gaming, in order to recover what is lost by luxury. Men venture largely
upon the turn of a dye, and defraud their honest creditors of their
bread and life, to pay, what they call in their cant, the debts of
honour. A wanton sort of justice and illegal equity! It is the luxurious
fashion of life that hath filled our land with the itch of gaming; and
if the turn of a wheel can entitle them to thousands, they despise the
slow and tedious ways of supplying their wants by labour, business, or
traffic. Thus honest industry is discouraged, and trade, which is the
political life of our nation, lies groaning and expiring.
Hence proceeds the wicked custom of breaking promises to those that we
deal with, and long delays of payment, till we imagine that the debt is
cancelled, by being almost forgotten. A vain and criminal imagination!
As though the daily increase of interest, and the patience of the
creditor, could make the principal cease to be due! As though time, and
unjust delay could pay debts without money.
Hence flows the unrighteous practice of borrowing without any design to
pay, which is gross and shameful iniquity: I would hope none of the
professors of religion have so far abandoned all sense of righteousness.
Yet there are too many, who, when once they have borrowed, grow so
careless and negligent of payment, that it brings a disgrace upon their
profession, and a blot upon their character. Profuse and thoughtless
sinners, who run in debt to every one that will trust them for the daily
conveniencies of life! Though they have no reasonable prospect of
paying, yet they ask their neighbour to lend, with a free and courageous
countenance, and put a bold face upon their venturous iniquity, being
too proud to let their poverty be known. But the God of justice beholds
their crime, and writes their names down in his book among the
unrighteous. Ps. xxxvii. 21. _The wicked borroweth and payeth not
again._
Hence it comes to pass that there are so many bankrupts in our days,
even among the professors of strict religion: A shameful and ungodly
practice, if it arise from luxury and profuseness, or from a careless
neglect of their proper affairs! It was thought sufficient, in the days
of our fathers, to deserve an expulsion from the church of Christ,
unless they could evidently make it appear, that it was merely the
unforeseen and frowning providences of God, they were reduced to this
extremity.—There is many a man hath groaned away his latter years in
poverty, and perhaps in a cold prison, and in most forlorn circumstances
of life, by means of the profuseness of his youth: And he hath been
taught to read the guilt of his luxury and injustice in a long and
painful lesson.
But a profuse and sensual humour is not only the spring of
unrighteousness among persons of better rank and circumstance in the
world, but it tempts servants also to be unjust to their masters: They
will now and then provide a treat for themselves and their friends; they
must eat nicely, and drink to excess: And thus they waste their master’s
substance. They must keep good company in the world, and now and then
spend a licentious hour or two, while their just and reasonable service
at home is neglected; and perhaps the purse of the master must pay for
all.
Under the same head I may bring a charge of injustice against the
careless and wasteful servant, who persuades himself that his master is
rich enough, and therefore he is not solicitous to buy or sell, or
manage any affairs for him to the best advantage. He permits the goods
of his master to be wasted or embezzled, he grows liberal and generous
at his master’s cost, and has no thought of the golden rule of our
Saviour, to manage his master’s concerns with the same frugality and
conduct, as he would expect a servant should do for him. But it is time
I proceed to the next particular.
The fourth occasion of injustice, is sloth and idleness. For the
_slothful man is a brother to him that is a great waster_; Prov. xviii.
9.
Whosoever wants the necessaries, or the conveniencies of life, is bound
to obtain them by labour and diligence, if he is not possessed of them
by any other methods of favourable providence. _In the sweat of thy
brows shalt thou eat thy bread_, was the command given to Adam, when he
was turned out of paradise, and forfeited his property in the fruits of
Eden. But when once a person gets an aversion to business, when he finds
a pleasure in sauntering and trifles, and indulges idleness and a lazy
life; then he is tempted to seek the supports and comforts of nature by
some practices of unrighteousness. _The slothful man will be clothed
with rags_, unless he procure better clothing by fraud or violence;
Prov. xxiii. 21.
Hence it is that persons learn the art of stealing, and possess
themselves of the goods or the money of their neighbour by thievery.
