Ecclesiastes v. 10.
He that loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver.
If a preacher on these words should set himself to declaim against silver, he would probably be but ill-heared, and would certainly go beside the meaning of his text.
Silver (or gold) is only an instrument of exchange; a sign of the price which things bear in the commerce of life. This instrument is of the most necessary use in society. Without it, there would be no convenience of living, no supply of our mutual wants, no industry, no civility, I had almost said, no virtue among men.
The author of the text was clearly of this mind; since, on many occasions, he makes wealth the reward of wisdom, and poverty, of folly; and since he laboured all his life, and with suitable success, to multiply gold and silver in his dominions, beyond the example of all former, and indeed succeeding, kings of the Jewish state.
The precious metals, then, (both for the reason of the thing, and the authority of Solomon) shall preserve their lustre unsullied, and their honours unimpaired by me. Poets and satirists have, indeed, execrated those, who tore the entrails of the earth for them; and, provoked by the general abuse of them, have seemed willing that they should be sent back to their beds again. But sober moralists hold no such language; and are content that they remain above ground, and shine out in the face of the sun.
Still (for I come now to the true meaning of my text) good and useful things may be OVER-RATED, or MISAPPLIED; and, in either way, may become hurtful to us. He, that, in the emphatic language of the preacher, LOVETH silver, certainly offends in one of these ways, and probably in both: and, when he does so, it will be easy to make good the royal denunciation—that he shall not be SATISFIED with it.
1. Now, wealth is surely over-rated, when, instead of regarding it only as the means of procuring a reasonable enjoyment of our lives, we dote upon it for its own sake, and make it the end, or chief object of our pursuits: when we sacrifice, not only ease and leisure, (which, though valuable things, are often well recompensed by the pleasures of industry and activity), but health and life to it: when we grieve nature[160], to gratify this fantastic passion; and give up the social pleasures, the true pleasures of humanity, for the sordid satisfaction of seeing ourselves possessed of an abundance, which we never mean to enjoy: above all, when we purchase wealth at the expence of our innocence; when we prefer it to a good name, and a clear conscience; when we suffer it to interfere with our most important concerns, those of piety and religion; and when, for the sake of it, we are contented to forego the noblest hopes, the support and glory of our nature, the hopes of happiness in a future state.
When the false glitter of silver (of which the owner, as Solomon says, has, and proposes to himself, no other good, but that of beholding it with his eyes[161]) imposes upon us at this rate, how should our reasonable nature find any true or solid satisfaction in it!
“But the mere act of acquiring and accumulating wealth is, it will be said, the miser’s pleasure, of which himself, and no other, is the proper judge; and a certain confused notion of the uses, to which it may serve, though he never actually puts it to any, is enough to justify his pursuit of it.”
Be it so, then: But is there no better pleasure for him to aim at, and which he loses by following this; and although a man’s ways, we are told, be right in his own eyes[162]; yet, is there no difference in them, and do not some of them lead through much trouble to disappointment and death? And is there not a presumption, a certainty, that the way of the miser is of this sort? when his very name may admonish him of the light in which the common sense of mankind regards his pursuit of untasted opulence; and when he finds, by experience, that his unnatural appetite for it is always encreasing, be the plenty never so great which is set before him. But,
2. Wealth may be MISAPPLIED, as well as over-rated, and generally is so, in the most offensive manner, by those, who think there are no pleasures, which it cannot command. For, although the miser has the worse name in the world, yet the spendthrift (since a certain alliance, which has taken place between luxury and avarice) possibly deserves our indignation more.
But ye shall judge for yourselves. Are not riches, let me ask, sadly misapplied, when, after having been pursued and seized upon, with more than a miser’s fury, they are suddenly let go again, on all the wings[163] of prodigality and folly? which scatter their precious load, not on modest merit, or virtuous industry, or suffering innocence, but on the flatterers of pride, the retainers of pomp, the panders of pleasure; in a word, on those miscreants, who imped these harpies, and sent them forth, for the annoyance of mankind.
And well are these spendthrifts repaid for their good service. For this profusion brings on more pains and penalties, than I am able to express; disappointment, regret, disgust, and infamy; and not uncommonly, in the train of these, that tremendous spectre to a voluptuous man, Poverty: or, if the source, which feeds this whirlpool of riotous expence, be yet unexhausted, and flow copiously, these waters have that baleful quality, that they inflame, instead of quenching, the drinker’s thirst. All his natural appetites grow nice and delicate; and ten thousand artificial ones are created, and become more vexatious to him, than any that are of nature’s growth. The idolater of riches, the infatuated lover of silver, now finds, that the power he serves, the mistress he adores, yields him no other fruit of all his assiduity, but self-abhorrence and distraction; the loss of all virtuous feelings; and numberless clamorous desires, which give him no truce of their importunity, and are incapable, by any gratification, of being quieted and assuaged.
