[1] Political philosophy has much to say in favour of laws and
institutions, at certain periods of a nation's growth, for
encouraging, or at least permitting, the disposition of its
members to found families, to be maintained by hereditary
possessions in land. Yet, if this disposition be not kept
within bounds, those who are influenced by it will "join
house to house, and field to field, till there be no
place;" till the race of small landholders, yeomen, and
partly independent tenants, is swallowed up by a few rich
despots. To prevent this evil among the Hebrews, Moses
directed as equal a division of the land as possible in the
first instance, among the 600,000 families who originally
formed the nation; and provided against the permanent
alienation of any estate, by giving a right of repurchase
to the seller and his relations, and of repossession
without purchase at the Jubilee. The story of Naboth
illustrates the effect of these laws in forming an order of
sturdy, independent yeomen; but it must also be taken as an
instance of the habitual breach of the same laws by the
rich and powerful (cf. Micah ii.; Neh. v. 1-13; 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 21); as they in like manner disobeyed that
respecting the liberation of slaves at the Jubilee (Jer.
xxxvi. 8-16). In England, where the Norman conquest
accumulated all the land in the hands of a few nobles, the
like accumulation has been opposed--however imperfectly--by
laws in their form exactly opposite to those of Moses; by
the permission to cut off old entails, and the prohibition
to make new ones except for one generation, and by allowing
land to be bought and sold like other
commodities.--_Strachey,_ pp. 65, 66.
[2] The covetous man is like a spider. As in this, that he does
nothing but lay his nets to catch every fly, gaping only
for a booty of gain. So yet more, in that while he makes
nets for these flies, he consumes his own bowels; so that
which is his life is his death. If there be any creature
miserable, it be he; and yet he is least to be pitied,
because he makes himself miserable. Such as he is I will
account him; and will therefore sweep down his webs, and
hate his poison.--_Hall,_ 1574-1656.
Covetous worldlings will hardly spare the poor some of
their fire to warm them, some of their water to drink, some
of their ground to lodge on, though it were no more hurt to
them than the lighting of a candle at their
torch.--_Adams,_ 1653.
[3] Let us remember that it will be to small purposes to enjoy
these worldly pleasures of sin for a season, and in the end
plunge ourselves into everlasting death;--that the world's
music is but the syren's song, which allures us to make
shipwreck of our souls on the rocks of sin, and while it
tickles the ear it wounds us to the very heart;--that
though the cup which it offers be of gold, and the drink
sweet in taste, yet it is deadly poison in operation; for
they that drink thereof are so lulled asleep in pleasures
and security, that they never awaken out of their spiritual
lethargy; or if they do, yet like Sampson, without strength
to resist the spiritual Philistines, after the world (like
Delilah) has lulled them awhile in her lap of carnal
pleasures.--_Downame,_ 1642.