They mark out the houses in the day, and break them up at midnight for
plunder. They remove the ancient land-marks, to enlarge their own
borders; they violently take away flocks, and feed upon them. They go
forth to their unrighteous work in the morning, and rise betimes for a
prey. They reap down the corn in their neighbour’s field, and the wicked
gather the vintage. They cause the naked to lodge without cloathing, and
take away the sheaf from the hungry. _These are they that rebel against
the light, they abide not in the paths thereof._ Though God does not lay
folly to them, nor punish their crimes by his immediate judgments, yet
his eyes are upon their ways; Job xxiv. 2-23. And many times his
providence brings their crimes to light, and they are punished for their
iniquity by the sentence of the judge. O what a shame and scandal is it,
that in a nation professing christianity, there should be such
multitudes trained up to the pilfering trade, and educated for infamy,
for transportation, and the gibbet!
There are others, whose hands refuse to labour, and whose temper of mind
delights in idleness, but they venture not upon these bolder crimes;
they learn other unrighteous arts of cheating and falsehood, and fall
into the same evil practices, which I have just before described under
the head of luxury. But when luxury, pride, and sloth join their forces
together, the temptation to injustice becomes exceeding strong, and
there are few who have power to resist it. Such was the unjust steward,
whom our blessed Saviour represents in a parable, procuring himself a
way of living by cheating his Lord: Luke xvi. 1, 2, 3, 4. He had wasted
his master’s goods, and he was to be cashiered from his service: What
shall I do, said he, I have not been used to work, I cannot dig; there
is the sloth of the man: He had lived well in his stewardship, and was
grown proud, to beg I am ashamed. Well, I can purloin no more of my
Lord’s estate for myself, but I can do it for his debtors; I will cheat
him in his accounts, and make all his debtors my friends, by cancelling
a good part of their obligations, and then I shall get a livelihood
amongst them. O that all such practices had been found no where but in
parables!
Some that have been reduced to poverty by idleness, and have borrowed
boldly what they could never pay, yet wipe their mouths, and think
themselves innocent and righteous, because they have not a sufficiency
to make payment: Whereas, in truth, it is their own sloth that makes
them poor, and keeps them so. Some of these idle creatures waste their
days in drowsiness and inactivity. “A little more sleep, a little more
slumber, so poverty comes upon them like an armed man without
resistance.” Others are a little more sprightly, and they spend their
hours in an inquisitive impertinence, in public news and private
slander, in searching and tatling of the affairs of other persons and
their families, while they eat, and drink and live upon the labour of
the diligent, and unjustly serve themselves out of the industry of their
neighbour. So the worthless drone wastes the summer’s day in buzzing and
trifling, he gads abroad, and wanders with idle flight; then he returns,
and feeds upon the honey that the bee has gathered, and abuses the
industry of a better animal.
St. Paul takes notice of this sort of people at Thessalonica who call
themselves christians, and reproves them with just severity; _We hear
there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but
are busy bodies. Now them that are such, we command and exhort by our
Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own
bread: For even when we were with you this we commanded you, that if any
would not work neither should he eat_; 2 Thess. iii. 10, &c. And in his
letter to the Ephesians, he exhorts the thief to diligence. _Let him
that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his
hands, the thing which is good_; and that not only for his own support,
but that he may have to give to him that needeth; Eph. iv. 28. How
little do those christians read their bibles! Or how little do they mind
what the great apostle tells them! They profess they were never brought
up to work, and give that answer roundly as a sufficient excuse for
idleness: And therefore when they become poor and necessitous, they
think it the duty of others to maintain them, without stretching out
their hand for any thing but to beg and receive. They will apply
themselves to no employment, though they are told their duty
continually: Their pride, indolence, and sloth withhold them from
labour, though they are called to it daily in the loudest language in
which God now-a-days speaks to his creatures; and that is the voice of
reason, of scripture, and of providence.
