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BV772 .C752 1860 c.2 
Cooke, Parsons, 1800-1864 
Divine law of beneficence 



u 



THE 



DIVINE LAW OF BENEFICENCE ; 



ZACCHEUS, 



THE SCRIPTURAL PLAN OF BENEVOLENCE; 



THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH, 



SYSTEMATIC BENEFICENCE. 



ZACCHEUS 



THE SCRIPTURAL PLAN 



BENEVOLENCE. 

BY EEV. SAMUEL HARUIS, 

CONWAY, MASS. 



And Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my 
goods I give to the poor. — Luke 19:8. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
PLAN PRESCRIBED IN THE BIBLE, « 

CHAPTER II. 
PRINCIPLES WHICH GUIDE INOIEDUCING THE SCRIPTURAL 
PLAN TO PRACTICE, 13 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DUTY OF SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE INFERRED 
FROM THE NATURE AND MOTIVES OF PIETY, --- 19 



CHAPTER IV. 
SUPERIOR EFFICIENCY OF SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE IN 
PROVIDING FUNDS FOR BENEVOLENT ENTERPRISES, 25 

CHAPTER V. 

TENDENCY TO SECURE GOD'S BLESSING ON BUSINESS AND 
TO ENLARGE THE MEANS OF GIVING, 37 

CHAPTER VI. 
THE ANTIDOTE OF COVETOUSNESS, 49 

CHAPTER VII. 
ESSENTIAL TO THE HIGHEST SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENTS, 61 

CHAPTER VIII. 
INCREASES THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF THE CHURCH, 71 

CHAPTER IX. 
PROMOTES HAPPINESS,---- 74 



SCRIPTURAL 
PLAN OF BENEVOLENCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

PLAN PRESCRIBED IN THE BIBLE. 

Thoughtful readers cannot but observe the im- 
portance ascribed in the Bible to acts of charity; 
the boldness with which the inquirer for salvation 
is commanded, " Sell that thou hast, and give to 
the poor ;" the preeminence in deadliness assigned to 
the love of money as " the root of all evil ;" the ear- 
nestness and frequency with which men are warned 
of its perils, and of the absolute incompatibility of 
serving God and mammon ; the elevation given to 
the standard of benevolence, " Let this mind be in 
you, which was also in Christ Jesus ;" and the vital 
connection everywhere implied between alms-giving 
and the highest attainments of piety, of spiritual 
power, and spiritual joy. They cannot but be star- 
tled, sometimes, with the apprehension that there is 
a strange contrast here between the Bible and the 
church ; that the faithful applying of scriptural truth 
on this point, might make many a professed disciple 



6 SCRIPrURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

go away, like the young ruler, sorrowful, or cry, as 
they did of old when Christ had been preaching on 
this very subject, " Who then can be saved ?" And 
they cannot but be justified in inferring that this very 
contrast between the church and the Bible is a promi- 
nent cause of embarrassment in our benevolent en- 
terprises ; of the prevailing worldliness of Christians ; 
the limited success of efforts for the conversion of 
souls ; the fewness of those who enter into the deep- 
est experience of the spiritual life ; and the absence 
of that rapidity of enlargement and energy of action 
which marked the apostolic church. 

But the Bible not only teaches the importance of 
charity, it lays down principles systematizing it. To 
secure its divinely appointed prominence in advanc- 
ing the enterprises, the piety, the power, and the 
blessedness of the church, it is necessary to under- 
stand and to practise the divinely appointed plan of 
systematic benevolence. 

" Upon the first day of the week let every 
one of you lay by him in store, as god hath pros- 
pered him." 

This requires that charitable appropriations be 
systematic. It requires some plan, deliberately and 
prayerfully adopted, assessing on the income a deter- 
minate proportion for charitable purposes. It forbids 
giving merely from impulse, as under the excitement 
of an eloquent charity sermon, or the accidental sight 
of distress It forbids giving merely at random what 



PLAN PRESCRIBED. 7 

happens to be convenient. It transfers the control 
of charity from the capriciousness of sensibiUty and 
the parsimony of convenience, to the decisions of rea- 
son and conscience. It regulates impulse by princi- 
ple. It brings the whole subject into the closet, to 
be determined by prayer and deliberation, according 
to the rules of the Bible, in the fear of God, and the 
spirit of consecration to him. In carrying into effect 
the plan thus deliberately adopted, charitable appro- 
priations will enter into the calculations as much as 
the necessary expenditures on the person, the family, 
or the business ; they will be managed with as sys- 
tematic exactness as any branch of business ; they 
may with advantage be as regularly booked. A line 
written on a memorandum of his charities, kept by a 
systematic giver and found after his death, suggests 
an important reason for keeping such a record : "I 
keep this memorandum lest I should think I give 
more than I do." 

They who obey the scriptural rule of benevolence, 
do not wait to he solicited. Like the impoverished 
but liberal Macedonians, they are " willing of them- 
selves." If a way of conveying their gifts is not 
at hand, they seek one out, as Paul describes the 
Macedonians : " praying us with much entreaty that 
we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fel- 
lowship of the ministering to the saints." Thus, ac- 
cording to the inspired plan, the urgent solicitation is 
not on the part of the agent of benevolence to draw 



8 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

charity from the giver, but on the givers' part to find 
the agent to receive and disburse their charities. Let 
this system be adopted, and the funds of benevolent 
societies would flow in unsolicited, and the expense 
of collecting agencies would cease. 

The scriptural rule requires frequent and stated 
appropriations. " On the first day of the week, let 
every one lay by him." If it is allowable some- 
times to depart from the letter of this law, the 
spirit of it must be regarded. Having adopted his 
plan of giving, the giver is required at frequent and 
stated times to examine his income, assess on it the 
prescribed proportion, and set aside the amount sa- 
cred to benevolence. His appropriations must be 
frequent, to keep pace with his earnings and with 
the constant calls of benevolence ; stated, that they 
may not be forgotten. This is inconsistent with giv- 
ing a large sum, and then for a long time nothing, 
and with the intention of giving only or chiefly at 
death. 

The text cited requires that charities be 'propor- 
tionate to the income. In the laws regulating the 
Jewish tithes and offerings, God prescribed precisely 
what proportion should be given. This was prac 
ticable in a system of laws for a single agricultural 
people, among whom every family was entitled to 
an inalienable inheritance in the soil ; but the gos- 
pel, designed for all nations and ages, could not with 
equity fix the precise proportion. And it fits the en- 



PLAN PRESCRIBED. 9 

tire character of the gospel — free grace from God, 
free love from man — to leave the decision, of this 
point to the unconstrained love of those who have 
freely given all to Christ ; for " God loveth a cheer- 
ful giver," But the principle by which the pro- 
portion to be given is determined, is most explicitly 
stated. " Let every one lay by him in store, as God 
hath 'prospered him'' Nothing can satisfy God's 
claim less than a consecration to benevolence of an 
amount proportioned to the prosperity God has giv- 
en. Do you think yourself benevolent because you 
give something — much ? If you give less than " ac- 
cording as God hath prospered you," yours is but the 
benevolence of Ananias and Sapphira. 

Tliis principle of proportionate benevolence is re- 
peated in various forms in the Bible. " If any man 
minister, let him do it as of the ability that God 
giveth." " As every man hath received the gift, 
even so minister the same one to another, as good 
stewards of the manifold grace of God." "As we 
have opportunity, let us do good unto all men." 
'•I am debtor" to put forth benevolent efibrts "as 
much as in me is." "Honor the Lord with the 
first-fruits of all thme increase." There are three 
points in this requirement of benevolence propor- 
tioned to the income. 

1. All must give. "Let every one.'' The gos- 
pel does not release the poor from giving. The 
smallest income can pay a proportion. Nothing 



10 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

short of the total cessation of God's gifts can exempt 
from the law, " As God hath prospered him." The 
Macedonian church were praised for giving in " their 
deep poverty." The story of the widow's two mites 
settles for ever the acceptableness to God of offerings 
from the poor. And one dollar thus given, has 
often a moral power greater than a thousand. The 
benevolence of Louisa Osborn the colored domestic, 
who, from the wages of one dollar a week, paid 
twenty dollars a year to educate a youth in Ceylon, 
as it has been brought to light by the missionary 
who witnessed the unusual benefits of her donation 
to the mission, has thrilled the hearts of American 
Christians. The widow's two mites, which were 
all her living, lifted to the gaze of the universe and 
illuminated by the Saviour's commendation, have 
exerted and will exert a power which no mine of gold 
can equal — as if a dew-drop, expending its whole 
being to refresh one tiny flower, had been trans- 
formed, as it exhaled to the skies, into a star, and 
fixed in the brightness of the firmament to bless the 
creation for ever. 

2. Donations should increase with the increase of 
ability to give. "As God hath prospered him." 
This requires the rich to give proportionally to their 
increasing wealth, though, in order to do it, they 
must give thousands of dollars where they used to 
give one. And these great donations are not to be 
regarded as specially praiseworthy, more than small- 



PLAN PRESCRIBED. H 

er gifts which cost as great sacrifice and are propor- 
tionally as much. In both cases the giver has but 
" done what it was his-duty to do." 

3. The rich must give a larger 'proportion oj 
their income than the poor. A poor widow with a 
helpless family cannot give a tenth of her earnings 
without taking bread from her children. "Will any 
imagine that a man who has wealth, or even a com- 
petency, is required to give no larger a proportion 
of his income than that widow ? A poor laborer 
may be subjected to more inconvenience by giving 
five dollars, than a man of wealth by giving five 
thousand. Hence, the greater a man's wealth, the 
larger must be the proportion of income which he 
gives. Hence the propriety of a rule adopted by 
Mr. N. E,. Cobb, a merchant of Boston : to give from 
the outset one quarter of the net profits of his busi- 
ness ; should he ever be worth $20,000, to give one 
half of the net 'profits ; if worth $30,000, to give 
three quarter?,; and if ever worth $50,000, to give 
all the profits. This resolution he kept till his 
death, at the age of 36, when he had already acquired 
$50,000, and was giving all his profits. 

Different individuals, who have aimed at system- 
atic benevolence, have come to different conclusions 
as to the proportion which they ought to give ; and, 
perhaps, each one to a correct conclusion, in his par- 
ticular circumstances. Zaccheus gave half of his 
goods to the poor, besides restoring fourfold his unjust 



12 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

gains. The first converts at Jerusalem, to meet their 
peculiar circumstances, sold their possessions and 
made distribution of the avails, as every man had 
need. Paul repeatedly intimates that he had suf- 
fered the loss of all things. Others have adopted 
plans similar, in the main, to that of Mr. Cobb, al- 
ready cited. Others, after paying what has been 
needful for a most economical support, have given all 
their income. John Wesley is an example. " When 
his income was £30 a year, he lived on £28, and 
gave away £2 ; the next year his income was £60, 
and still living on £28, he had £32 to give. The 
fourth year raised his income to £120, and steadfast 
to his plan, the poor got £92." Others, again, have 
given a tenth of the gross amount of their receipts. 

Such is the scheme of Christian beneficence de- 
vised in heaven and enjoined by inspired wisdom. 
Let every man consider that in neglecting it, he sets 
at naught the authority and the wisdom of God. 
Men may deride it ; and so it is written of one of 
our Lord's many discourses on the right use of prop- 
erty, " The Pharisees, who were covetous, heard these 
things, and they derided him." 



REDUCED TO PRACTICE. 13 

CHAPTER II. 

PEINCIPLES WHICH G-UIDE IN REDUCINa 
THE SCRIPTURAL PLAN TO PRACTICE. 

We now suppose that the child of God, convinced 
that the foregoing is the scriptural plan of benefi- 
cence, has retired to his closet solemnly to adopt this 
plan, and to determine the details of its application 
to himself. We direct his attention to three princi- 
ples which should guide him. 

1 . The aim of all business must he to glorify 
God. This aim must give simplicity and unity to 
the entire life. Property is to be sought, not as the 
chief end, but as a means of doing good. The Chris- 
tian is not to ask, " What part of my income shall I 
consecrate to God's service ?" By the very act of 
becoming a Christian, he consecrated all to God's 
service in doing good. He has only to ask what part 
he must devote to this particular way of serving 
God— charitable gifts — in order that his whole prop- 
erty may accomplish most for God's glory. He is 
to remember, that the same principle is to regulate 
every step in the conduct of business, every new en- 
terprise, every investment, every expenditure ; that 
he is not at liberty to appropriate a dollar in any 
way, except as he can see that by so appropriating 
it he can do most to glorify God. He is not to think 
of setting aside a certain proportion for God, and do- 



14 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

ing what he pleases with the rest ; he is to devote 
all to God's service, and expend, invest, or give it, in 
such proportions as will effect most for that end. 

The law of systematic benevolence, therefore, does 
not forbid spending money on ourselves, educating 
children, laying aside something for the future. It 
does not forbid acquiring property ; we may make 
the five pounds, ten. We are even required so to do, 
serving God in the act ; ' ' not slothful in business, 
serving the Lord." But no act of acquiring or spend- 
ing money can be justified, unless it appears that by 
it most can be accomplished for God's glory. 

