DIRECTIONS FOR THE RICH.
I HAVE said so much of this already, part i. about covetousness
or worldliness, and about good works, and in my book of "Self-denial,"
and that of "Crucifying the World;" that my reason commandeth me
brevity in this place.[114]
_Direct._ I. Remember that riches are no part of your felicity;
or that if you have no better, you are undone men. Dare you say that
they are fit to make you happy? Dare you say, that you will take them
for your part? and be content to be turned off when they forsake you?
They reconcile not God; they save not from his wrath; they heal not a
wounded conscience: they may please your flesh, and adorn your
funeral, but they neither delay, nor sanctify, nor sweeten death, nor
make you either better or happier than the poor. Riches are nothing
but plentiful provision for tempting, corruptible flesh. When the
flesh is in the dust, it is rich no more. All that abounded in wealth,
since Adam's days till now, are levelled with the lowest in the dust.
_Direct._ II. Yea, remember that riches are not the smallest
temptation and danger to your souls. Do they delight and please you?
By that way they may destroy you. If they be but loved above God, and
make earth seem better for you than heaven, they have undone you. And
if God recover you not, it had been better for you to have been worms
or brutes, than such deceived, miserable souls. It is not for nothing,
that Christ giveth you so many terrible warnings about riches, and so
describeth the folly, the danger, and the misery of the worldly rich,
Luke xii. 17-20; xvi. 19-21, &c; xviii. 21-23, &c.; and telleth you
how hardly the rich are saved. Fire burneth most, when it hath most
fuel; and riches are the fuel of worldly love and fleshly lust, 1 John
ii. 15, 16; Rom. xiii. 13, 14.
_Direct._ III. Understand what it is to love and trust in worldly
prosperity and wealth. Many here deceive themselves to their
destruction. They persuade themselves, that they desire and use their
riches but for necessity: but that they do not love them, nor trust in
them, because they can say that heaven is better, and wealth will
leave us to a grave! But do you not love that ease, that greatness,
that domination, that fulness, that satisfaction of your appetite,
eye, and fancy, which you cannot have without your wealth? It is
fleshly lust, and will, and pleasure, which carnal worldlings love for
itself; and then they love their wealth for these. And to trust in
riches, is not to trust that they will never leave you; for every fool
doth know the contrary. But it is to rest, and quiet, and comfort your
minds in them, as that which most pleaseth you, and maketh you well,
or to be as you would be. Like him in Luke xii. 18, 19, that said,
"Soul, take thy ease, eat, drink, and be merry, thou hast enough laid
up for many years." This is to love and trust in riches.
_Direct._ IV. Above all the deceits and dangers of this world,
take heed of a secret, hypocritical hope of reconciling the world to
heaven, so as to make you a felicity of both; and dreaming of a
compounded portion, or of serving God and mammon.[115] The true state
of the hypocrite's heart and hope is, to love his worldly prosperity
best, and desire to keep it as long as he can, for the enjoyment of
his fleshly pleasures; and when he must leave this world against his
will, he hopeth then to have heaven as his reserve; because he
thinketh it better than hell, and his tongue can say, It is better
than earth, though his will and affections say the contrary. If this
be your case, the Lord have mercy upon you, and give you a more
believing, spiritual mind, or else you are lost, and you and your
treasure will perish together.
_Direct._ V. Accordingly take heed, lest when you seem to resign
yourselves, and all that you have, to God, there should be a secret
purpose at the heart, that you will never be undone in the world for
Christ, nor for the hopes of a better world. A knowing hypocrite is
not ignorant, that the terms of Christ, proposed in the gospel, Luke
xiv. 26, 27, 33, are no lower than forsaking all; and that in baptism,
and our covenant with Christ, all must be designed and devoted to him,
and the cross taken up instead of all, or else we are no christians,
as being not in covenant with Christ. But the hypocrite's hope is,
that though Christ put him upon these promises, he will never put him
to the trial for performance, nor ever call him to forsake all indeed:
and therefore, if ever he be put to it, he will not perform the
promise which he hath made. He is like a patient that promiseth to be
wholly ruled by his physician, as hoping that he will put him upon
nothing which he cannot bear. But when the bitter potion or the vomit
cometh, he saith, I cannot take it, I had hoped you would have given
me gentler physic.
_Direct._ VI. And accordingly take heed lest while you pretend to
live to God, and to use all that you have as his stewards for his
service, you should deceitfully put him off with the leavings of your
lusts, and give him only so much as your flesh can spare. It is not
likely that the damned gentleman, Luke xvi. was never used to give any
thing to the poor; else what did beggars use his doors for? When
Christ promiseth to reward men for a cup of cold water, the meaning
is, when they would give better if they had it. There are few rich men
of all that go to hell, that were so void of human compassion, or of
the sense of their own reputation, as to give nothing at all to the
poor; but God will have all, though not all for the poor, yet all
employed as he commandeth; and will not be put off with your tithes or
scraps. His stewards confess that they have nothing of their own.
