they were the means of enraging his enemies, and of procuring his condemnation. And about the time that the apostle Paul was denouncing the sin in his epistle to Timothy, Seneca was decrying the same evil, and composing his ethics; but, as if to show the impotence of his own precepts, "he was accused of having amassed the most ample riches," a circumstance which, though not the ostensible, was no doubt the real, cause of his finally falling a victim to the jealousy of Nero. But if such be the inefficacy of the precepts of the heathen philosopher, what is the prescription of the Christian apostle? Aware that the same means which destroy cupidity produce liberality, he does not concern himself so much with the death of covetousness as with the birth of charity. He says less about the sin when seeking its removal, than about the duty which is to displace it. He commands benevolence. He enjoins the "man of God" not only to flee the evil, but to follow the opposite virtues, and to flee the one by following the other. "O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness Charge them that are rich in this world. ... that b ... ་ they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life." Instead, therefore, of ending with a section on the cure of covetousness, the writer thinks he has copied inspired example, and increased the practical effect of the Essay, and better consulted the intentions of the party who has occasioned it, by adding a Third Part, on Christian Liberality. The cross of Christ is not merely a perpetual protest against the selfishness of the world: it has given a new object to our affections, and a new motive to our obedience-that object is Christ, and that motive is the love we bear to him. Till this love possess us, the sublimest maxims will fail to reach the heart; but from the moment we begin to be actuated by it, cupidity and all the baser passions are doomed to destruction. Diodorus Siculus relates that the forest of the Pyrenean mountains being set on fire, and the heat penetrating to the soil, a pure stream of silver gushed forth from the bosom of the earth, and revealed for the first time the existence of those rich lodes afterwards so celebrated. Covetousness yields up its pelf for sacred uses as unwillingly as if it were appointed to succeed the earth in the office of holding and concealing it; but let the melting influence of the cross be felt, let the fire of the gospel be kindled in the church, and its ample stores shall be seen flowing forth from their hidden recesses, and becoming "the fine gold of the sanctuary." The title which the writer has adopted for the Essay designates covetousness the sin of the Christian church. He is aware that by bringing even an ordinary evil near to the eye, and prolonging one's gaze at it, it may go on swelling and enlarging in the apprehension, till it has come to fill the whole sphere of vision, to the exclusion and temporary oblivion of other evils of superior magnitude. That covetousness is not the only evil which the Christian church has to confess-that it is only one of many evils-he is quite sensible; and he trusts that the view which he has taken of its surpassing enormity is by no means chargeable with the effect of lessening our convictions of those other evils. All the sins of the Christian church stand closely related; by action and reaction they are constantly producing and strengthening each other; and it is to its superior activity and influence in the production of those other sins that cupidity owes its bad pre-eminence. If the love of money then be the root of the evils in question, a description of its deadly nature should have the effect, not of diminishing, but augmenting our aversion to its destructive fruits. The writer feels convinced that the best mode of acquiring a clear, comprehensive, and impressive view of all the existing defects of the Christian church, as a whole, is to view them first separately and in succession; and that he who succeeds in laying open and correcting one of these defects, has gone far towards remedying all the rest. With the sincere desire that he may be the means of inflicting if only a single blow on the root of all evil, and of thus aiding the growth of that plant "which is from above ..... full of mercy and of good fruits," he would place this Essay at the feet of Him who deigns to commend the widow's mite. |