The Bible everywhere exhibits business as wholly 
subservient to this great end. " "Whether ye eat, or 
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of 
God." " Seek ye first the kingdom of God." It 
teaches that Christians are stewards, having nothing 
but the talents which God has intrusted to them to 
be increased for him. The requirement, " Sell that 
ye have and give alms," the similar direction given 
by Christ to the young ruler, cannot mean less than 
that all worldly business and possessions are to be 
entirely subservient to doing good. 

Benevolence, then, must be not only systematic, 
but systematizing, pervading and regulating the whole 
business. How is it possible to be seeking first the 
kingdom of God, when, practically, the controlling 
aim .of all the transactions of business is to make 
money ; when giving to the treasury of the Lord 



REDUCED TO PRACTICE. 15 

is only occasional and secondary, seldom occupying 
the thoughts ; called forth, perhaps, only by solicita- 
tion ; trifling, it may be, in amount ; and determined 
only by the impulse or convenience of the moment ? 
It is as if the steward of an estate should devote its 
income to himself, making only an occasional and 
trifling gift to the family of the absent owner, nay, 
leaving its members to suffer without caring for their 
wants. It is reversing the sentiment of the humble 
suppliant, " The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall 
from their master's table," and giving the crumbs to 
the master, tl^hile the dogs eat at the table. 

In view of this principle, let the Christian decide 
what part of his income the promotion of God's glory 
and the advancement of his cause require him to ex- 
pend on himself and his family, what part to invest, 
what part to give. 

2. The Christian will recognize the duty of self- 
denial. Does he say, " I give all that is conven- 
ient?" This language has widely different mean- 
ings on different lips. Some do not find it cojivenient 
to dispense with the most costly, or even the most 
hurtful luxuries. Some do not find it convenient to 
give half as much in a year as they spend on a sin- 
gle article of luxury, or in the indulgence of a single 
pernicious habit. The Bible does not say, "Do 
good as much as is convenient," but, " as much as 
in you is." The necessity of self denial is too plainly 
revealed to allow the thought that the scriptural 



16 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

law of benevolence can be obeyed without it. It is 
not only reiterated in direct commands, but is woven 
into all the inspired teachings respecting the Chris- 
tian life. The spirit that breathed on the cross is 
presented as the spirit which must breathe through 
the whole church. If the church is "the body of 
Christ," Christ's heart beats within it, sending to the 
remotest limb the throbbings of its own love. He 
who is not thus " in Christ," and imbued with his 
self-sacrificing love, is none of his. The Christian, 
then, must make his appropriations to charity in the 
spirit which says, "What thmgs were gain to me, 
those I counted loss for Christ." 

Here, however, every Christian is left to the decis- 
ion of his own mind, guided by the rules and ani- 
mated by the love of Christ, The following fact 
shows Wesley's practice: "In 1775 the Accountant- 
General sent him a copy of the excise order for the 
return of plate : ' Hev, sir, as the commissioners can- 
not doubt but you have plate for which you have 
hitherto neglected to make entry, etc' — to which he 
wrote this memorable answer : ' Sir, I have two sil- 
ver tea-spoons at London, and two at Bristol, This 
is all the plate which I have at present, and I shall 
not buy any more while so many around me want 
bread.' " Normand Smith of Hartford, deeming his 
house too expensive to be consistent with his rules of 
Christian benevolence, determined to sell it. An ac- 
count was published in the newspapers a few years 



REDUCED TO PRACTICE. 17 

since of a man who lived in a garret, on bread and 
water, that he might have the more to give. The 
writer knows a minister and his wife who hved 
without many of the comforts of hfe, for the same 
oljject. Admit that some have gone to an extreme. 
But is not this nobler and more acceptable to God, 
than to go to the extreme of indulging self, without 
any denial ? And where one goes to an extreme in 
this direction, are there not thousands in the church- 
es who have never learned by experience what self- 
denial is ? And which is most like Him who had 
not where to lay his head? As to the extent to 
which self denial must be carried, "let every man be 
fully persuaded in his own mind;" as to its necessity 
to full compliance with the scriptural rule of benev- 
olence, let every one heed the Saviour's words, " If 
any man will come after me, let him deny himself." 
And it is to be supposed that the rich are not excused 
from the duty, nor debarred from the privilege, more 
than the poor. 

3. The Christian will regard his charities, how- 
ever great, as the discharge of an obligation. The 
right to give or withhold at pleasure belongs to God 
alone. To his creatures God says, " Ye are not your 
own ;" and emphatically to his ransomed children, 
" Ye are not your own ; ye are bought with a price." 
The very beginning of the religious life is an act of 
entire consecration to God. The Christian's profes- 
sion is a constant proclamation to the world, that the 

Soiip, Bea«v. 



18 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

claim of Him who bought him with his blood, covers 
his estate, his faculties, his all. " What hast thou 
that thou didst not receive ?" Therefore, ransomed 
sinner, whatever thou givest, thou dost but "render 
unto God the things that are God's." So Paul felt : 
" I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbari- 
ans." But why a debtor rather than a giver ? Be- 
cause he was not his own, but bought with a price. 
So are we all debtors to the ignorant, the wretched, 
and depraved of whatever nation ; and when we pay 
into the Lord's treasury for their benefit, must say, 
" Oh Lord our God, all this store that we have pre- 
pared cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own." 
Hence the terrible declaration of God — not against 
those who gave nothing, but against those who gave 
what was of inferior value — "Ye have robbed God." 



MOTIVES OF PIETY. 19 



CHAPTER III. 

DUTY OF SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE INFER 
RED FROM THE NATURE AND MOTIVES OF 
PIETY. 

Piety begins with a change of heart. The great- 
er part. of hfe is usually occupied with the acquisi- 
tion and use of property. A change of heart, if real, 
cannot leave this principal part of life unaffected. 
The subject of it must be expected to show that he 
has found a more valued treasure im heaven by his 
new aims in getting, his new principles in using the 
treasures of this world. If, in that chief part of life 
occupied with gaining and using property, the pro- 
fessed subject of a change consisting in placing the 
affections on things above, continue to show the same 
estimate of property as the great end to be sought, 
the same eagerness in getting, the same tenacity in 
holding, the same self-seeking in using it, need it 
be surprising that his worldly competitors doubt the 
reality of the change? Must not Christ repel such 
professors with his own searching question, "What 
do ye more than others ?" There is nothing less 
than absurdity in the idea of a change, in which the 
man becomes " a new creature in Christ," in which 
"old things are passed away, behold, all things are 
become new," which yet does not carry a new spirit 
through the business and consecrate the property as 



20 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

well as the heart to God — in which the theory is 
all for the glory of God ; the practice, all for making 
money. 

Religion is love. And love is active. It is as nat- 
ural for love to act beneficently, as for a fountain to 
flow, or a star to shine ; and its action is ungrudging, 
unstinted, delighting in toil for the loved object. 
Witness, for instance, the toils of parental love. 
Can love to God and man be the very essence of the 
character, while beneficent efforts are left to hazard, 
crowded into the by-corners of life, supplied by chip- 
pings and remnants? Can love control the heart, 
and not control the action of the life ? 

Christians are laborers together ivith God. God 
is always giving : if we labor with him, we must la- 
bor in his work ; we must give. God is love ; if we 
labor with him, we must labor in the work of love. 
God would form us into his likeness ; to this end, we 
are no sooner brought into his kingdom, than we are 
put to doing his work. In revealing his will by in- 
spired men, in the conversion of every soul, in the 
whole work of spreading the gospel through the 
world, we discover this sublime partnership in labor 
between God and his children. 

Behold, then, believer, your sublime position, work- 
ing with God in delivering the world from ruin. To 
reclaim men to holiness is God's great work ; to it 
he has moulded his plans, and for it ordered his prov- 
idence, since time began. May you be a laborer with 



MOTIVES OF PIETY. 21 

God, and make that secondary which he regards as 
first ; pursue without plan, energy, or steadfastness, 
the object which he seeks with a steadfastness which 
knows no abatement, a zeal which spares no sacri- 
fice, an outpouring of treasure which arithmetic can- 
not calculate ? A laborer with God, and yet that 
object to which with him the destiny of nations and 
the movements of heavenly hosts are subordinate, be 
with you secondary to money-getting, to furniture, 
equipage — a mere appendix to business ? Let the 
great fact possess your soul with the fulness which 
its reality demands, that you are a laborer together 
with God, and you will lose sight of self in the great- 
ness of man's salvation, and instead of beneficence 
being an appendix to business, business itself will 
become but a means of beneficence. 

The cross of Christ urges to systematic benevo- 
lence. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes 
he became poor, that ye through his poverty might 
be rich." This is one of the most touching appeals 
to Christ's sufferings . Yet Paul wrote it expressly 
as a motive for taking up a charitable collection at 
Corinth. This beautiful sentiment in such a con- 
nection may seem sadly out of place to those who 
are wont to regard a charitable collection as an an- 
noyance; but it shows the apostolic view of the 
connection of this duty with all that is sublime and 
afiecting in the cross of Christ. 



22 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

The peculiar motive of Christianity is expressed 
in the affecting words so often on the lips of Jesus, 
*• For my sake." " Blessed are ye when men shall 
revile you, and persecute you, for my sake" — "hated 
of all men for my sake" — "hath left houses and 
lands for my sake" — " loseth his life for my sake." 
He presents this motive as effectual to induce the 
greatest sacrifices, even of property and life. And it 
would seem that a sinner, pardoned through Christ's 
blood, could not, for very shame, lift his eye to meet 
the melting look of his dying Saviour, if he felt not 
the overcoming power of that appeal — if he could 
net. Uke the apostle, say, "I take pleasure in infirm- 
ities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in 
distresses, for Christ's sake." " What things were 
gain to me, those I count loss for Christ." 

In a world so intensely selfish, it was needful that 
the cross of the divine Redeemer, sacrificing himself 
to save transgressors, should stand in the centre of 
the plan of salvation : the first object which greets 
the eye of the convert, and the last which cheers the 
dying saint ; the source of the Christian's hope and 
strength through all his warfare, his joy on earth, 
and the anticipated theme of his everlasting song — 
that the great lesson of self-denying, all-consecrating 
benevolence may always be before the view — that 
with every look at the bleeding Author of salvation, 
may fall on the soul, with an eloquence too deep for 
words, the admonition, " Forasmuch as Christ hath 



MOTIVES OF PIETY. 23 

suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise 
with the same mind;" "he that saith he abideth in 
Christ, ought himself also so to walk even as he 
walked." 

If God himself were in our circumstances, how 
Avould he measure his efforts for the good of men ? 
Receive the answer in the conduct of Christ, " God 
manifest in the flesh." He would sacrifice his riches 
and lay aside his glory; he would consume all the 
energies of his earthly existence ; he would lay down 
his mortal life, to do them good. The first promise of 
the arch-deceiver was, "Ye shall be as gods" — ye 
shall become so by gratifying self Christ has uttered 
the same promise, " Ye shall be partakers of the di- 
vine nature ;" but ye shall become so by denying self 
" Gratify self, get, and ye shall be as gods," is Sa- 
tan's lie. " Deny self, give, and ye shall be partak- 
ers of the divine nature," is Christ's truth. Satan 
has blinded mankind by this lie, so that they look 
for bliss and exaltation only by getting; Christ over- 
turns this whole scheme, and teaches to find godlike 
bliss and exaltation by giving. This is godlike in 
man, to sacrifice self for the good of others. That 
was the highest elevation of human nature when it 
was lifted on the cross in the blood of its own agony 
for man's redemption ; then human nature was ex- 
alted to participate in the sublimest of all the dis- 
plays of God's glory. And there is no elevation of 
man to the godlike, except as he is elevated to the 



24 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

spirit of the cross. Who then can imagine that he 
has been made by regeneration a partaker of the 
divine nature, if he does not systematically devote 
of his choicest treasures, as God hath prospered him, 
for the good of men. And how little even that gift 
appears in the light of the cross ; how little in con- 
trast with the offerings of many who have laid down 
their lives for Christ's sake ! 

Thus systematic benevolence, instead of being an 
isolated and uninteresting topic, is seen to be a duty 
based on the very nature of piety, and enforced by its 
most affecting motives. 



SUPERIOR EFFICIENCY. 25 



CHAPTER IV. 

SUPERIOR EFFICIENCY OF SYSTEMATIC BE- 
NEVOLENCE IN PROVIDIN& FUNDS FOR 
BENEVOLENT ENTERPRISES. 

