24. Equally inexcusable are those, who _lay up_ what they do not need for any reasonable purposes. “If a man had hands and eyes and feet that he could give to those that wanted them; if he should lock them up in a chest, instead of giving them to his brethren, that were blind and lame, should we not justly reckon him an inhuman wretch? If he should rather chuse to amuse himself with hoarding them up, than intitle himself to an eternal reward by giving them to those that wanted eyes and hands, might we not justly reckon him mad?”
“Now money has very much the nature of eyes and feet. If therefore we lock it up in chests, while the poor and distrest want it for their necessary uses, we are not far from the cruelty of him, that chuses rather to hoard up hands and eyes, than to give them to those that want them. If we chuse to lay it up, rather than to intitle ourselves to an eternal reward by disposing of our money well, we are guilty of his madness, that rather chuses to lock up eyes and hands, than to make himself for ever blessed, by giving them to those that want them.”
25. *May not this be another reason why rich men shall so hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven? A vast majority of them are under a curse, under the peculiar curse of God: inasmuch as in the general tenor of their lives, they are not only robbing God continually, imbezzling and wasting their Lord’s goods, and by that very means corrupting their own souls: but also robbing the poor, the hungry, the naked; wronging the widow and the fatherless, and making themselves accountable for all the want, affliction and distress, which they may, but do not remove. Yea, doth not the blood of all those who perish for want, of what they either lay up, or lay out needlessly, cry against them from the earth? O what account will they give, to him who is ready to judge both the quick and the dead!
26. The true way of employing what you do not want yourselves, you may, fourthly learn from those words of our Lord, which are the counterpart of what went before: _Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven; where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break thro’ and steal_. Put out whatever thou canst spare, upon better security than this world can afford. Lay up thy treasures in the bank of heaven: and God shall restore them in that day. _He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the_ Lord, _and look what he layeth out, it shall be paid him again_. Place that, saith he, unto my account. Howbeit! _thou owest me thine own self also_!