"Beloved Brethren: "In the kind providence of our heavenly Father, we are permitted to behold the close of another associational year, and to address you this our second circular letter. We have chosen for our subject the sin of covetousness - a sin which, we fear, exists to a greater or less extent in the Christian church, paralyzing her energies, and impeding her march to that holiness and beauty which would render her the praise and glory of the whole earth; a sin which is common to all grades of society, and all classes of community - to the King upon the throne, the private citizens of a million, the man in ordinary circumstances, and the tenant of the humblest cottage; and perhaps no sin mentioned in the sacred Scriptures is pointed out with more clearness and copiousness than this, and of which we are more particularly cautioned to beware, as if it were the very rock on which the frail bark of humanity is most likely to founder. In the decalogue or precepts of the moral law, it is expressly forbidden. A hatred of this sin was a necessary qualification of those judges selected by Moses to preside over the chosen people of God. The Saviour himself enjoins upon His disciples to take heed and beware of covetousness, 'for a man's life,' says He, 'consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesses.' The Apostle Paul warns his son, Timothy, to beware of it, knowing well, notwithstanding that deep piety and devotion which entitled him to the appellation of 'man of God,' the influence it would exert in bringing darkness upon his own soul and blasting his fair prospects of usefulness to the church of Christ.
"In every age of the world it has exerted the most deleterious influence. Its course has been marked by manifest indications of Divine displeasure, and it has led to the most awful and fatal consequences. The apostle calls it the root of all evil - not that it produces all the evil, physical and moral, which exists in the world, but that there is no crime, however base - no deed, however daring, to which it may not prompt.
"It entered the Garden of Eden - gazed with envy upon the happy pair, and by cunning and artifice led them to transgress the command of God; and by one single act of disobedience entailed death, both spiritual and temporal, upon all their posterity; banished them from their happy Paradise., and doomed them to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows.
"It tempted the son of Carmi, in direct violation of the command of God, to take secretly and conceal certain valuable articles from among the spoils ofJericho, and thereby caused defeat to the armies of Israel and sudden destruction to himself.
"It influenced Lot, when compelled to separate from Abraham, and to him was submitted the right of choice to select the fertile plain, upon which stood the wealthy cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, because he saw it was well watered and possessed natural advantages for the acquisition of wealth; and where his righteous soul was vexed from day to day by the foul conversation and abominable deeds of its wicked inhabitants, and from which he was warned by an angel from Heaven to depart ere its impending destruction; while his wife, disregarding the command of Heaven, became a monument of God's just displeasure.
"In the person of Balaam, it essayed to curse the children of Israel, and when the dumb beast, speaking, forbade the madness of the prophet, it suggested to Balak to cast a stumbling block before them, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit the sin whereby 24,000 of their number were slain.
"It led Ahab to covet the vineyard of Naboth, which was obtained by artifice, subornation and murder.
"It prompted Judas to betray the Saviour of mankind for the paltry sum of thirty pieces of silver; and Simon Magus to offer to purchase, with money, the gift of the Holy Spirit, that he might turn it to a lucrative traffic, and render it a source of personal emolument.
"It led Ananias and Sapphira, two professed converts to the Christian faith, to dissemble and lie unto the Holy Ghost, whereby they brought upon themselves a sudden and awful doom.
"It has led forth slaughtering armies into the world to blast the fair fruits of industry, and to fill the peaceful cities with massacres and blood; and then it has reveled in the spoilers of the widow, and drank the tears of the unprotected orphan.
"It is contrary to the spirit of true Christianity. The spirit of the Gospel is a spirit of love and active benevolence - a benevolence which, looking beyond the technicalities of a sect, and the boundaries of a denomination, comprehends in its compassionate regards the entire race of man.
"Love to the souls of men originated, and in time perfected the plan of man's salvation; fired the breasts of patriarchs and prophets; ran parallel through every vein of Christianity, until it burst forth in full triumph at the birth of Christ, 'for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.' It was this which kindled the flaming zeal of the Apostle Paul and caused his spirit to be moved within him as he saw the citizens of voluptuous Athens wholly given to idolatry, which led him to count not his own life dear unto himself, provided he might finish his course with joy and the ministry he had received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. It is this love which allures the missionary of more modern days to the ice-bound cliffs of polar regions, and to encounter the pestilential diseases of a sultry clime, beholding in the sable son of Africa, the swarthy inhabitant of the South Sea Islands, and the red man of the western wilderness, a fellow-being and a brother.
"The Apostle Paul, on delivering his parting charge to the elders of the Ephesian Church, reminds them of his own example, and assures them he has coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel; and then enjoins it upon them to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' Yes, there is a blessedness in doing good; a joy, to which the covetous and dissolute, the slothful and the indolent, are total strangers, and of which they can have no adequate conception; a joy which is as pure as its Author, and lasting as eternity; which the pestiferous breath of slander can never blast, nor the tongue of envy diminish; a joy pleasing to God and sanctioned by the Holy Spirit. It reigns in every Christian heart and predominates in every department of the gospel; while the natural tendency of covetousness, the antagonist of the principle, is to harden the heart, sear the conscience, stifle the affections, paralyze the energies of the soul, and diminish our capacity for enjoyment. It turns, for a moment, a listening ear to the cries of the needy and distressed, and replies: 'Go in peace; be ye warmed and filled,' while it giveth not those things which are needful for the body.