But there is another sort of sloth and idleness, that leads on to the
practice of injustice too, and that is when men are busy in their
trades, and the affairs of life, but seldom look into their accounts, or
perhaps keep none at all: And thus they live upon the spend, and are
utterly ignorant whether their income will support it. They eat and
drink with daily chearfulness, and sleep sound upon their pillow, while
they know not whether their food and raiment, and even the bed they rest
on, be their own or no. Perhaps they have let their accounts run long
behind, they are a little jealous of their circumstances, and then it is
an unpleasant and tedious task to take a thorough review of them. By
this means they run on venturing and heedless, till justice overtakes
them, and ruin seizes them at once. Then they see what a shameful and
cruel inroad they have made upon their neighbour’s property: They find
then that they have fed and clothed themselves and their household out
of their neighbour’s estate. What shall I say to persons of this
character? Their souls are generally hardened on all sides against
conviction, and it is with much difficulty they are ever brought to
confess their own folly, their sloth and unrighteousness. Ask thyself, O
man, O woman, ask thyself this short and solemn question, “Am I willing
my neighbour should deal thus with me, and spend my substance for his
daily support?”
Here let it be observed, that I would always except from this accusation
such as are mere children and cannot work, or such as are aged, and past
all ability of labour, such as are weak and sick, and rendered thereby
utterly incapable of working, and such as seek work with honest
diligence, and would be glad to be employed in any thing they can do, if
they could find others to employ them. Some of these indigent and
necessitous persons are in every city, and they seem to be marked out by
providence as the proper objects of compassion and bounty, and are not
to be blended with the slothful and idle creatures in the general charge
of unrighteousness.
Fifthly, The next spring of injustice is malice and envy. This is the
vilest of all, and the most like the devil; for it contrives mischief,
and brings injury upon others, without seeking gain and advantage to
self. This is a vile iniquity, and has a great deal of the spirit of
cruelty and of hell in it, where ill-nature and spite reign and triumph.
Though envy and malice awaken and excite the sinner to acts of
unrighteousness and violence, and tempt us to rob our neighbour of what
is his due; yet these vicious principles aim more frequently to disturb
the peace, or health, and good name of our neighbour, than to injure his
estate. It is wrath and hatred that boils up the blood into fury and
revenge, and moves us to smite our neighbour with the fist of
wickedness; nor is the guilty passion allayed till it has practised
mischief to his body, or his reputation, or his family, or to something
that belongs to him. Hence proceed murders and death, and all the train
of evils and injuries of the cruel and bloody kind. It was from this
principle that Cain slew Abel his brother, that the sons of Jacob sold
Joseph into slavery: It was from this principle that Sanballat and
Tobiah joined their rage and their counsels against the Jews, that they
might hinder the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and endeavour to destroy the
builders, and throw down the work; Neh. ii. 10.
I hope there are no examples of this flagrant injustice to be found
among us who profess piety. But are there none of us guilty of some
lesser injuries rising from the same principle? Are there none of us
that indulge our tongues to backbite and slander, to make our neighbours
look odious, or to make ourselves easy or merry? This is to play the
_madman, who casts abroad fire-brands, arrows, and death,—and saith, Am
I not in sport?_ Prov. xxvi. 18, 19. Are there none of us that delight
to teaze, and vex, and torture our neighbour by disagreeable speeches
and sly reproach? Do we never envy and provoke one another, contrary to
the apostle’s express prohibition? Gal. v. 26. Do we not take pleasure
to repeat the things that make each other uneasy, in order to vent the
gall within us, and scatter the venom upon our neighbour’s good name?
This is malice and unrighteousness together; a complicated crime, which
one would think should be abhorred by every christian, if one did not
frequently see and feel the practice of it among the professors of the
name of Christ. I might well compare such creatures to a wasp or hornet,
who first teaze and disquiet us with their endless humming, and ere we
can get rid of them, they fix their painful sting in our flesh; though
neither the pain nor the teazing vexation they give us, can procure any
conveniency to those peevish insects, those noisy animals of a little
angry soul.