System always promotes efficiency. What would 
become of a man's worldly business, if he managed 
it without system, never -executing a plan or making 
an investment till solicited, and abandoning labor to 
the control of impulse or convenience ? And can he 
hope for any better results from a like disregard of 
system as a steward of God ? From such lack of 
order, what but embarrassment and failure can result 
to the enterprises of benevolence ? And what shall 
we say of those professors of Christ's religion who 
show so thorough an understanding of the necessity 
of system in worldly business, so utter a neglect of 
it in their contributions to benevolence : who are full 
of forethought and anxious calculation to realize the 
utmost of worldly acquisition ; deliberate and far- 
sighted in planning, cautious in executing, lynx-eyed 
to discern an opportunity of gain, exact to the last 
fraction in their accounts, but heedless and planless 
in all they do for charity ? Verily, " the children of 
this world are wiser in their generation than the 
children of light;" but "the children of light" show 
no lack of that wisdom, till they come to use prop- 
erty for the benefit of others than themselves. 
8 



26 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

Systematic benevolence will usually dispose the 
giver to increase his contributions. If a man gives 
without system, he will commonly give too little. 
Under the hallowed influences of the closet, let him 
estimate the claims of a world lying in wickedness, 
and the means of benevolence with which God has 
blessed him ; let him ponder what amount of charity 
would be acceptable to God and is demanded by the 
love of Christ ; and it will be strange if he is not con- 
vinced that he ought to increase his donations. 

It is more conveniejit to set apart money for char- 
ity in frequent instalments. He who neglects to pro- 
vide for his charities until the call for them is made, 
may find it inconvenient or impossible to raise at the 
time the one dollar, or the hundred dollars, or what- 
ever sum it is his duty to give. But had he set 
apart a proportion from his earnings as th6y were 
received, he would not be incommoded by giving the 
sum required. Persons even in the most moderate 
circumstances, adopting the practice of systematic 
benevolence, are often surprised at the amount they 
can give without serious inconvenience. 

System will enlarge the amount of money expend- 
ed hi beneficence hy being a barrier against the 
temptations of selfishness. Many a man means to 
answet the calls of charity, but does not weekly or 
monthly set apart a specific sum as sacred to the 
Lord. Hence, when he sees some tempting article 
of luxury, having by him unappropriated the money 



SUPERIOR EFFICIENCY. 27 

which should have been the Lord's, he buys it ; 
when some tempting, though perhaps hazardous in- 
vestment presents, having the money by him unap- 
propriated, he invests it. Thus, through lack of sys- 
tem, many sums in the purses even of the benevo- 
lent are turned aside from the Lord's treasury. Self- 
interest has the advantage in being beforehand and 
having constant access to our hearts. Systematic 
charity helps to put the interest of Christ's cause on 
an equal footing. 

System prevents yielding to second thoughts and ■ 
withholding a purposed charity. Many a man, under 
the influence of a charity sermon, or of the teachings 
of conscience, or of the sight of distress, purposes in 
his heart to give a certain amount. As the subject 
first strikes his unbiassed judgment, such an amount 
seems not too large for the urgency of the case and 
his own means. But selfishness steps in and argues 
the point ; it presents to the man his various wants, 
and pretty soon convinces him that the purposed sum 
is quite too much ; then, forgetting Paul's injunction, 
"Every man, according as he purposeth in his heart, 
so let him give," he gives little or nothing. But let 
a man have a fixed plan, in accordance with which 
he consecrates a fixed proportion to the Lord as reg- 
ularly as he meets his notes when they fall due, or 
pays the expenses of his family, and the matter is 
settled. Here is a breastwork by God's grace im 
pregnable against all the pleading of selfishness. 



28 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

System increases the contributions by maki7ig it 
more pleasant to give. When a man has no sys- 
tem of charity, every call to give is unprovided for : 
if he comply, he must give from money which he 
was expecting to spend otherwise ; it is so much 
taken from what he had reckoned his own ; it seems 
so much dead loss. Hence, every donation chafes 
him ; he is tempted to make it as small as possible ; 
giving comes to be surrounded in his mind with un- 
pleasant associations ; he often looks back with re- 
gret, when he gives any thing, that he gave so much ; 
and the call of charity becomes repulsive. But when 
he systematizes his charities and at stated times sets 
apart to benevolence a sum proportioned to his in- 
come, he no longer reckons that consecrated money as 
his own, or depends on it for the supply of any want. 
When the call of charity is heard, he is not obliged to 
take from what he had reckoned his own, but from 
what was already consecrated to the Lord. He can 
give both largely and cheerfully, and with no draw- 
back from the blessedness of doing good. 

System removes many common excuses of selfish- 
ness for "withholding more than is meet:" "I have 
lately given to another cause ;" " I give as much 
as convenient ;" "I have so many expenses ;" "I 
give as much as others." 

System increases the amount of charities hy form- 
ing habits of benevolence. From earhest life, habits 
of gaining and using money for self have been 



SUPERIOR EFFICIENCY. 29 

strengthening, and these consolidated hahits have 
never been overcome. Even in the church the cov- 
etous use of property is too generally the habit, the 
benevolent use of it only an occasional act. And it 
is but dimly apprehended that the gospel requires it 
to be otherwise. Hence, the gifts of the church are 
exceedingly stinted. To remedy this evil, it is neces- 
sary to make the beneficent use of property the habit 
of the Christian's life, and thus turn to the advantage 
of Christ's cause that law of habit which has been all 
against it. To do this, there must be systematic be- 
nevolence. It were the extreme of folly to think of 
subduing these consolidated habits by desultory ef- 
forts — to send up now and then a platoon of light 
troops against these most massive and well-appointed 
fortifications of selfishness. We must approach them 
by well-concerted, persevering siege, till they fall into 
our hands and the guns are turned against the foe. 
Mere occasional, unsystematized donations scarcely 
make a perceptible impression in subduing selfish and 
forming benevolent habits. But when beneficence 
is systematized, the habit of doing good is formed, it 
moulds the whole life, it becomes second nature, and 
shows in all its results its efficacious vigor. 

These considerations show the duty of Christian 
parents to train their children to the habit of system- 
atically making a benevolent use of money. 

One of the greatest difficulties in the way of ob- 
taining an increase of funds, is found in another influ- 



30 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

ence of this same law of habit. Of those who con- 
tribute regularly to particular causes, and thus have 
made an approach to system, a large portion are in 
the habit of giving from year to year about the same 
sum. The same twenty -five cents, the same dollar, 
or five dollars, stands from year to year against their 
names. The wants of benevolent enterprises in- 
crease, the property of the giver increases, but the 
contribution is stereotyped. The attempt to increase 
this amount breaks up their settled habits of thought 
and action. They have never thought that perhaps 
Christ requires a revision of their whole plan of be- 
nevolence. The adoption of the divine plan of fre- 
quent and proportionate ajipropriations would remove 
this difficulty. 

It must be added, that systematic benevolence may 
be expected by God's blessing to increase the giver's 
means of usefulness. But this thought will be re- 
served for a more extended examination in another 
chapter. 

In these various ways the scriptural system increas- 
es the funds of benevolence. Were it universally 
adopted by the churches, nothing but the experiment 
would show how immense would be the resulting 
increase. Without expense of collecting agencies, 
thousands in the churches who now give nothing, 
would begin to give ; and a permanent and growing 
increase would be realized at once from those who 
have given occasionally. Then would the channels 



I 



SUPERIOR EFFICEINCY. 31 

of benevolence be like " the river of God wliich is 
full of water," and the waters of life issuing from 
the sanctuary with their healing power, would flow 
as the prophet saw in vision, ever swelling to the 
ends of the earth. 

The following facts confirm the argument of this 
chapter. In 1844, Rev. Dr. Bajrd received, in two 
payments, thirty-eight dollars for some benevolent 
cause, from " one of the poor disciples of Jesus;" in 
acknowledging which he says, " The donor of it 
commenced giving, in a strictly systematic manner, 
the tenth part of all the money which he earned 
from the time of his conversion, and through God's 
blessing he has been enabled to give sums from time 
to time, to many, if not all the great enterprises for 
building up the kingdom of our Lord, varying from 
five to twenty -five dollars." 

There is a farmer in one of the retired mountain 
towns of Massachusetts, who began business on his 
farm in 1818, being six hundred dollars in debt. He 
began with the determination to pay the debt in six 
years, in equal instalments, and to give all his net 
income, if any remained, above those instalments. 
The income of the first year, however, was expended 
in purchasing stock and other necessaries for his farm. 
In the six next years he paid off the debt, and hav- 
ing abandoned the intention of ever being any richer, 
he has ever since given his entire income, after sup- 
porting his family and thoroughly educating his six 



32 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENOE. 

children. During all this period he has lived with 
the strictest economy, and every thing pertaining to 
his house, table, dress, and equipage has been in the 
most simple style ; and though he has twice been o 
member of the state senate, he conscientiously re 
tains this simplicity in his mode of life. The farm 
is rocky and remote from the village, and his whole 
property, real and personal, would not exceed in 
value three thousand dollars. Yet sometimes he has 
been enabled to give from $200 to $300 in a year. 

Let it be further considered in this connection, 
that some feasible plan of enlarging the funds of 
henevole7ice must be adopted, in order to realize the 
hopes of the churches from their missionary enter- 
prises. This is apparent from the difficulty of sus- 
taining these enterprises on their present scale. This 
deficiency is not owing to a -want of means in the 
church. There is money in profusion for railroads, 
manufactories, any enterprise which promises a re- 
turn to self But where is the money for the Lord ? 
" The great current of Christian property isas yet 
undiverted from its worldly channel. The scanty 
rills of charity which at present water the garden 
of the Lord, and the ingenuity and effort employed 
to bring them there, compared with the almost 
undiminished tide of selfish expenditure which still 
holds on its original course, remind one of the slen- 
der rivulets which the inhabitants of the East raise 
from a river by mechanical force, to water their 



SUPERIOR EFFICIENCY. 33 

thirsty gardens ; the mighty current meanwhile, 
without exhibiting any sensible diminution of its 
waters, sweeping on in its ample and ancient bed." 

The aggregate of gifts from its members to the 
church was probably larger in the times of its great- 
est corruption than now. When it was believed that 
salvation might be bought by charity, wealth from 
the poor and the rich was lavished on churches and 
monasteries. But as, in the advance of the Refor- 
mation, charities with tliis motive have ceased, the 
churches have failed adequately to bring in the gifts 
of gratitude and love in their stead. It should make 
the ears of him that heareth it to tingle, that in this 
boasted age of progress, this nineteenth century, less 
is probably bestowed in charity by the Protestant 
churches to spread the true gospel through the world, 
than was given in the darkest ages to heap up the 
treasures of the church of Rome — that the love of 
Christ constrains to less valuable gifts than the arts 
and deceptions of a corrupt priesthood. 

But the church is aiming at the conversion of the 
world. It is plain as sunUght that the world cannot 
be supphed with the means of grace without an 
immense enlargement of these operations. It was 
this contrast between the greatness of the enterprise 
which Christians profess to prosecute, and the little- 
ness of the means which they devote to it, that wrung 
from the godly Abeel the exclamation respecting our 
missionary work, " If the great God could despise 

Scrip Benev, 



34 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

his creatures, it would be despicable in his sight." 
There must be some way devised of realizing such 
enlargement, if the world is to be converted. Nor 
is the expectation of realizing it vain. The scrip- 
tural system of benevolence, generally adopted, would 
realize it without embarrassment to the church. 

Let it also be considered, that when God by his 
provideftce proclaims, " Behold, I have set before you 
an open door," " he openeth, and no man shutteth " 
Then, if his church will enter, no obstacles or opposi- 
tion can prevent her triumph. But if his people 
will not enter, presently the door is shut ; and '* he 
shutteth, and no man openeth." Ages may pass be- 
fore, in the revolving cycles of his providence, he will 
open it again. And when thus shut, the costliest 
labors of his church are labors where God is not. 
One day God opens Canaan to the Israelites and 
urges them to go up, assuring them that the Anaks 
and the cities walled and great shall not retard them. 
They will not go. Next day they are all eagerness 
to go, but the door is shut ; the pillar of cloud 
moves not- — they go up only to perish before their 
foes. All history demonstrates this principle — de- 
monstrates, that as we must follow God's movements 
in the circling seasons, would we reap in harvest ; so, 
in the enterprises of benevolence, we must not fall 
behind the workings of his providence, would we 
achieve success. When God in his own spring-time 
drives the ploughshare through the nations, as with 



SUPERIOR EFFICIENCY. 35 

such startling energy he of late has done, then must 
his people cast in the seed of truth ; lest, neglecting 
it, they be compelled to fruitless toil till another 
spring-time returns. And when the time is come to 
set the fore-front of liberty and Christianity face to 
face with the hoary forms of Asiatic despotism and 
idolatry — when God reveals from the bowels of the 
earth the treasure which he had kept hid for this 
very juncture, and calls a population together from 
every land, and a nation is born in a day — then must 
his church bind the new-born state with the sweet 
influences of religion, and guide it to the advance- 
ment of piety in the earth, or it will lift its young 
and giant energies to smite her. God's providence 
never stands still. His church must move with it, 
if she would move effectively — if even she would 
avoid disaster. Hence, the necessity of adopting 
some mode of increasing promptly and efficiently the 
contributions of the church, so as to improve at once 
the precious opportunities which God opens. 