So true is the observation, that he, who, loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver! For, either the passion grows upon us, when the object is not enjoyed; or, if it be, a new force is given to it, and a legion of other passions, as impatient and unmanageable as the original one, start up out of the enjoyment itself.
I know the lovers of money are not easily made sensible of this fatal alternative. They think, that this, or that sum, will fill[164] all their wishes, and make them as rich, and as happy, as they desire to be. But they presently feel their mistake; and yet rarely find out, that the way to content lies through self-command, and that to have enough of any thing which this world affords, we must be careful not to grasp at too much of it.
On the entrance into life, higher and more generous motives usually excite the better part of mankind to labour in those professions, that are accounted liberal. But, as they proceed in their course, interest, which was always one spur to their industry, infixes itself deeply into their minds, and stimulates them more sensibly than any other. It can scarce be otherwise, considering the influence of example; the experience they have, or think they have, of the advantages, that attend encreasing wealth; the fashion of the times, which indulges, or, as we easily persuade ourselves, requires refined, and therefore expensive, pleasures; and, above all, the selfishness of the human mind, which is, and, for wise reasons, was intended to be a powerful spring of action in us.
Thus there are several adventitious, shall we call them? or natural inclinations, which prompt us to the pursuit of riches; and I would not be so rigid, as to insist on the total suppression of them.
Let then the fortune, or the honour (for both are included in the magical word silver) which eminent worth may propose to itself, be among the inducements which erect the hopes, and quicken the application, of a virtuous man. But let him know withal (and I am in no pain for the effect, which this premature knowledge may have upon him) that the application, and not the object, is that in which he will find his account; just as the pursuit, and not the game, is the true reward of the chace. He who thinks otherwise, and reckons that affluence is content, or grandeur, happiness, will have leisure, if he attain to either, to rectify his opinion, and to see that he had made a very false estimate of human life.
And, now, having thus far commented on my text, I will take leave, for once, to step beyond it, and shew you, in few words (for many cannot be necessary on so plain a subject) where and how satisfaction may be found.
In the abundance of silver, it does not, and cannot lie; nor yet in a cynical contempt of it: but, in few and moderate desires; in a correct taste of life, which consults nature more than fancy in the choice of its pleasures; in rejecting imaginary wants, and keeping a strict hand on those that are real; in a sober use of what we possess, and no further concern about more than what may engage us, by honest means, to acquire it; in considering who, and what we are[165]; that we are creatures of a day, to whom long desires and immeasurable projects are very ill suited; that we are reasonable creatures, who should make a wide difference between what seems to be, and what is important; that we are accountable creatures, and should be more concerned to make a right use of what we possess, than to enlarge our possessions; that, above all, we are Christians, who are expected to sit loose to a transitory world, to extend our hopes to another life, and to qualify ourselves for it.
In this way, and with these reflections, we shall see things in a true light, and shall either not desire abundant wealth, or shall understand its true value. The strictest morality, and even our divine religion, lays no obligation upon us to profess poverty. We are even required to be industrious in our several callings and stations, and are, of course, allowed to reap the fruits, whatever they be, of an honest industry. Yet it deserves our consideration, that wealth is always a snare, and therefore too often a curse; that, if virtuously obtained, it affords but a moderate satisfaction at best; and that, if we WILL be rich, that is, resolve by any means, and at all events, to be so, we pierce ourselves through with many sorrows[166]; that it even requires more virtue to manage, as we ought, a great estate, than to acquire it, in the most reputable manner; that affluent, and, still more, enormous wealth secularizes the heart of a Christian too much, indisposes him for the offices of piety, and too often (though it may seem strange) for those of humanity; that it inspires a sufficiency and self-dependance, which was not designed for mortal man; an impatience of complying with the rules of reason, and the commands of religion; a forgetfulness of our highest duties, or an extreme reluctance to observe them.
In a word, when we have computed all the advantages, which a flowing prosperity brings with it, it will be our wisdom to remember, that its disadvantages are also great[167]; greater than surely we are aware of, if it be true, as our Lord himself assures us it is; that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of Heaven[168].
Yet, with God (our gracious Master adds) all things are possible. I return, therefore, to the doctrine with which I set out, and conclude; that riches are not evil in themselves; that the moderate desire of them is not unlawful; that a right use of them is even meritorious. But then you will reflect on what the nature of things, as well as the voice of Solomon, loudly declares, that he who loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver; that the capacity of the human mind is not filled with it; that, if we pursue it with ardour, and make it the sole or the chief object of our pursuit, it never did, and never can yield a true and permanent satisfaction; that, if riches encrease, it is our interest, as well as duty, not to set our hearts upon them[169]; and that, finally, we are so to employ the riches, we any of us have, with temperance and sobriety, with mercy and charity, as to make ourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness (of the mammon, which usually deserves to be so called) that, when we fail (when our lives come, as they soon will do, to an end) they may receive us into everlasting habitations[170].