If we are poor, this evil humour tempts us to envy the riches of our
neighbour, and we magnify and exalt them beyond the truth, that we may
give some colour to our splenetic and uneasy carriage. If we are
afflicted, or in pain, we envy the welfare and the ease of others, we
enlarge our paraphrases upon their blessings, and blacken their
character, that they may appear unworthy of such favours, and worthy of
our indignation and envy. “When shall the time come, O Lord Jesus, thou
king of righteousness, and king of peace, when shall that day appear,
that Ephraim _shall not envy Judah, nor Judah molest Ephraim_? When
shall it be that no ravenous beast shall come near Zion, and there shall
be nothing to hurt or destroy in all thy holy mountain?”
The last spring of injustice that I shall mention, is unbelief, and
distrust of the providence of God. When persons are in low
circumstances, they are sometimes hurried by the power of this
temptation to use sinful means in order to obtain what they want, or at
least what they fancy they want for the comfortable support of life. The
word of God has many engaging promises in it, to those who are diligent
in their duty: Though _the soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath
nothing; yet the soul of the diligent shall be made fat_: Prov. xiii. 4.
It is the hand of a diligent man that maketh rich, for it hath the
blessing of the Lord upon it. God can increase the handful of meal in
the barrel, and lengthen out the stream of oil from the little cruse,
that the debts of the widow may be paid thereby, and her family find
provision; 1 Kings xvii. 12, 14. And even since the days of miracles
have ceased, there are many christians who have lived by faith, and have
found wonders of support, not much inferior to this ancient miracle.
But those who know not the way of living by faith, are too ready to
indulge themselves in some little pilfering or cheating methods to
procure a subsistence. Thus unbelief has a plain tendency to
unrighteousness, but _he that believeth shall not make haste_; Is.
xxviii. 16. He that believes the care of God toward his own people, and
puts his trust in his Redeemer, who is Lord of all things, he that lives
upon the covenant of God daily he shall not make haste to make himself
rich, or to possess himself of the comforts of life by any methods of
injustice; his faith and diligence shall be rewarded at least with daily
bread.
And now having finished this subject, I must beg pardon of my reader for
insisting so largely on those two virtues, justice and truth, in my
text. But they are of so divine a necessity to make up the character of
a christian, they are of so valuable importance to the glory of the
gospel, and so shameful an inroad has been made upon them in various
instances in our degenerate age, that I was willing to attempt something
to retrieve this part of godliness: And O may the convincing and
sanctifying Spirit of God attend it with his sacred influences, that
those who are called by the sacred name of christian, may never bring a
blemish upon it by deserving the characters of false and unjust!
[The Second Part of this Sermon.]
The next virtue mentioned in my text, is purity; whatsoever things are
pure,—think on these things. The sense of this word αγνα in the Greek,
is extended so far by some critics, as to include temperance in eating
and drinking, as well as chastity and modesty in all our words and
behaviour; and thus it signifies almost the same with sobriety, and
implies a restraint upon all the excessive and irregular appetites that
human nature is subject to. Under these two heads I shall treat of
purity briefly, and shew under each of them how the light of nature, and
how the gospel of Christ requires the practice of it.
I. Temperance in eating and drinking may be included in this command of
purity, for we can hardly suppose the apostle omitted so necessary a
virtue, and it is not mentioned at all, if it be not implied here. It is
not beneath the doctrine of christianity to condescend to give rules
about the most common affairs of human life, even food and raiment. It
is a piece of impurity to imitate the swine, and to gorge ourselves
beyond measure; to give up ourselves to fulfil every luscious appetite,
and every luxurious inclination of the taste.
An indulgence of this sort of vice, what infinite disorders doth it
bring upon mankind! If a man would read the character of a drunkard
painted in very bright and proper colours, and receive the foulest ideas
of it in the fairest oratory, he cannot find a better description than
Prov. xxiii. 29-32. _Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath
contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath
redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek
mixed wine. Look not therefore upon the wine when it is red, when it
giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright._ Some men in
our age well understand what Solomon here means. _But at the last it
biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder._ The pleasure will be
attended with intolerable pain and mortal injury, when the excess of
liquor shall work like so much venom poured into the veins, and cast
thee into diseases as incurable as the biting of any serpent; it will do
thee more mischief than an adder with all his poison. There are many
that have felt the words of Solomon true, when their voluptuous sins
have been dreadfully recompensed with ruin to their soul and body.