_Direct._ VII. Let the use of your riches in prosperity show, that you
do not dissemble when you promise to forsake all for Christ in trial,
rather than forsake him. You may know whether you are true or false in
your covenant with Christ, and what you would do in a day of trial, by
what you do in your daily course of life. How can that man leave all
at once for Christ, that cannot daily serve him with his riches, nor
leave that little which God requireth, in the discharge of his duty in
pious and charitable works? What is it to leave all for God, but to
leave all rather than to sin against God? And will he do that, who
daily sinneth against God by omission of good works, because he
cannot leave some part? Study, as faithful stewards, to serve God to
the utmost with what you have now, and then you may expect that his
grace should enable you to leave all in trial, and not prove withering
hypocrites and apostates.
_Direct._ VIII. Be not rich to yourselves, or to your fleshly
wills and lusts;[116] but remember that the rich are bound to be
spiritual, and to mortify the flesh, as well as the poor. Let lust
fare never the better for all the fulness of your estates. Fast and
humble your souls never the less; please an inordinate appetite never
the more in meat and drink; live never the more in unprofitable
idleness. The rich must labour as constantly as the poor, though not
in the same kind of work. The rich must live soberly, temperately, and
heavenly, and must as much mortify all fleshly desires, as the poor.
You have the same law and Master, and have no more liberty to indulge
your lusts; but if you live after the flesh, you shall die as well as
any other. Oh the partiality of carnal minds! They can see the fault
of a poor man, that goeth sometimes to an ale-house, who perhaps
drinketh water (or that which is next to it) all the week; when they
never blame themselves, who scarce miss a meal without wine and strong
drink, and eating that which their appetite desireth. They think it a
crime in a poor man, to spend but one day in many in such idleness, as
they themselves spend most of their lives in. Gentlemen think that
their riches allow them to live without any profitable labour, and to
gratify their flesh, and fare deliciously every day; as if it were
their privilege to be sensual, and to be damned, Rom. viii. 1, 5-9, 13.
_Direct._ IX. Nay, remember that you are called to far greater
self-denial, and fear, and watchfulness against sensuality, and
wealthy vices, than the poor are. Mortification is as necessary to
your salvation, as to theirs, but much more difficult. If you live
after the flesh, you shall die as well as they. And how much stronger
are your temptations! Is not he easilier drawn to gluttony or excess
in quality or quantity, who hath daily a table of plenty, and
enticing, delicious food before him, than he that never seeth such a
temptation once in half a year? Is it not harder for him to deny his
appetite who hath the baits of pleasant meats and drinks daily set
upon his table, than for him that is seldom in sight of them, and
perhaps in no possibility of procuring them; and therefore hath
nothing to solicit his appetite or thoughts? Doubtless the rich, if
ever they will be saved, must watch more constantly, and set a more
resolute guard upon the flesh, and live more in fear of sensuality,
than the poor, as they live in greater temptations and dangers.
_Direct._ X. Know therefore particularly what are the temptations
of prosperity, that you may make a particular, prosperous resistance.
And they are especially these:
1. Pride. The foolish heart of man is apt to swell upon the accession
of so poor a matter as wealth; and men think they are got above their
neighbours, and more honour and obeisance is their due, if they be but
richer.[117]
2. Fulness of bread.[118] If they do not eat till they are sick, they
think the constant and costly pleasing of their appetite in meats and
drinks, is lawful.
3. Idleness. They think he is not bound to labour, that can live
without it, and hath enough.
4. Time-wasting sports and recreations. They think their hours may be
devoted to the flesh, when all their lives are devoted to it; they
think their wealth alloweth them to play, and court, and compliment
away that precious time, which no men have more need to redeem; they
tell God that he hath given them more time than they have need of; and
God will shortly cut it off, and tell them that they shall have no
more.
