DANGER OF RICHES by John Wesley

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 4, 1868

DANGER OF RICHES.

By John Wesley

AN ADDRESS TO THE METHODISTS BY JOHN WESLEY.

O ye Methodists, hear the word of the Lord! I have a message from God to all men; but to you above all. For above forty years I have been a servant to you and to your fathers. And I have not been as a reed shaken by the wind; I have not varied in my testimony. I have testified to you the very same thing from the first day even until now. But “who hath believed our report?” I fear, not many rich; I fear there is need to apply to some of you those terrible words of the Apostle, “Go to now, ye rich men! weep and howl for the miseries which shall come upon you. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall witness against you, and shall eat your flesh, as it were fire.” Certainly it will, unless ye both save all you can, and give all you can. But who of you hath considered this, since you first heard the Will of the Lord concerning it? Who is now determined to consider and practise it? By the grace of God, begin to-day!

O ye lovers of money, hear the word of the Lord! Suppose ye that money, though multiplied as the sand of the sea, can give happiness? Then you are “given up to a strong delusion, to believe a lie;” a palpable lie, confuted daily by a thousand experiments. Open your eyes! look all around you! are the richest men the happiest? Have those the largest share of content, who have the largest possessions? Is not the very reverse true? Is it not a common observation, that the richest of men are, in general, the most discontented, the most miserable? Had not the far greater part of them more content when they had less money? Look into your own breasts. If you are increased in goods, are you proportionately increased in happiness? You have more substance: but have you more content? You know that in seeking happiness from riches, you are only striving to drink out of empty cups. And let them be painted and gilded ever so finely, they are empty still.

O ye that desire to be rich, hear ye the word of the Lord! Why should ye be stricken any more? Will not even experience teach you wisdom? Will ye leap into a pit with your eyes open? Why should you any more fall into temptation? It cannot be, but temptation will beset you, as long as you are in the body. But though it should beset you on every side, why will you enter into it? There is no necessity for this; it is your own voluntary act and deed. Why should you any more plunge yourselves into a snare, into the trap Satan has laid for you, that is ready to break your bones in pieces; to crush your soul to death? After fair warning, why should you sink any more into foolish and hurtful desires? Desires as inconsistent with reason, as they are with religion itself. Desires that have done you more hurt already, than all the treasures upon earth can countervail.

Have they not hurt you already, have they not wounded you in the tenderest part, by slackening, if not utterly destroying, your “hunger and thirst after righteousness?” Have you now the same longing that you had once, for the whole image of God? Have you the same vehement desire as you formerly had, of “going on unto perfection?” Have they not hurt you by weakening your faith?” Have you now faith’s “abiding impression, realizing things to come?” Do you endure, in all temptations, from pleasure or pain, “seeking him that is invisible?” Have you every day, and every hour, an uninterrupted sense of his presence? Have they not hurt you with regard to your hope? Have you now a hope full of immortality? Are you still big with earnest expectation of all the great and precious promises? Do you now “taste the powers of the world to come?” Do you “sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus?”

Have they not so hurt you, as to stab your religion to the heart? Have they not cooled (if not quenched) your love of God? This is easily determined. Have you the same delight in God which you once had? can you now say, > “I nothing want beneath, above, > Happy, happy, in thy love!” I fear not. And if your love of God is in any wise decayed, so is also your love of your neighbor. You are then hurt in the very life and spirit of your religion! If you lose love, you lose all.

Are you not hurt with regard to your humility? If you are increased in goods, it cannot well be otherwise. Many will think you a better, because you are a richer man; and how can you help thinking so yourself? Especially, considering the commendations which some will give you in simplicity, and many with a design to serve themselves of you.

If you are hurt in your humility, it will appear by this token: you are not so teachable as you were, not so advisable; you are not so easy to be convinced; not so easy to be persuaded; you have a much better opinion of your own judgment, and are more attached to your own will. Formerly one might guide you with a thread: now one cannot turn you with a cart-rope. You were glad to be admonished or reproved: but that time is past. And you now account a man your enemy because he tells you the truth. Oh, let each of you calmly consider this, and see if it be not your own picture!

Are you not equally hurt, with regard to your meekness? You had once learned an excellent lesson of him that was meek as well as lowly in heart. When you were reviled, you reviled not again. You did not return railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing. Your love was not provoked, but enabled you on all occasions to overcome evil with good. Is this your case now? I am afraid not. I fear, you cannot “bear all things.” Alas, it may rather be said, you can bear nothing; no injury, nor even affront. How quickly are you ruffled! How readily does that occur, “What! to use me so! What insolence is this! How did he dare do it? I am not now what I was once. Let him know, I am now able to defend myself.” You mean to revenge yourself. And it is much, if you are not willing, as well as able: if you do not take your fellow servant by the throat.

And are you not hurt in your patience too? Does your love now “endure all things?” Do you still, “in patience possess your soul,” as when you first believed? Oh, what a change is here! You have again learned to be frequently out of humor. You are often fretful: you feel, nay, and give way to peevishness. You find abundance of things go so cross, that you cannot tell how to bear them.

But to return. Are not you, who have been successful in your endeavors to increase in substance, insensibly sunk into softness of mind, if not of body too? You no longer rejoice to “endure hardship, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ!” You no longer “rush into the kingdom of heaven, and take it as by storm.” You do not cheerfully and gladly “deny yourselves, and take up your cross daily.” You cannot deny yourself the poor pleasure of a little sleep, or of a soft bed, in order to hear the word that is able to save your souls! Indeed, you “cannot go out so early in the morning; besides it is dark; nay, cold, perhaps rainy too. Cold, darkness, rain; all these together, I can never think of it.” You did not say so when you were a poor man. You then regarded none of these things. It is the change of circumstances which has occasioned this melancholy change in your body and mind; you are but the shadow of what you were! What have riches done for you?

In time past, how mindful were you of that word, “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart; thou shalt in any wise reprove thy brother, and not suffer sin upon him!” You did reprove, directly or indirectly, all those that sinned in your sight. And happy consequences quickly followed. How good was a word spoken in season! It was often as an arrow from the hand of a giant. But which of you now has that compassion for the ignorant, and for them that are out of the way? Gold has steeled your hearts. You have something else to do.