But the inspired writer dwells upon the loathsome subject, and bids us
mark the particular effects of it: _Thine eyes shall behold strange
women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things_; Prov. xxiii. 33.
that is, says a learned paraphrast[30] upon the text, “thy thoughts will
not only grow confused, and all things appear to thee otherwise than
they are; but lustful and adulterous desires will be stirred up, which
thou canst not rule, and thy mouth being without a bridle, will break
forth into unseemly, nay, filthy, scurrilous, or, perhaps, blasphemous
language, without respect to God or man.” Yea, thou shalt be, saith the
wise man, as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that
lieth upon the top of a mast; ver. 34. that is, “Thou wilt sottishly run
thyself into the extremest hazards, without any apprehensions of danger,
being no more able to direct thy course, than a pilot who snores when a
ship is tossed in the midst of the sea; no more able to take notice of
the peril thou art in, than he that falls asleep on the top of a mast,
where he was set to keep the watch.” _They have stricken me_, shalt thou
say, _and I was not sick_; they have beaten me, and I felt it not. When
I shall awake, I will seek it yet again; ver. 35. It is as if the wise
man had said, “That to complete thy misery, thou shalt not only be
mocked, and abused, and beaten, but thou shalt be as senseless as if no
harm had befallen thee: And no sooner wilt thou open thine eyes, but
thou wilt stupidly seek an occasion to be drunk, and be beaten again.”
My friends, have ye never seen a drunkard make that odious figure, in
which Solomon represents him? You find human nature is constant to
itself: It appears now in Britain, just as it is described in the days
of old at Jerusalem in all its vicious excesses. There is a great degree
of likeness between our forefathers’ intemperance, and their children of
late posterity. One would think one such a spectacle as this, or the
mere report of it, with an assurance of the truth, should be enough to
forbid our lips the excess of liquor, and to set a guard upon ourselves
in the hour of temptation.
Not only those who overwhelm themselves with strong drink, and forget
reason and themselves, but those that are mighty to drink wine, have a
severe censure cast upon them, and a curse in the book of God: Is. v.
11. not only _woe to them, that rise up early in the morning, that they
may find strong drink_, and continue till night, till wine inflame them;
but _woe to them that are mighty to drink wine_, even though they are
not utterly overcome by it, to the disorder and disgrace of their
understandings, verse 22. The reason is, because nature will not bear
such a quantity of wine or strong liquors at first; and it is presumed
men have forced nature beyond its original capacity, and thus have grown
up, by degrees of sin, to such a strength in drinking. These are they
that _call evil good and good evil_, and that glory in their shame.
_Hearken to thy father’s advice_, O youth, _and despise not thy mother’s
counsel; hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the
way of temperance. Be not among wine-bibbers, amongst riotous eaters of
flesh_; ver. 19. Youth is greedy of pleasure, and in danger of being
corrupted by it; therefore avoid the society of drunkards and gluttons.
You see they are joined together in the prohibition and threatening of
the word of God, “for the glutton and the drunkard shall both come to
poverty.” A wanton indulgence of the taste will tempt men to revelling
and riot, thence follows a neglect of all business; and many a prodigal,
who had a fair estate, is by this means become a beggar or a prisoner.
Let us be watchful therefore when we sit down at a plentiful table, and
put a knife, as it were, to our throat, if we feel the danger of a sharp
and wanton appetite; let the guard of our virtue be as sharp and active
as our thirst or hunger. Let us not be desirous of feasting ourselves
with dainties, for they too often prove deceitful meat: And though they
are never so tempting to the palate, yet they may disturb the health of
the body, or indispose the mind for the service of virtue. But this
leads me to the next general head, and that is, To consider how the
light of nature condemns this vice, this sort of impurity.