It only remains to add, that the jjrojohecies foretell 
that, in accomplishing the renovation of the world, 
an increase of appropriations to God's treasury, like 
what has been urged, will take place. " The daugh- 
ter of Tyre shall be there with a gift ; the rich 
among the people shall entreat thy favor." " The 
wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gath- 
ered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great 
abundance. In that day shall there be upon the 



36 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

bells of the horses, Holiness to the Lord." " Sure- 
ly the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tar- 
shish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver 
and their gold with them, to the Holy One of Israel." 
*' I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all na- 
tions shall come. The silver is mine, and the gold 
is mine, saith the Lord." Psalm 45 : 12 ; Zechariah 
14 : 14, 20 ; Isaiah 60 : 9 ; Haggai 2 : 7, 8. 

Thus the necessities of benevolent societies, the 
claims of a ruined world, the indications of Provi- 
dence, and the predictions of the Bible, unite in de- 
manding a great increase of benevolent contributions. 
These contributions, as now usually conducted, war- 
rant no hope of realizing this increase. But the 
general adoption of the scriptural plan of frequent, 
systematic, and proportionate charities, will easily 
meet the demand. 



ENLARGES MEANS OF GIVING. 37 

CHAPTEU V. 

TENDENCY OF SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE 
TO SECURE GOD'S BLESSING ON BUSINESS, 
AND TO ENLARGE THE MEANS OF GIVING. 

This is a subject of diiRculty, yet of importance. 
There is danger of extravagant theories on the one 
hand, and on the other, of an unbelief which shuts God 
out of the daily business, and practically denies that 
" godliness has the promise of the life that now is." 

k is not to be supposed that systematic benevo- 
lence will insure wealth. Wealth is, in God's judg- 
ment, too cheap a gift to be made the reward of his 
servants. 

" Wealth on the vilest often is bestowed, 
To show its vileness in the sight of God." 

Multiplied as are God's warnings of the dangers 
attending wealth and the love of it, and his exhorta- 
tions to set the affections above, it would be prepos- 
terous to suppose that he offers wealth as the reward 
of obedience — the gratification of cupidity as the re- 
ward for denying it. And he whose heart is on a 
better portion, whose longings for God and holiness 
forbid his finding satisfaction with any thing less 
than being with God and like him, would feel it the 
bitterest mockery to be turned off with the promise 
of riches as his reward. 

But there are various ivays in wJiich systematic 



88 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

heneficence tends, to promote prosperity . It promotes 
industry, energy, and enterprise. The man has 
placed before himself a lofty object, suited to draw- 
out all his energies. Henceforth he is no trifler, but 
an earnest man, sharing in the very sentiments of 
e?irth's purest and greatest ones. The grand idea of 
toiling to rescue the world from sin never mastered 
a man's soul without enlarging it, without stimulat- 
ing all his faculties to unprecedented vigor, unfolding 
resources not imagined to be in him, and producing a 
concentration and perseverance of action, which can- 
not fail of realizing great results. An account was 
published some years ago of two shoemakers whose 
hearts had begun to glow with zeal for the salva- 
tion of men. The elder proposed to the younger to fit 
himself to preach, promising to support him by his 
labor. The proposal was accepted ; the promise was 
kept. The sublime purpose which had mastered that 
man's soul, and which surrounded his humble shop 
with a grandeur that never ennobled worldly great- 
ness, gave him an energy and industry which enabled 
him to educate his companion, and to sustain him as 
he went out to preach to the destitute. "When Chris- 
tendom shall be full of missionary merchants, farmers, 
and mechanics, plying their business with the sub- 
lime aim of saving mankind from sin, no doubt it 
will be full of energy and industry unsurpassed. 

Nor does the practice of scriptural beneficence 
stimulate the active powers alone. It promotes so 



ENLARGES MEAIXS OF GIVING. 39 

hrtcty ajid economy. With an object so glorious in 
full possession of his soul, the man will have no time 
nor money for gratifying either vicious or luxurious 
desires. What others waste on dress, delicacies, 
oquipage, and show, he will save for the Lord. He 
finds, in advancing the cause to which he is wedded, 
a gratification, compared with wdiich the daintiest 
gratifications of selfishness are insipid. 

Such a course attracts the favor of the good, wins 
their confidence, and if the man be poor, or a youth- 
ful beginner, their friendship gains him employment 
and otherwise promotes his interests. Besides, be- 
ing thrown into company with such, he avoids the 
temptations of evil associates. 

The Jiabits of fidelity to his trust, of icatch fulness, 
system, and exactness, which systematic benevolence 
forms, are the very habits to win for a young man 
respect, employment, and friends, and to lead to a 
judicious management of business through life. 

Systematic benevolence tends to restrain from 
hazardous adventures. In prosperous times, when 
business is brisk and its returns speedy and large, 
men become discontented with slow and steady gains ; 
they "make haste to be rich " and "fall into a snare ;" 
they become inflated with a rash confidence ; they 
rush into hazardous and ruinous adventures and 
speculations ; or the ostentatious desire of displaying 
a large business, tempts to an enlargement beyond 
their means, and to consequent ruin. But when a 



40 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

man has consecrated his business and its gains to the 
Lord, according to the scriptural law of benevolence, 
the feverish haste to be rich abates, and he is less 
tempted to dangerous speculations. Accustomed to 
do business with a sense of constant dependence on 
God, he is not puffed up with rash confidence by 
temporary prosperity. Accustomed to determine 
every enterprise with prayerful seeking God's will, 
and to regard property as sacred to his service, he 
will not thoughtlessly risk the Lord's money in haz- 
ardous adventures. Absorbed with the grand desire 
of aiding Christ's cause, he will be in little danger of 
ostentatious but unsafe expansion. Thus, *' he that 
considereth the poor, shall be blessed upon the earth ;" 
but " he that hasteth to be rich, considereth not that 
poverty shall come upon him." 

It may be added that benevolence, in an impor- 
tant sense, identifies the giver ivith Christ's inter- 
ests, and therefore may naturally be expected to se- 
cure Christ's blessing. The Saviour says, " Inasmuch 
as ye have done it to one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me." He receives 
kito his own bosom every favor to his church, Nor 
ks there any surer ground of expecting the continued 
prosperity of an individual, a church, or a nation, than 
that by their abundant efforts for Christ's kingdom, 
they have identified themselves with his cause, and 
are likely to be carried on in its triumphs. The very 
beast of which it was said, " The Lord hath need 



ENLARGES MEANS OF GIVING. 41 

of him," had his way strewed with palms and gar- 
ments, as it bore the Saviour to Jerusalem. The in- 
dividual or the community that gives abundantly to 
advance religion, is the humble instrument of bearing 
the Saviour onward in his triumph. Of such it may 
reverently be said, " The Lord hath need of them ;" 
and it may reasonably be expected that their way 
will be made prosperous before them. 

In these several ways compliance^ with the scrip- 
tural law of benevolence may tend to temporal pros- 
perity. There may be other ways known only to 
Him who holds all the invisible lines of influence in 
his hand. 

If now we open the Bible, tvefind it full of prom- 
ises of temporal blessings to the benevolent. A few 
must serve as specimens of the many. " Thou shalt 
surely give thy poor brother, and thy heart shall 
not be grieved when thou givest unto him ; because 
that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless 
thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest 
thy hand unto." Deut. 15 : 10. "He that giveth 
to the poor shall not lack." Prov. 28 : 27. " Honor 
the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits 
of all thine increase ; so shall thy barns be filled with 
plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new 
wine," Prov. 3:9. " The liberal soul shall be 
made fat ; and he that watereth shall be watered 
also himself." Prov. 11 : 25. "Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added 
9 



42 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

unto you." Matt. 6 : 33. "Give, and it shall be 
given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and 
shaken together, and running over, shall men give 
into your bosom." Luke 6 : 38. And in urging the 
Corinthians to give, Paul said, " He which soweth 
sparingly, shall reap also sparingly ; and he which 
soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully." 2 
Cor. 9:6.* To these special promises the benevolent 
are entitled. Resting on them, they may give with 
the expectation that the Lord will follow them with 
his blessing and protection. They will not fear want 
while they can hear God saying, " Trust in the Lord 
and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed." The same 
Being who made the Bible, orders the events of prov- 
idence ; and by what he does in the latter, he will 
not contradict what he says in the former. The prin- 
ciples of the Bible fit into all the windings of provi- 
dence, like a key to all the wards of a lock for which 
it was made. Hence, however obscure the plan of 
Providence, and however uncertain what shall be on 
the morrow, he that conducts his business in con- 
formity to all the rules of the Bible, may be sure that 
he has found the track of God's goings in the world, 
and that, if he continue to follow it step by step, it 
will guide him in the way of the divine blessing. 

* See also Matt. 6:3,4; Psa. 37 : 3 ; Prov. 11:24; 19: 17; 
22:9; 25:21; 24: 11, 12; 13: 7; Psa. 41 : 1, 2, 3 ; 112:5, 
6, 9 ; Eccl. 11:1; Isa. 32 : 8 ; 58 : 6-11 ; Mai. 3 : 9-12 ; Dan 
4:27; 2 Cor. 9 : 6, 7, 8, 11. 



ENLARGES MEANS OF GIVING. 43 

It will be seen from the foregoing reasoning, that 
it is not pretended that God's servants will be uni- 
formly led in the way to worldly prosperity, and sin- 
ners visited with adversity in this life. The Bible 
makes no such representation. It teaches, that in 
this probation temporal benefits are scattered on the 
good and the evil, and refers us to the other world 
for the solution of this seeming confusion of right and 
wrong. " When the wicked spring as the grass, and 
when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is 
that they shall be destroyed for ever." It teaches 
that wicked men are prospered, but " the prosperity 
of fools shall destroy them." It teaches that God 
sometimes gives men " their request, but sends lean- 
ness into their souls." Their selfish wishes are grati- 
fied ; but the gift comes, like the quails to the longing 
Israelites, attended by God's curse. Their riches in- 
crease ; bat they wrap the soul in the flames of cov- 
etousness, and " eat as it were fire." Their riches 
increase, but their "portion" is "in this life, and 
in the labor that they take under the sun." They 
are rich as Dives ; yet soon will they be impover- 
ished to beg " a drop of water to cool their tongues." 
Thus, inspiration explains these inequalities, and 
teaches, that " a little which a righteous man hath, 
is better than the riches of many wicked ;" that Eli- 
jah, fed by unclean birds, but receiving his portion 
with God's smile, has no need to envy Ahab, cursed 
in the riches of a palace ; that Lazarus the beggar, 



44 



SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE 



with a home nowhere but in Abraham's bosom, 
is more blessed than Dives with a home nowhere 
but in his own luxurious palace. But at the same 
time it teaches, that he who humbly uses what God 
has given for the honor of the Giver, freely giving 
as he has freely received, may feel at peace in the 
thought, that all his business is blessed with his 
Father's smile. 

Facts corroborate the foregoing sentiments. There 
are, indeed, comparatively few facts to furnish data 
for this argument. Yet the writer knows a consid- 
erable number of instances, in which a greater or 
less approach to scriptural benevolence, has been 
attended with unusual prosperity. Mr. Cobb, whose 
case has been mentioned, giving away a quarter, 
then half, and then three quarters of his income, not 
only became worth $50,000 before the age of thirty- 
six, but gave besides more than $40,000. Normand 
Smith, a saddler of Hartford, Connecticut, after prac- 
tising for years an elevated system of benevolence, 
bequeathed in charity $30,000. An anonymous 
writer says of himself, that he commenced business 
and prosecuted it in the usual way, till he lost $900, 
which was all he was worth, and found himself in 
debt $1,100. Being led by his trials, through God's 
grace, to trust, as he hoped, in Christ, he, at the age 
of forty, determined to take God's word for his guide 
in his business, and consecrated his earnings to the 
Lord. The first year he gave $12. For eighteen 



ENLARGES MEANS OF GIVING. 45 

years, the amount has increased by about 25 per 
cent., and the last year he gave $850 ; and he says, 
he did it easier than, during" the first year, he paid the 
$12. Besides, though with nothing but his hands 
to depend on when he began this course, he paid the 
whole debt of $1,100 with interest, though it took 
him nine years to do it. Jacob went out from his 
father's home " with his staff," a poor man ; but at 
Bethel he vowed to give to God the tenth of all that 
God should bestow on him. Commencing thus, God 
blessed hini, and in twenty years he returned with 
great riches. 