"It often professes great love for God, and an ardent desire for the salvation of perishing sinners, and yet, while nothwithstanding the fact that from almost every part of benighted Africa, the spicy groves of Ceylon, the fertile plains of India, and the densely populated cities of imperial China, the Macedonian cry is borne to its ears on the breezes of every ocean, it withholds from them the bread of Heaven and the lamp of life, and enshrining itself into an idol, bows down and pays its daily and nightly devotions.
"If the benevolent impulses of the covetous would sometimes prompt them to give, under some melting appeal in behalf of the heathen, those impulses are soon checked by a prudent resolve, first to enlarge their possessions, multiply their servants, and educate their children, and then they will leave their liberality open to all the noble impulses of an unrestrained benevolence.
"If God blesses the labor of their hands, so that their fields bring forth in such abundance that they have not where to bestow their fruits, instead of feeling the obligation which that bounty imposes, and blessings as they have been blessed, they resolve to pull down their barns and build greater, and thereto bestow their fruit; they will then say to their souls, 'soul, thou hast much treasure laid up for many years; eat, drink and take they ease.' But ere these flattering anticipations are realized, God too often says, as to the rich man in the Gospel, 'this night thy soul shall be required of thee.'
"And may we not assume the position that God will bless us spiritually and temporally in the same proportion that we give to His cause? 'God,' says the apostle, 'is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love.' 'He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully.' And are we not taught by the parable of the talents that 'to him that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance, while from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have?' 'There is,' says Solomon, 'that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.' 'Honor the Lord with thy substance, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.' 'For this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hands unto.' 'The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.'
"The writer of this once knew an individual, who in the meridian of life, made a public profession of religion. Until that time he had been industrious but poor. He now felt it his duty to give to the cause of Christ. He did give and gave liberally, and in a few years became wealthy, and, to use his own expression, he never prospered until he gave to the cause of his dear Redeemer; and the more he gave the more God blessed him. 'And when I gave freely,' said he, 'I felt warmly, and giving and feeling are like faith and works - they go together.'
"Our lamented brother, Nathaniel Ripley Cobb, on making a public profession of religion, resolved by the grace of God to give one-fourth of the net profits of his business to charitable and religious uses; if he ever became worth $20,000, to give one-half; if $30,000, to give three-fourths; if $50,000, to give all. To this resolution he strictly adhered; and although he began poor and died at the early age of 36 years, he had given away, under the influence of these resolutions, $40,000. 'Oh,' said he, 'how good the Lord has been to me.'
"And do not the efforts made by the world to obtain the favorite objects of their pursuit, and to gratify their appetites, often put to the blush the puny efforts of the Christian church? All the great benevolent societies of the United States contribute annually about one million dollars, while twenty millions are annually expended for the single article of tobacco, and one hundred millions for ardent spirits - an amount equal to about five dollars for every man, woman and child in the country. And while a single pious individual sometimes gives a thousand or even five thousand dollars for some great and good cause-a solitary instance which stands out in bold relief, challenging the admiration of the Christian world a Mohammedan will give fifty thousand dollars for a single pilgrimage to the temple of his false prophet. While Christians of the United States pay one million dollars for that cause professedly dear to their hearts, the inhabitants of pagan India pay one hundred and sixty millions for incense to burn in their idol temples.
"And what is the influence of this upon the world? They judge of Christianity, not so much by the professions which are made, and its pure and holy precepts, as by the practical bearing and influence of those precepts upon the hearts and lives of its professors, and while we profess to be not our own, to be bought with a price, and to hold all we have as God's stewards, regarding this world as not our home, but looking forward to Heaven, where we have a richer and more enduring treasure, does not our conduct often evince that gold is our idol and wealth, in our estimation, the greatest possible good? And do not our great efforts to provide a competence for our children plainly prove that our faith and confidence in the promises of God are exceedingly weak and unstable? And does not our too great thirst for the wealth, honors and distinction of this world often give rise to the expression so often made in relation to this and that professor, 'He is too close, I fear, to be honest?'
"My brethren, these things ought not to be so; and if in any of our encampments are concealed a Babylonish garment and a wedge of gold, may God assist us to banish the accursed thing from among us. May His love dwell in our hearts richly, that we may ever regard it as our highest earthly privilege free to give, as God has blessed us, to promote the best interests of that cause for which the Saviour so freely gave His life. "T. J. PILGRIM." ==================== [From J. M. Carroll, A.M., D.D., A History of Texas Baptists, Comprising a Detailed Account of Their Activities, Their Progress and Their Achievements, Edited by J. B. Cranfill, LL.D., 1923, pp. 301-306. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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