all the relish of your souls, what will your fair words avail when your Maker meets you not as a man? You may try to forget the lifetime of idolatry, but in the book of judgment the record of it remains. “All flesh is grass, but the word of God abideth for ever.” According to his own “Word, and not according to your fond wishes, the Judge will decide. He marks you down idolaters, and blots you out of the book of life. Amid all the formalities that prevail, two things are real: viz., — (1.) The devotion of a worldly mind to its gains; and, (2.) The wrath of God against such an idolater. The superiority that the love of gain has gotten in the mind of Mammon’s servant, its mastery over the man, and the trampling clown of Christ and his salvation to a lower place, are a real transaction; whereas the “Lord, Lord” of such a worldling’s prayer, his attendance at church, his sitting at the communion-table, are not real, are not true; and the judgment of God is according to truth, against them that do such things, — according to the reality, and not according to the pretence.
How much money, then, may a man have, and yet be a Christian? how great a fortune may he enjoy in this world without cutting himself off from the inheritance in heaven? All that the Lord gives him, even to the half of the world. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and you are permitted freely to enjoy all his bounties. If One be your husband, all these may be the glad attendants on the chaste spouse of the Lamb. All things are yours, if you are Christ’s.