We may also refer to the history of communities, 
in confirmation of the argument. When God issued 
his laws to the Jewish nation, he required, besides 
other liberal offerings, the tenth of all their income. 
We are not to suppose that every specific regulation 
for the Jews is the best for all nations. But in his 
dealings with the Jews, God meant to illustrate the 
principles on which, as to worldly affairs, he deals 
with all ; and this is one reason why their history is 
so minutely recorded. Thus, we find the law of 
tithes and offerings incorporated into their system as 
an exemplification of a universal principle in God's 
dealhigs with men. Many have pitied their unhap- 
py lot in being compelled to give so much ; infidels 
have delighted in the objection that the wretched 
Jews were taxed so terribly for the support of relig- 
ion. But the All-wise knew best what regulations 



46 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

would harmonize with the course of his providence, 
and prescribed accordingly. And it ever proved that 
the nine tenths were worth more to them than the 
ten tenths. If ever, to increase their gains, they 
robbed God by hoarding the tenth, or by bringing 
the lame and the blind, disaster and loss were sure to 
follow. Say not this was all a miraculous interposi- 
tion. Inspiration has only lifted the veil here from 
the workings of that providence which, unseen, un- 
traced, is ever working in the affairs of men on the 
same principles and with the same aim. Say not, 
either, that the tithe was a positive institution. 
True ; and as to its specific form it might, therefore, 
pass away, as it already has. But Avas there ever a 
positive institution of G-od not founded on something 
permanent, either in man's nature or God's scheme 
of providence and grace ? Therefore was the law 
of the tithe founded on a principle as enduring as 
God's government on earth ; and as the tithe was a 
blessing to the Jews, so regard to that principle will 
be always a blessing. We may find facts of the same 
import in modern times. Those churches which are 
most systematic and liberal in their contributions, 
are, without exception, the most prosperous. The 
same is true of nations. The history of New Eng- 
land is a striking instance. The first settlers were 
men who, in a great trial of affliction, and in deep 
poverty, abounded in the riches of their liberality, in 
sustaining schools, and ministers, and colleges, and 



ENLARGES MEANS OF GIVING. 47 

in laying deep a foundation for Christ's kingdom in 
this new world. It is not so fitly said that they con- 
tributed much, as that they offered all to Christ. 
And it is admitted that New England is, and in all 
her history has been preeminent in contributions and 
efforts to sustain every benevolent institution and en- 
teiprise. And where is the state or the nation which 
has ever possessed more of all the elements of true 
prosperity ? 

Bui an appeal to facts in the liistory of churches 
and communities must rest on imperfect data ; for 
where is there one in which the efficiency of the 
scriptural law of bencA'-olence, in developing and en- 
larging the resources of benevolence, has been fully 
put to the test ? 

In closing the argument, the thought may be sug- 
gested, that business, conducted as it is on the max- 
ims of selfishness, when viewed as a system in its 
management and results, presents a picture of any 
thing rather than of permanent and healthy pros- 
perity. The number of business men who fail once 
or oftener in the course of life ; the numbers doing 
business who, should they pay up the as yet unpaid 
debts of their past lives, would strip themselves of 
all or a large part of their present property ; the 
small proportion of those commencing mercantile 
life in cities, who, in the final winding up of their 
affairs, possess a comfortable independence ; the fact 
that the property of those who die rich so often proves 



48 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

a curse to their children, and that so many who are 
born rich, die poor ; the periodical recurrence of a 
^'crash'^ in the commercial world; the alternation of 
commercial prosperity and distress, which for genera- 
tions has marked the history of business, realizing 
the inspired declaration, " He hath swallowed down 
riches, and shall vomit them up again ;" all these 
facts indicate any thing rather than a system of busi- 
ness which, as a whole — whatever may be true of 
individuals — receives the smile and blessing of God ; 
they present evidences of the divine displeasure such 
as might be expected to mark a selfish and ungodly 
system, of busmess. 

The discussion of this part of the subject will not 
have been in vain, if it help to remove the impres- 
sion, that the rules of the gospel cannot be obeyed to 
the last jot and tittle in business, consistently with 
its successful management ; to rebuke the practical 
atheism which shuts God out of the details of daily 
life ; to make men's hearts alive to the thought that 
the hand of God is on their ships, their merchandise, 
their cattle, and their shops ; that the claims of his 
law and the promises of his gospel are twined about 
all the acts and gettings of daily toil, not less than 
about their destiny for the life to come ; and that 
there is a reality here on earth in God's smile on 
those who heed his claims, in his blight and curse 
on those who disregard them. 



ANTIDOTE OF COVETOUSNE SS. 49 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE ANTIDOTE OF COVETOUSNESS. 

CovETorsNESS is deadly in its influence. " Covet- 
ousness is idolatry." It is inconsistent with piety. 
It is unmitigated rebellion against God. It is the 
object of God's abhorrence and curse. It is classed 
by inspiration with fornication, drunkenness, theft, 
and extortion. It is " a temptation and a snare." 
It is unsurpassed in its power to harden the heart 
and make it impervious to divine truth, to deaden 
all the religious sensibilities, and to resist the Spirit 
of God. 

Covetousness is prevalent. The miser is one of 
the most universally abhorred of men. But plume 
not yourself that you are not covetous, because you 
are not a miser. Misers are the rarest specimens of 
this sin. Under other forms, it rankles everywhere. 
You are warned against a covetousness of a more 
respectable appearance. It may exist unsuspected. 
There may be covetousness in saving — parsimony 
under the ''alias'' of frugality, avarice, which never 
parts with money without a twinge. Oftener there 
is covetousness in getting — sometimes rapacity which 
scruples at no means if money may be gained ; but 
much more generally the more respectable form of 
worldhness, keeping within the limits of honesty but 
swallowing all the energies in money-getting, deaden- 

Scrip. B«neT, 



50 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

ing the benevolent susceptibilities, pinching and shriv- 
elling the soul, living only to " buy and sell and get 
gain." Covetousness may be found even in connec- 
tion with prodigality : greediness to acquire, to supply 
the extravagance of expense. It enslaves multitudes 
who are neither misers in hoarding, nor rapacious 
nor extortionate in getting. In its diversified forms 
it is one of the most prevalent of the vices, and often, 
under its various disguises, honored rather than con- 
demned ; as it is written, " The wicked blesseth the 
covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth." 

And there is a liability to become covetous and to 
groiv in covetousness, to the existence and dangers 
of which the most of men seem not to be awake. 
In the prosecution of business, the love of money is 
frei^zing deeper and harder into their souls, and seal- 
ing up the springs of benevolence, and they know it 
not. One remarkable feature in the Saviour's teach- 
ing, is the frequency and earnestness with which he 
rebuked this sin, and pointed out the dangers of 
wordly acquisitions. He exposed it in the mansions 
of wealth and the circles of devotion, in the temple 
and in the street, in amiable inquirers after salvation, 
in Pharisaical professors and vicious publicans. His 
warning was, ''Take heed and beivare of covetous- 
ness. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." The 
frequency and earnestness of his warnings contrast 
strangely with the eagerness and security with which 
his professed followers make haste to be rich, and 



ANTIDOTE OF COVE TOUSNE SS. 51 

Bhov/ that he saw a danger imminent and prevalent 
to which they are strangely blind. We do not vary 
from the spirit of his teachings in saying, that covet- 
ousness is the most common, the most insidious, and 
the most dangerous form of selfishness, the one which 
the most deadens the church, and is the most likely 
to crush it. 

A little consideration will show the reality of this 
danger. " Money answereth all things." It is the 
representative of all commodities and the means of 
procuring them. It is natural that selfishness should 
fasten with peculiar strength on an acquisition which 
is the quintessence of all objects of desire. Besides, 
men are necessarily occupied during the most of their 
waking hours in earning money. To this end the 
thoughts must plan and the hands must toil. It is 
natural that what so occupies the man should grad- 
ually grow upon his mind ; as a picture long gazed 
at intently, gradually fills the eye and enlarges to the 
dimensions of a real landscape. Especially must 
this result be expected, when the object which thus 
occupies the attention is one so pleasing to the selfi&h 
heart. 

Besides, it is the nature of covetousness to grow by 
what it feeds on. Acquisitions increase its strength, 
In accordance with this well-known fact, the ten- 
dency of gainful business is to make the man more 
covetous. 

These tendencies would be exceedingly strong, and • 



52 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

would need to be most diligently guarded against, 
under circumstances the most favorable to benevo- 
lence. But they are strengthened by outward cir- 
cumstances. 

There is a perverted public sentiment, a prevalent 
overvaluing of wealth, which silently sinks into the 
inmost soul — the scarcely acknowledged, yet control- 
Hng feeling, that wealth is the great good of human 
existence, which has incorporated itself into our very 
language; so that "to do well," "to be success- 
ful," "to accomplish much in life," are phrases sy- 
nonymous with making much money ; " gain " is 
equivalent in our language to " filthy lucre " in God's, 
and " goods " on our lips, is " the unrighteous mam- 
mon" on Christ's; and a late writer has suggested 
the idea, that we speak of a man as being ''worth 
much," or " worth nothing," as if all worth centred 
in money. 

Worldliness, too, is the general character of the 
community, and a man finds few examples of scrip- 
tural benevolence, to show him his own selfishness 
by contrast, and to stimulate him to beneficence. 

It is also an important circumstance, that the man 
has been trained from childhood under worldly influ- 
ences ; he has seen, perhaps, that whatever their pro- 
fessions, the chief actual anxiety of his parents con- 
cerning him has been to have him making money, 
and that to get him "a good situation," and a "situ- 
ation where he can make money," and to "give him 



ANTIDOTE OF CO VE TOUSNE S3. 53 

a good start," and to " start him well in the career 
of acquiring property," mean in their minds about 
the same thing ; and that in all his training for busi- 
ness, he is taught that "the main chance" is to 
make monej^ and in eflect, that a man's life doe& 
consist in the abundance of the things that he pos- 
sesseth. From childhood he has been indoctrinated 
by precept and example with the maxims of worldly 
policy, rather than the principles of benevolence — 
with the proverbs of " Poor E-ichard " respecting 
property, rather than the precepts of Jesus Christ. 

All these circumstances tend to make wealth the 
central idea of the mind, to beget a materializing, 
deadening worldliness, to blight benevolence, and to 
make men as laborious and untiring in their business, 
and at the same time as callous to the interests of 
others, as so many iron steam-engines at their work. 
The pious and benevolent, who mingle constantly in 
business, know that the danger is imminent ; they 
know that the maintenance of benevolence is opposed 
by silent but powerful influences, with which contact 
with the world every day surrounds them ; and they 
tremble at their own liability to fall under the insid- 
ious but fatal power of covetousness. It is alarm- 
ingly easy for gold and silver to " canker," and the 
love of it to become an eating cancer on the soul. 
Hence, the multitudes whose benevolence never grows 
with their riches ; who, when rich, give nothing like 
the proportion which they gave when poor ; nay, 



54 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

who give no more — who give less than they gave 
then. Hence is explained the admitted fact, that the 
greater part of the funds of benevolent associations 
comes from those of moderate means. Hence arises 
the general necessity of agents for collecting funds, 
and of the most pungent appeals for contributions. 
Have you ever considered seriously your own danger, 
and taken measures to guard against it ? If not, your 
very thoughtlessness is presumptive evidence that you 
are already consuming with the love of money. 

We see, then, that the path of worldly business is 
fraught with constant danger of a deadly evil. He 
who sets out on that path must climb a snow-capped 
mountain, where every step is along icy precipices, 
where the air chills to the heart the spiritual life, 
where every touch is upon nipping frost, and where 
the cold is perpetually producing a sleepiness almost 
resistless, but which, if indulged, will be the sleep of 
death. It is, then, a question of spiritual life or 
death, " How shall I do my necessary business, and 
escape covetousness — benumbing, paralyzing, deadly 
covetousness?" Alas, that Christians so seldom ask 
this question — so little take the tremendous meaning 
of Christ's assertion, " Ye cannot serve God and mam- 
mon " — so little realize the danger which gives the 
thrilling emphasis to his warning, '* Take iieed and 
BEWARE of covetousness." 

He who knows what is in man, has provided a 
safegimrd against this danger. He has, indeed, so 



ANTIDOTE OF C OVE TOUSNE SS. 55 

contrived the plan of salvation, that all the motives 
of the gospel, radiating as they do from the cross of the 
Son of God offering the stupendous sacrifice of himself, 
may bear directly against selfishness and tend to unfold 
self-sacrificing benevolence. But this is not all. He 
has enjoined systematic benevolence. This is God's 
remedy for covetousness. Infinite wisdom vrould not 
trust to unsystematized contributions, knowing that 
irregular efforts, sustained by no habit, no fixed time, 
no predetermined plan, giving way to every casual 
expenditure, would be but a slender barrier against 
a tendency so constant and powerful. God requires 
systematic and proportionate benevolence. 