5. Lust and wantonness, fulness and idleness, cherish both the
cogitations and inclinations unto filthiness; they that live in
gluttony and drunkenness, are like to live in chambering and
wantonness.[119]
6. Curiosity, and wasting their lives in a multitude of little,
ceremonious, unprofitable things, to the exclusion of the great
businesses of life.[120] Well may we say, that men's lusts are their
jailors, and their fetters, when we see to what a wretched kind of
life a multitude of the rich (especially ladies and gentlewomen) do
condemn themselves. I should pity one in bridewell, that were but tied
so to spend their time; when they have poor, ignorant, proud, worldly,
peevish, hypocritical, ungodly souls to be healed, and a life of great
and weighty business to do for eternity, they have so many little
things all day to do, that leave them little time to converse with
God, or with their consciences, or to do any thing that is really
worth the living for: they have so many fine clothes and ornaments to
get, and use; and so many rooms to beautify and adorn, and so many
servants to talk with, that attend them, and so many dishes and sauces
to bespeak, and so many flowers to plant, and dress, and walks, and
places of pleasure to mind; and so many visitors to entertain with
whole hours of unprofitable talk; and so many great persons
accordingly to visit; and so many laws of ceremony and compliment to
observe; and so many games to play, (perhaps,) and so many hours to
sleep, that the day, the year, their lives are gone, before they could
have while to know what they lived for. And if God had but damned them
to spend their days in picking straws or filling a bottomless vessel,
or to spend their days as they choose themselves to spend them, it
would have tempted us to think him unmerciful to his creatures.
7. Tyranny and oppression: when men are above others, how commonly do
they think that their wills must be fulfilled by all men, and none
must cross them, and they live as if all others below them were as
their beasts, that are made for them, to serve and please them.
_Direct._ XI. Let your fruitfulness to God, and the public good,
be proportionable to your possessions.[121] Do as much more good in
the world than the poor, as you are better furnished with it than
they. Let your servants have more time for the learning of God's word,
and let your families be the more religiously instructed and governed.
To whom God giveth much, from them he doth expect much.
_Direct._ XII. Do not only take occasions of doing good, when they are
thrust upon you; but study how to do all the good you can, as those
"that are zealous of good works," Tit. ii. 14.[122] Zeal of good works
will make you, 1. Plot and contrive for them. 2. Consult and ask
advice for them. 3. It will make you glad when you meet with a hopeful
opportunity. 4. It will make you do it largely, and not sparingly, and
by the halves. 5. It will make you do it speedily, without unwilling
backwardness and delay. 6. It will make you do it constantly to your
lives' end. 7. It will make you pinch your own flesh, and suffer
somewhat yourselves to do good to others. 8. It will make you labour
in it as your trade, and not only consent that others do good at your
charge. 9. It will make you glad when good is done, and not to grudge
at what it cost you. 10. In a word, it will make your neighbours to be
to you as yourselves, and the pleasing of God to be above yourselves,
and therefore to be as glad to do good, as to receive it.
_Direct._ XIII. Do good both to men's souls and bodies; but
always let bodily benefits be conferred in order to those of the soul,
and in due subordination, and not for the body alone. And observe the
many other rules of good works, more largely laid down, part i. chap.
iii. direct. 10.
_Direct. XIV._ Ask yourselves often, how you shall wish at death
and judgment your estates had been laid out; and accordingly now use
them. Why should not a man of reason do that which he knoweth
beforehand he shall vehemently wish that he had done?
_Direct._ XV. As your care must be in a special manner for your
children and families; so take heed of the common error of worldlings,
who think their children must have so much, as that God and their own
souls have very little. When selfish men can keep their wealth no
longer to themselves, they leave it to their children, who are as
their surviving selves. And all is cast into this gulf, except some
inconsiderable parcels.
_Direct._ XVI. Keep daily account of your use and improvement of
your Master's talents.[123] Not that you should too much remember your
own good works, but remember to do them; and therefore ask yourselves,
What good have I done with all that I have, this day or week?
_Direct._ XVII. Look not for long life; for then you will think
that a long journey needeth great provisions; but die daily, and live
as those that are going to give up their account: and then conscience
will force you to ask, whether you have been faithful stewards, and to
lay up a treasure in heaven, and to make you friends of the mammon
that others use to unrighteousness, and to lay up a good foundation
for the time to come, and to be glad that God hath given you that, the
improvement of which may further the good of others, and your
salvation.[124] Living and dying, let it be your care and business to
do good.
[114] See more in my "Life of Faith."
[115] Heb. x. 34; Luke xviii. 22; Matt. xiii. 20-22; Acts v. 1, &c;
ii. 45; Luke xiv. 33.
[116] Luke xii. 21; Acts x. 1-3.
[117] Jam. v. 1-6.
[118] Ezek. xvi.
[119] Rom. xiii. 13, 14.
[120] Luke x. 40-42.
[121] John xv. 5; Mark xii. 41; Luke xii. 48.
[122] Matt. v. 16; Gal. 6-10; 1 Pet. ii. 12; Heb. x. 24; Tit. iii.
8, 14; ii. 7; Eph. ii. 10; 1 Tim. ii. 10; v. 10; Acts ix. 36.
[123] Matt. xxv. 14, 15.
[124] 1 Tim. vi. 18; 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2; Luke xvi. 10; 1 Tim. v. 25.