This plan is most beautifully fitted to this design. 
It accords with the laws of the human mind. There 
is no way of subduing one of our active propensities, 
but by refusing it indulgence, and so starving it to 
death. This the scheme of benevolence does to the 
sinful love of money. As fast as treasures are gained, 
it tears them from the gloating eye of covetousness 
to consecrate them to the Lord. It compels the man 
to give something from the wages of every day, from 
the profits of every enterprise and investment. Thus, 
drop by drop, it drains the lifeblood of that giant pas- 
sion. And as the gains enlarge, God follows with 
his enlarging claims : should money come into the 
hands by thousands a year, there would be none left 
as food for covetousness, and the man would be ne- 
cessitated to obey the command, " If riches increase, 



56 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

set not your heart upon them." And there is no 
way of strengthening our active propensities hut by 
exercising them. Therefore God's rule requires ap- 
propriations to charity every week, that benevolence 
may be strengthening itself by frequent exercise, and 
the disposition to give be consolidated by habit ; it 
requires appropriations from all the earnings, that 
benevolence may preside in every department, and 
the heart, kept always open, may have no opportu- 
nity to contract ; and it requires appropriations pro- 
portionate to the means, that whereas covetousness 
naturally grows by increasing acquisitions, this ad- 
vantage may be wrested from it and given to benev- 
olence. Thus the practice of this scheme becomes, 
with God's grace, like a fire-proof coat, in which the 
wearer may walk collectedly in the fiercest furnace 
of worldliness, and " not the smell of fire pass on 
him." It is impossible, according to the laws of the 
mind, to practise on this plan without continually 
weakening covetousness and strengthening benevo- 
lence ; nay, the wonted influence of worldly pursuits 
is reversed : by pouring treasures into the lap avarice 
is starved, while even by the toils of money-getting 
benevolence is exercised and strengthened. Thus, 
by the very processes of business the power of benev- 
olence goes on enlarging, till she stands up in her 
godlike majesty, the queen of the soul, and crushes 
beneath her heel the tyrant that had enslaved it. 
We must not leave this part of the subject with- 



ANTIDOTE OF COVETOUSNESS. 57 

out considering its bearing on the community, as we 
have already considered its bearing on the individual. 
Since the revival of commerce, the vi^arlike spirit of 
chivalry, the love of martial glory and of conquest 
have been gradually giving place to the spirit of 
trade; this spirit has been gradually extending, till 
it has become, more than any other, the controlling 
influence in the world. This change constitutes an 
era in history, the causes, development, and effects 
of which are worthy of the most serious study. 
-While it has produced many happy effects, as in mit- 
igating the spirit of war, it is yet a problem what 
results it will finally work out — a problem which, 
alarming as already is the tendency of the public 
mind to covetousness, is one of the most momen- 
tous subjects now demanding the attention of phi- 
lanthropists. There is an absorption of all interests 
and energies in money-getting, such as was never 
witnessed in the world before. Under this stimulus 
the country is filling with power-looms, steam-en- 
gines, and telegraphs, and energies and resources are 
employed in the prosecution of peaceful business, 
which would once have been more than enough to 
build the pyramids or to conquer the world. We 
acknowledge all the blessings of these inventions. 
But while every orator and every newspaper is 
dwelling on our commerce whitening every sea, oui 
enterprise penetrating every country, on the mir- 
acle-working of the iron horse and the lightning 
10 



58 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

messenger, on our boundless territory and exhaustless 
resources ; and while a manufacturing city is laid 
out in an uninhabited spot, and built up in a year or 
two, as the early settlers would have built a frame 
house — we cannot blind ourselves to the alarming 
tendency in the public mind to regard these things 
as the sum total of all prosperity and the essentials 
of all blessedness ; nor to the fact that the energies 
which are so effective in aiding the acquisition of 
wealth, are scarcely less effective in stimulating the 
love of it. We cannot blind ourselves to the danger 
that the love of money will become more and more 
the ruling influence, absorbing into itself even that 
powerful passion, ambition ; swallowing up the love 
of office in the love of the salary ; overshadowing the 
enterprises of religion by the gigantic and spirit-stir- 
ring achievements of business ; drawing the church 
into the current of the world, and making its mem- 
bers^undistinguishable in their pursuit of money from 
worldlings ; nullifying the influence of the means of 
grace, choking the word and making it unfruitful, 
and finally overwhelming in worldliness the piety of 
the church — the danger that the spirit of trade, not 
checked as it should be, by a contrary example from 
the good, will engulf the nation in a Dead sea of 
cupidity and luxury, or degenerate into that merce- 
nary spirit which, reckless of honor and virtue, un- 
scrupulous, untrusty, rapacious, despicable, has no 
principle but the Judas question, " What will ye give 



ANTIDOTE OF COVE TOUSNE SS. 59 

me ?" no measure of good and evil but the profit 
and loss of dolkrs and cents. 

Systematic benevolence is God's appointed safe- 
guard against this danger. Practised generally and 
from the heart, it will introduce a loftier end of exist- 
ence than the acquisition of property ; will ennoble 
the pursuit of business by the spirit of love ; will 
hold up a spiritual and sublime principle in antago- 
nism to the materializing tendencies of the spirit of 
trade ; will make civilization centre no longer on. 
wealth, but on " charity that seeketh not her own," 
and thus will form it into a civilization pure, gener- 
ous, heavenly, expressing in every aspect the godhke 
purpose of doing good ; a civilization uncursed by 
want, ignorance, and crime, unblighted by oppres- 
sion, unclouded by irreligion, because wherever were 
misery and degradation, millions of hearts will throb 
in pity, millions of hands be extended and purses be 
opened to relieve ; a civilization which we see only in 
bright glimpses revealed in the prophecies of Grod. 

From all these views of the relations of the sub- 
ject to covetousness, it is plain that, to the church, 
systematic benevolence is a first duty of self-preser- 
vation. She has no walls and battlements but her 
own active benevolence, no army with banners but 
her sons and her daughters toiling to do good. If the 
church do not bless the world, she must be buried in 
it. If the piety of the church, as it makes its way 
through this wilderness, do not, like a fertilizing 



CO SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

stream, make all its banks " rejoice and blossom as 
the rose," it must be swallowed up in it like a river 
lost in the desert sands which it fails to make fruit- 
ful. But let the scriptural law of charitable appro- 
priations be adopted, and thus let benevolence keep 
pace with advancing business, following it into every 
new path, and laying her gentle hand on all its un- 
folding resources, then will covetousness wither amid 
increasing enterprise, and benevolence will unfold 
with an energy rivalling the energies of business, and 
making them her ministers. Then the enterprises of 
religion, no longer cast into the shade by the achieve- 
ments of worldliness, will encircle the earth with a 
vastness and a vigor more amazing than the triumphs 
of commerce and manufactures, and the miracles of 
modern art. 

We must gratefully notice the remarkable coinci- 
dence of God's providence in calling his children to 
great enterprises, and in opening the world for un- 
limited effort, at the very time when, from the 
unprecedented pressure of worldliness, there is un- 
precedented need of such counteraction to covetous- 
ness. Let Christians understand that it is God's 
mercy which multiplies the calls to give, to save 
them from the multiplied assaults of covetousness. 
Let them know that they neglect these calls at 
their peril — the peril of perishing in covetousness, 
of drowning in the "destruction and perdition" of 
them " that will be rich." 



SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENTS. Ql 



CHAPTER VII. 

SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE ESSENTIAL TO 
THE HIGHEST SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENTS. 

Alms-giving was thought so important in the an- 
cient church, that it used to be called one of the wings 
of prayer ; and the angel seems to have placed them 
side by side as means of access to God's favor, when 
he said to Cornelius, "Thy prayers and thine ahns 
are come up for a memorial before God." So Christ 
said, "If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous 
mammon, who will commit to your trust the true 
riches?" plainly declaring the intimate connection, 
now so little appreciated, between high spiritual at- 
tainments and the right use of property. In the 
duty of systematic benevolence, then, may be found 
an essential requisite, seldom thought of, for securing 
that elevated tone of piety, the want of which is so 
much lamented. 

It produces a more vigorous and elevated tone of 
piety by givi7ig to love that exercise ivhich is essen- 
tial to its health and groivth. Love is the essence 
of piety ; and it is as preposterous to expect it to 
thrive without the habitual exercise of beneficence, 
as to expect the body to be healthy in perpetual in- 
action. Piety cannot thrive as an ineffectual sen- 
sibility, exhausting itself on its own emotions in 
the heart ; but from the spiritual affections of the 



6S SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

inmost soul, it must issue, a transforming and control- 
ling influence, pervading the whole life. It is a life- 
blood, which it is death to drive back on the heart ; 
which as the only condition of health, must flow 
through the whole being, and throb with living 
power in the remotest and minutest acts. This con 
dition of spiritual health systematic benevolence is 
indispensable to secure ; and thus it is essential to 
meet one of the greatest wants of the churches, and 
to remove one of the greatest, though not one of the 
most noticed obstacles to higher attainments in the 
spiritual life. 

It aids growth in grace hy promoting a con?,tant 
intimacy with God. It requires the will of God to 
be considered in every act of business, and links every 
expenditure with a regard to his glory. "The hand 
of God is recognized in our worldly affairs ; his pres- 
ence is invited, so to speak, into the very heart of our 
prosperity, whence the world is most anxious to ex- 
clude him, invited to audit the account of our gains." 
Thus it leads to "walk with God," 

It awakens a deeper earnestness for the salvation 
of tnen, and of course, a greater fervor in prayer. 
It is a law of our natures, that doing kind deeds to 
others strengthens our love for them more than re- 
ceiving kind deeds from them. We love most those 
for whom we do most. Hence, the more we do ibr 
the welfare of men, the more we shall feel and pray 
for them. Thus systematic charity keeps the spirit 



SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENTS. 63 

of prayer lively and the religious feelings tender and 
fresh. He who practises it will be likely to become 
an eminent Christian, entering with all his heart 
into every effort to do good, sympathizing in every 
feeling with the soul of Christ, and electric to every 
touch with his loving and self-sacrificing spirit. 

It concentrates, the energies, and thus favors spir- 
itual growth. [t prevents the division of purpose 
which is the great hinderance of success, fills, enlarg- 
es, and nerves the soul with the sublime purpose of 
doing good, and bending every power ta that one 
object, enables us to say with Paul's earnestness, 
" This one thing we do." 

But its most important influence in promoting the 
spiritual growth, is in counteracting the deadening 
injlicences of worldly business. It has already been 
considered as the antidote for covetousness. In thus 
grappling directly with this mother sin, it withers 
the strength of some of the most powerful tempta- 
tions, and exerts a varied and extensive influence in 
unfolding the whole Christian character in its beauty. 
It extracts the poison from worldly pursuits ; it coun- 
teracts their usual perniciousness ; and not only so, 
it compels them to become actually helpers to growth 
in piety, as the exercise and discipline of heavenly 
aflection ; so that Christians may be 

"Like ships in seas, while in, above the world," 
and all the agitations of busy life be but the bounding 
billows which bear them on their appointed course. 



64 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

It is a common impression that the highest excr 
cise of rehgion is incompatible with the highest ac- 
tivity and enterprise in worldly business ; that as 
business increases, the activity of piety must decline ; 
and that revivals are not to be looked for in those 
periods when business is peculiarly urgent. This im- 
pression is wholly unscriptural. The Bible requires 
us at the same time to be "not slothful in business, 
fervent in spirit, serving the Lord" — a requirement, 
plainly, that fervor and activity in God's service go 
hand in hand with fervor and activity in business. 
Nothing is plainer than that the whole system of pre- 
cepts, promises, and warnings in the Bible is adapted 
to man amid the annoyances, temptations, and cares 
of every-day business. Should a man become a her- 
mit for the better exercise of religion, he would find 
a large part of the Bible wdth no applicability to his 
circumstances. Besides, such a withdrawal is im- 
possible, for necessity is on the most of men to spend 
their time in business. God requires them to be in- 
dustrious in some useful calling. To suppose Goa 
requires a piety which it is impossible to exercise in 
its higher degrees in the midst of that business which 
his providence makes necessary and his law enjoins, 
is to charge God with unreasonable and inconsistent 
requirements. 

But such an impression prevails. Not only so, but 
it is certain that business, as usually conducted, jus- 
tifies it ; for it has tendencies almost sure to check 



SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENTS. 65 

the growth of the Christian, so that the good feeling 
aroused in the closet or on the Sabbath is benumbed 
as by the shock of a torpedo, as soon as he takes his 
worldly affairs in hand ; and it has tendencies to pre- 
vent the unconverted from attending to religion, and 
to harden them in hopeless inpenitence. Business 
occupies the time so that the prayer-meeting is neg- 
lected, and sometimes the family altar, the closet, 
and the word of God ; so that the fatigue of exces- 
sive toil through the week causes slumber in the sanc- 
tuary, or is made an excuse for absence. Sometimes 
the pressure of business, or the fear that machinery 
will lose a few hours in the week, leads to flagrant, 
perhaps habitual profanation of God's day. Busi- 
ness occupies the thoughts, so that all the week long 
nothing else obtains a lodgment in the mind, and 
though the body be in God's house on the Sabbath, 
the thoughts are on the world ; and thus, like one 
perishing in the water, the man of business scarcely 
gets his head above the worldliness which ingulfs 
him, to catch a breath of the pure air of heavenly 
life. And worse than all, his business seizes his 
heart ; there is a fascination about it which draws to 
itself all his affections and energies. " He makes 
gold his hope, and says to the most fine gold, * Thou 
art my confidence.' " In short, it is tending perpet- 
ually to make him at last a worldling, for whom the 
claims of benevolence and the schemes of philan- 
thropy have lost their charm, who has no eye for the 

Scrip. Beu«v. 



66 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

glories of heaven, no ear for the terrors of hell ; 
who heeds his "piece of land," his "merchandise," 
his " five yoke of oxen," more than the invitations 
of mercy and the attractions of the cross ; whose 
heart is in his purse, and his life circumscribed to his 
farm, his counting-room, or his shop ; who as to spir- 
itual life is dead and buried in worldliness, and his 
prosperity is but the magnificent monument of his 
soul's burial-place, on which all who weep his un- 
timely ruin, may read with shuddering the inscrip- 
tion which God's finger has engraved : " Lo, this is 
the man that made not God his strength, but trusted 
in the abundance of his riches." " So is he that lay- 
eth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward 
Godr 

Systematic benevolence restrains this pernicious 
influence of business. But mere restraint is not all. 
It is not enough to ask how business is to be kept from 
injuring the church. Doing business is not necessa- 
rily serving mammon, therefore not necessarily the 
antagonist of serving God. It is dangerous for Chris- 
tians to stand merely on the defensive here, and 
think merely to shield religion from the onslaught of 
worldliness. We must go further. The question 
must be, " How shall we bring business within the 
pale of religion, make it a part of religion, and an 
aid to its growth ? How make it help in exercising 
and strengthening piety, as really as does prayer?" 
The Bible requires business to be thus identified with 



SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENTS. 67 

God's service, and never will the church be saved 
from wasting worldliness and grow to her full stature 
in piety, till she carries the war into the enemy's ter- 
ritory, " overcomes the world," and makes it tribu- 
tary to herself; and that, not merely by securing the 
silver and gold for her enterprises, but by securing 
in the very acts of worldly business a discipline of 
piety and an exercising and strengthening of grace. 
Business must occupy almost all the time of the 
most of God's children : how preposterous to expect 
them to make great attainments in piety if this busi- 
ness, like a poisoned atmosphere, is perpetually en- 
feebling their strength ; if their religion is confined 
for its sources of nourishment to the Sabbath and the 
closet, and during almost their entire waking exist- 
ence, is helplessly exposed to an ever-blighting agency 
from their own pursuits. They must bind their 
business on God's altar, or it will bind them on the 
altar of mammon. 

The practical separation of business from religion, 
the belief that the former is necessarily antagonisti- 
cal to the latter, and conducting it so as to make it 
so, are among the principal causes why the tone of 
piety is so low, and the mass of the church are but 
babes in Christ. Nor till this difficulty is removed 
have we a right to expect the church to " look forth 
as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, 
and terrible as an army with banners." 

Systematic benevolence is a most important and 



68 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

an indispensable agency in making business a helper 
and not a foe to the rehgious growth. When a man 
acts on this principle, his place of business becomes 
a Bethel ; every transaction becomes like a renewal 
of his consecration to God ; money and bills and la- 
bor are associated with his obligations to his Master, 
and fragrant with the memory of the cross ; and like 
the attraction drawing every part of the earth and 
binding it to the sun, divine love fastens its attrac- 
tion on every possession, on eveiy toil, and every 
gain, and binds him with all that he has to God 
the centre of his whole life's orbit. Then he is 
intimate with God not less on the exchange or the 
farm, than in the closet. Then his whole course of 
life becomes a help and not a hinderance to his spirit- 
ual progress ; and like a healthy child, he grows 
steadily and unconsciously amid the ceaseless activ- 
ity of life. 

IToimand Smith, when roused to a more entire con- 
secration to God, falling in with the common notion 
that a life of secular business is incompatible with a 
life of eminent usefulness and piety, seriously pur- 
posed to abandon it. But more scriptural views led 
him to continue in business, consecrating it to God. 
He put on record the " purpose to engage in my busi- 
ness, that I may serve God in it, and with the expec- 
tation of getting to give." His biographer says, 
" From that time it was observable by all who knew 
him, that he made rapid progress in religion. There 



SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENTS. 69 

was a fervor and engagedness of spirit, a purity and 
elevation of aim, that could not be misunderstood or 
concealed. He rose towards heaven like the lark of 
the morning." From that time "he found no ten- 
dency in his worldly engagements to chill his piety, 
or to enchain his affections to the earth. His busi- 
ness became to him a means of grace, and helped 
him forward in the divine life, just as truly as read- 
ing the Scriptures and prayer." 

When a similar habit shall become general in the 
church, one of the most important steps will have 
been taken to secure that elevation of piety for 
which as yet we sigh in vain ; and the law of love, 
now written in Christ's word, will be written on the 
hearts of his disciples and read by all the world in 
their lives. 

Says President Edwards of alms-giving, " There is 
no external duty, by which persons will be so much 
in the way, not only of receiving temporal benefits, 
but also spiritual blessings, the influences of God's 
Spirit in the heart in divine discoveries and spiritual 
consolations." " That this is one likely means to 
obtain assurance, is evident from 1 John, 3 : 18, 19, 
* My little children, let us not love in word, neither 
in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby 
we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure 
our hearts before him.' " " If God's people in this 
land were once brought to abound in such deeds oi 
love, nothing would have a greater tendency to bring 



70 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

the God of love down from heaven to earth ; so ami- 
able would be the sight in the eyes of our loving and 
exalted Redeemer, that it would soon as it were fetch 
him down from his throne in heaven, to set up -his tab- 
ernacle with men on the earth and dwell with them." 
" The late remarkable revival of religion in Saxony, 
which began by the labors of the famous professor 
Franke, and has now been carried on for above thirty 
years, and has spread its happy influences into many 
parts of the world, was begun and has been carried 
on by a wonderful practice in this duty." Thoughts 
on the Revival, part 5, sect. 3. 



BLESSING THE CHURCH. 71 



CHAPTER YIII. 

SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE INCREASES THE 
SPIRITUAL POWER OF THE CHURCH. 

The increase of spiritual power will be the neces- 
sary consequence of the increase of piety. And by 
promoting an increase of piety, systematic benevo- 
lence imparts an efficacy to the prayers and teach- 
ings of the church, an influence to her character, a 
success to her enterprises, a mightiness through- God 
to the pulling down of strong holds, such as money 
cannot bestow. 

Here, also, we may consider principally its influ- 
ence in counteracting worldliness. No argument is 
oftener urged against religion than that founded on 
the alleged inconsistencies of its professors. The 
chief foundation for this plea, so far as it has any, is 
the conformity of Christians to the world in all the 
aims, the maxims, and the manner of getting and 
spending money, so that too commonly. Christians, 
away from their devotions, can scarcely be distin- 
guished from the better sort of worldlings. Let the 
scriptural law of benevolence be usually obeyed ; let 
the world behold Christians actuated by the sublime 
desire to do good in all their gettings and their expen- 
ditures, and consecrating spontaneously to the Lord 
as he hath prospered them ; let it be seen, when men 
become Christians, by the change in their pursuit of 



72 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

earthly treasure, that they have found a better poi- 
tion, and now have their hearts and then* treasure in 
heaven ; and the church will stand up before the 
world with a consistency and elevation of piety which 
will prove that gainsaying springs only from opposi- 
tion to goodness — with a triumphant power which 
will compel the exclamation, " God is in the midst 
of her; she shall not be moved" — with a manifest 
and practical renunciation of the world, like that 
which in the apostles' days compelled both Jews and 
Gentiles to confess the reality and feel the power of 
religion, and which, reappearing in the church, will 
go far towards restoring the like rapidity and glory 
to her conquests. 

It would be ungrateful, indeed, not to acknow- 
ledge, among the striking characteristics of this age, 
the revival, in a degree, of the benevolent and mis- 
sionary spirit of apostolic times. We hail it as an 
omen of good ; we have marked already its happy 
results ; we wait as " they that watch for the morn- 
ing," for " the glory that should follow." But alas, 
how much in vain I For the icebergs and snow- 
fields of the long winter still linger, and the piercing 
winds from them wither the plants of righteousness 
and keep back the buds of promise, and when we 
might be looking for the luxuriance of summer, be- 
hold the lingering, frost-bitten growth of a backward 
and chilling spring. 

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, and 



BLESSING THE CHURCH 73 

prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I 
will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour 
you out a blessing, that there shall not be room 
enough to receive it." We so constantly spiritual- 
ize this text, as to forget that its literal and proper 
application is to contributions to the Lord's treas- 
u?'y. Paying these fully is declared here to be the 
condition of God's great blessing. Let this chal- 
lenge of the Most High be accepted. Let his sin- 
cerity in it be — as for generations past, by the church 
generally, it has not been — put to the test. Let his 
disciples "prove" him, by giving all that he requires, 
and see if, through its direct and indirect influence, 
it will not elevate the piety and enlarge the power 
and successes of the church — if spiritual stupidity 
will continue to be, for the larger portion of the time, 
the lamentation of the churches at home, and slow 
and limited success the history of benevolent opera- 
tions abroad. 



11 



74 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE, 



CHAPTER IX. 

SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE PROMOTES 
HAPPINESS. 

It is a privilege to give, and a reason for thankful- 
ness to have the opportunity and the means. Money- 
given to the Lord leaves a sweetness like the per- 
fume of the alabaster-box of precious ointment, fill- 
ing the soul long after the offering has been poured 
out. Those who have given most regularly and in 
the largest proportion, remember with the most joy- 
ous gratitude what God has enabled them to do. 
When David and his people had contributed im- 
mense treasures "willingly" to build the temple, we 
read that " the people rejoiced, and David the king 
also rejoiced with great joy. And David said, Our 
God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. 
But what am I, and what is my people, that we 
should be able to offer so willingly after this sort ? 
for all things come of thee, and of thine own have 
we given thee." The first Christian converts, after 
"parting their goods to all men," "did eat their meat 
with gladness." Mr. Cobb said, " By the grace of 
God — 7tothing else — by the grace of God, I have been 
enabled to give more than $40,000. How good the 
Lord has been to me!'' Said a man in moderate 
circumstances, who was giving his whole net income, 
" I could not feel happy to spend the money on my- 



PROMOTES HAPPINESS. 75 

self, while so much is to be done for the needy and the 
perishing. I could not enjoy myself if I should do 
it." At another time, when necessary extra expen- 
ses greatly diminished his charities for a time, he 
said, " I find it one of my greatest trials, that I can- 
not do more for the heathen." 

Systematic benevolence promotes happiness by its 
influence in subduing covetousness and strengthen- 
ing benevolence. 

As we have already seen covetous-ness to be a 
principal hinderance to the spiritual groivth and the 
spiritual power of the church, so now we find it a 
hinderance to spiritual enjoyment — nay, to human 
happiness in the broadest sense. And that same 
divine scheme which we have already seen to be 
essential, chiefly by its influence in subduing covet- 
ousness, to the growth of the church's piety and the 
advancement of its triumphs, we now see to be es- 
sential, in the same way, to happiness. This com- 
bined view of these arguments may show us at once 
the far-reaching and appalling dangers of covetous- 
ness, and the simplicity, efficacy, and unfailing adapt- 
edness of God's scheme of prevention. 

The covetous or selfish scheme of doing business 
is alivays tormenting. It is accompanied by great 
anxiety. He who does business on this system is 
perpetually anxious and chafed, feverish with an ex- 
citement and perturbation, which are avoided by him 
who calmly does business for the Lord, and asks only 



76 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

what the Lord w^ould have him do. "What shall I 
do for the hundred talents which I have given to 
the king of Israel ?" is like the feverish questioning of 
the former. "The Lord is able to give thee much 
more than this," is like the trustful reply of the latter. 
Normand Smith incidentally shows what a preser- 
vative he had found for unruffled calmness amid the 
annoyances of business, by the following entry in his 
diary : "I have forgotten and broken my resolutions 
to conduct all to the glory of God. This has been 
manifested in my being fretted at what I deemed 
untimely calls for settlement and for debts." He 
seems to imply that so long as he adhered to his 
"resolutions," fretting at the annoyances of business 
was not a thing to be expected. A man who for 
years has been doing business in one of our cities on 
the scriptural plan of benevolence, but who had pre- 
viously done business otherwise, says of himself, that 
** the anxiety, the feverish excitement, and the im- 
patience to get the news and the results of sales, or 
the results of their own business operations, which 
merchants, speculators, and others are continually 
burdened with, and at times almost to distraction, 
and from which there seems to be little or no pros- 
pect of relief, all such perturbations of mind, com- 
mon to others, were once common to his experience ; 
but he ?^o^^; seldom feels any thing of the kind ; for 
he has learned in his Bible to ' cast his burden on 
the Lord.' " 



PROMOTES HAPPINESS. 77 

Besides, upon the covetous or selfish scheme of 
business, a man can never be satisfied. " He that 
loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he 
that loveth abundance with increase." This senti 
ment has been in the mouths of the wise from Solo- 
mon's day till now. Its truth must for ever cut off 
the covetous man from solid contentment. The 
more he acquires, the more he wants ; and in the 
midst of the greatest acquisitions, he remains the 
very realization of those lean and ill-favored kine 
which devoured all that was fair and thriving before 
them, only to remain as lean, as ill-favored, and as 
voracious as ever. There has appeared in the news- 
papers a horrible story about a man who had an 
enormous tape- worm in his stomach : however much 
the man ate, it was devoured by the ugly reptile 
within, nourishing itself to greater bulk and voracity 
thereby, while the wretched man was wasting in the 
torment of perpetual starvation. "Whether the story 
be true or false, it is a lively picture of covetousness. 
That is a worm in the soul, nourishing itself to 
greater strength and voracity by every acquisition, 
and wasting the soul in the agony of perpetual want. 
Relief, sought in vain by trying to satisfy, can come 
only by killing the devouring desire — by killing it 
speedily, before it proves itself "the worm that never 
dies." 

It is related in the history of ancient Rome, that 
an immense chasm once opened in the midst of the 



78 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

city. The superstitious Romans, to appease the god 
whose anger, they supposed, had opened the abyss, 
threw in the costhest garments and the richest treas- 
ures ; but in vain. At last one of the most distin- 
guished nobles put on his richest armor, and mounting 
his steed leaped into the abyss, and it closed. Covet- 
ousness, in its insatiability, realizes this fable. It is 
an abyss yawning in the covetous man's path. He 
gathers treasures and casts into it, but it closes not. 
He toils harder, he gathers more and richer treasures 
and casts into it, but it closes not — it closes not, till 
the wretched man himself sinks into the widening 
chasm, and it shuts on him in the gulf of perdition 
for ever. 

The very opposite is the result of love, which the 
adoption of God's scheme of charity cherishes. There 
is *' comfort in love." In every act of relieving the 
wretched which it requires, is a present bliss, which 
partakes more of heavenly than of earthly joy. It 
produces trustful peace amid annoyances, perplexi- 
ties, and calamities. It leads to satisfaction, even 
with little. In peace of conscience, the conscious- 
ness of doing good and of receiving God's smile, it 
imparts blessedness which gold selfishly used can 
never buy. It gives a lasting joy. Spend money on 
self, and how quick the gratification is gone. But 
the joy of beneficence grows and brightens in the 
remembrance. To know that by foregoing a selfish 
gratification I have relieved the misery of a fellow- 



PROMOTES HAPPINESS. 79 

man — that for my gifts and self-denial there is less 
ignorance, less vice, less wretchedness in the world ; 
to know that I have helped to vindicate truth and 
right, and to establish the blessed reign of Jesus ; to 
hope that, by God's blessing on my charities, even 
one dark soul has been made acquainted with the 
Saviour and led to everlasting bliss ; what can thrill 
the soul with a richer, and more lasting joy ? And 
at the bed of death, when all earthly treasures are 
slipping from the grasp, and the memory of selfish 
gratifications, now past for ever, but imbitters the 
spirit, these memories of charities and sacrifices, 
offered for Christ's sake and by his grace, will stand 
like angels of mercy, fanning the soul with airs of 
heaven, and cheering it with an undying joy in the 
agonies of dissolution. 

No language oftener meets a pastor's ear, than the 
complaint, "I do not enjoy religion." The churches 
present a painful contrast with the habitual happi- 
ness of the apostles, whose writings, though written 
usually in the depths of distresses, more than any 
human compositions overflow with a deep and exult- 
ant joy. But there is little apprehension of what 
is a prevalent cause of this lack of spiritual joy — the 
withholding of charity, and the consequent increase 
of worldliness and the stagnation of holy love. Hap- 
piness cannot be poured into the soul from without, 
like water into a cistern ; the water of life is not said 
to flow into a man, but to flow " out of him.'' To 



80 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

regain lost enjoyment, the Christian must increase 
the exertions and self-denial of love. Let him fill life 
full of efforts and sacrifices to do good, and he will 
fill it full of bliss. He can be blessed only in ac- 
cordance with that law of the entire moral universe 
expressed in the comprehensive words of Christ, " It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." 

Consider, now, the universality of this law. God 
is love. So far as any addition to his blessedness is 
concerned, God never received any thing. If, as many 
imagine, every thing given is just so much taken from 
the comfort of the giver, God would have lost more 
happiness than all his creatures, for he is always giv- 
ing. But he is the most blessed of beings ; and he 
is so, not so much in spite of his ceaseless beneficence, 
as by means of it. His infinitude of bliss is an eter- 
nal expression of the law, '' It is more blessed to give 
than to receive." 

Angels toil for others, happy in what to selfish 
hearts would be the humiUating and self-denying ser- 
vice of ministering to those immeasurably their infe- 
riors in character and rank ; waiting upon the very 
" babes in Christ " in this nursery for heaven. 

In hell is neither giving, nor blessedness. Selfish- 
ness reigns alone. 

Thus the spirit of Christ's self-sacrificing love is 
the spirit of all heaven, and the essence of its bliss. 
The spirit of selfishness is the spirit of hell, and the 
source of its misery. The principle of the cross, 



PROMOTES HAPPINESS. 81 

" Give, give'' carried out to all its results, makes 
heaven. The principle of the worldling's search for 
happiness, " Get, get,'' carried out to all its results, 
makes hell. 

The same law is discernible even in the confusion 
of probation on earth. The purest joy is found, not 
in halls of wealth, power, or gayety, nor yet in cot- 
tages where covetousness is always craving ; but, 
whether in palace or hut, in the heart most com- 
pletely filled, the life most completely controlled by 
self-sacrificing love. Even at the martyr's stake are 
witnessed scenes of most ecstatic bliss, because there 
selfishness is most effectually crushed, because there 
love enfolds the martyr's soul brighter and purer 
than the flames which enfold his body, and is the 
chariot of fire and horses of fire which bear him up 
to heaven. 

Imagine a young lady surrounded with wealth and 
luxury, who, instead of living to strew around her 
blessings, is the spoiled child of indulgence, the vic- 
tim of a selfishness that has always reigned un- 
checked. She passes her existence, full of fretful- 
ness and discontent, in the vain attempt to satisfy 
desires which indulgence has made numerous and 
insatiable as an army of locusts, and which, in their 
devouring march through life, turn all the anticipa- 
tions and opportunities of enjoyment opening invit- 
ingly before her, into unhappiness, and make the life 
of their victim to be always "like the garden of 

Scrip. Benev, 



82 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE. 

Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wil- 
derness." 

Contrast with this imaginary case an historical 
personage. She was one of the first missionary 
band that left our shores, when every step was un- 
certain and hazardous, and war redoubled the dan- 
gers of the untried undertaking. Arrived in Asia, 
she is driven from the country, tossed again upon the 
ocean, and buffeted with discomfort, sickness, and 
difficulty, till she dies. But her hfe was blessedness, 
and her death was peace. For the former, all out- 
ward circumstances combine to produce happiness ; 
but selfishness makes her miserable. For the latter, 
gjl outward circumstances combined to bring discom- 
fort ; by her own sell" consecrating act she had rushed 
into the midst of trials ; but all the floods of afflic- 
tion could not quench the fire of her love, nor drown 
the flame of joy which ever mounted from the altar 
of her consecrated heart. The former will vapor 
life away and die, and she and the silks that clothed 
her will decay and be forgotten together ; but the 
memory of Harriet Newell will always refresh 
the earth, and hope, and love, and self denial Avill 
spring ever with new freshness from her sea-girt 
grave. Yes ; better is it, greater is it, that, in doing 
good, we be like the sweet incense burned before the 
Lord, consumed ourselves while spreading a sweet 
savor of beneficence about us — better that we be like 
the sacred oil of the seven-branched candlestick, con- 



PROMOTES HAPPINESS. 83 

sumed ourselves, while giving a holy light to others, 
than to gain for our own enjoyment all that selfish- 
ness ever won. 

Paul and Silas, having " suffered the loss of all 
things," bloody with scourging, fastened painfully in 
the stocks in the inner prison, broke the silence of 
midnight with songs of joy. And love always sings : 
toiling, sacrificing, suffering, yet it sings. And in 
proportion as that love fills our hearts, controls our 
lives, subdues the tormenting covetings of selfish- 
ness, and makes it our " meat to do the wdll of Him 
that sent us," in that proportion will be the fulness 
and the continuity with which we shall join the 
song of love — that song which no prison walls nor 
stake of martyrdom can silence ; which, ceaseless as 
the exhalations from the bosom of the earth, is going 
up everywhere from humble hearts toiling and suf- 
fering to do God's will — that irrepressible song, 
which, when death shall have broken down the bars 
of this mortality, shall burst into the shout of eter- 
nal and heavenly praise. 

Thus has God made the universe according to that 
law, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
Let any intelligent being cease to seek the good of 
others, and he ceases to be blessed himself Let the 
sun cease to pour his beams abroad, let him gather 
his rays only into his own bosom, and he will not 
only cease to shine on others, but will become black 
and unseen himself in the universal night. So, while 



84 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCB. 

any spirit that God has made lives not for itself, but 
for its Maker and its Maker's works, it shines above 
the brightness of the sun in glory. But when it be- 
gins to gather its efforts into itself and to pour its 
blessings only into its own bosom, that moment its 
glory goes out in night, and it becomes a part of " the 
blackness of darkness for ever." 

In vain, then, do you look for happiness, while the 
business of life is not penetrated and controlled by 
benevolence. It were a contradiction and disorder- 
ing of God's whole scheme of providence to permit 
it. And it were equally a contradiction of God's 
word ; for as the word of God is true, they who 
" will be rich," and therefore neglect in their business 
the beneficence which God requires, must "pierce 
themselves through with many sorrows." 

Hasten, then, thankfully to adopt God's plan for 
saving you from these many sorrows, and learn by 
your own experience that " it is more blessed to give 
than to receive." 

Nor think that these sorrows are for this life only. 
Grod has lifted the veil from the awful future, and 
recorded the decision, " No covetous man hath any 
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ." " Be not de- 
ceived ; neither thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards 
shall inherit the kingdom of God." If there be one 
cause more effectual than any other in satisfying men 
with false hopes, or in turning the attention quite 
away from rehgion, hardening the heart in impeni- 



CONCLUSION 85 

tence, and peopling the realms of woe, that cause is 
worldliness. If you value your immortal interests, 
if you have any just apprehension how many and 
powerful are the obstacles to your salvation, and 
how imminent your danger of being snared into a 
fatal negligence of your soul, it will be presumptuous 
trifling with your eternal welfare, if you adopt not 
the scriptural plan of subduing, by God's blessing, 
that worldliness which is the deadliest of all these 
opposing influences, and which the apostle so solemn- 
ly warns you is sure, if not subdued, to plunge you 
" into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish 
and hurtful lusts, wliich drown men in destruction 
and perdition." 

Such are the motives to systematic benevolence ; 
and such its vital and extensive connections with the 
Christian life and the prosperity of Christ's kingdom. 
And the force of these motives is enhanced by God's 
own revealed estimate of the importance of the duty 
of giving to relieve the wretched. There is some- 
thing peculiarly interesting in the language of Christ, 
when guarding his disciples against selfish motives in 
alms-giving, and enjoining the precautions useful to 
secure an eye single to the glory of God. " Thy Fa- 
ther, which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee 
openly." As if the Monarch of the universe felt a 
peculiar pleasure in the humble disciple whose aim is 
to honor him by his secret charities, and would bring 



86 SCRIPTURAL BENEVOLENCE 

him before the assembled universe and with his own 
royal hand encircle his brow with the incorruptible 
crown. And verily, one " Well done, good and faith- 
ful servant," from the lips of the King of heaven, 
may well outweigh all human applause, all selfish 
gains. And as if to show the intensity of his interest, 
and the particularity with which he notices and re- 
wards what is given and what is withheld, God has 
revealed from heaven that even so insignificant a 
gift as " a cup of cold water only," given with right 
motives, shall not lose its reward ; and has trans- 
mitted to all generations the solemn record of his ap- 
probation of the widow's farthing. 

And the Saviour has invested the duty with an 
immeasurable sacredness, even with all the sacred- 
ness of love to him and regard to his sufferings ; for 
he declares from the throne of judgment, that every 
gift, given with the pure desire to aid his church, 
he receives as given to aid himself; and every re- 
fusal to give, he regards as a refusal to minister to 
his own wants. He puts himself in the place of his 
church ; he bares his bosom to receive every neglect 
of her in her necessities ; he opens his heart to treas- 
ure up as a favor bestowed on himself, every favor 
bestowed on her. " Inasmuch as ye did it," or did 
it not, " to one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
did it," or did it not, " to me." 

Having thus invested these objects of charity with 
the sacredness of his own person, and, as it were, 



CONCLUSION. 87 

linked the performance or neglect of the duty with 
every sensation of his own throbbing heart, he in- 
vests it with a new solemnity, and reveals in it a new 
importance, by declaring, that in the final judgment 
the duty of charity to the distressed will be selected 
as the key to the whole life and the test of the whole 
character. " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit 
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of 
the world ; for I was a hungered, and ye gave me 
meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; I was 
a stranger, and ye took me in ; naked, and ye clothed 
me ; I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was in prison, 
and ye came unto me." " Depart from me, ye cursed, 
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
angels ; for I was a hungered, and ye gave me no 
meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink ; I 
was a stranger, and ye took me not in ; naked, and 
ye clothed me not ; sick, and in prison, and ye visited 
me not." 

Behold, then, in God's own estimate of this duty, 
that we have not overrated its importance. Behold 
your hardihood, if you leave, unsystematized, to ca- 
price and chance, a duty which is held so important 
in the solemn estimation of God, and is presented by 
the Judge himself, as the key and test of the char- 
acter in the final decision. Behold with trembling 
your peril, lest, though you have even sat at Christ's 
table, you be found at last with those who have not 
ministered to Christ. 



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