Ten Sermons, Collection of sermons · Sermon 6
The Rich and Poor meet together.
SERMON VI.
PROV. xxii. 2.
The Rich and Poor meet together: The Lord is the Maker of them all.
THere is a levelling Principle among meer self-seeking Men, that there ought to be equality among all Men, and that no one in the State should be richer than others. High-way-men are of that Religion, if they have any. But certainly the most Democratical State that can be imagined, cannot subsist with that equality. As there must be an unevenness in the fingers of the Hand to make it serviceable; so there is need of some inequality in Mens conditions for the subsistence of Civil Society: Without that, there would be no Government, no Order, and no mutual help in a Policy.
Blessed is the State whose Statutes are so copied out upon God's wisdom, which makes poor and rich to meet together, that the poor are kept from being indigent, the rich from being unlimited, both from being injurious to each other; and where all meet in God, the Maker of them all, with mutual reverence and love.
Our Text consisteth of two Considerations evidently distinct, yet the first depending upon the second. For the reason why the poor and rich meet together, is, because God is the Maker of them all by his wise providence. But Solomon begins by the effects, and thence proceeds to the cause, which is the most natural order for knowledge.
That we may consider after Solomon how the poor and rich meet together, and deal with them both impartially, we shall examine them about the principal heads of Man's life, their Nature, their Fortune or condition, and their spiritual and moral parts. It will be found that in these three things, which comprehend all that can be said of Man, the rich and the poor meet together.
I. Begin we by their Nature. It is known that both are of the same mould, produced by the same natural ways, and that the same Elements enter into their composition. This is known, but not considered; For both poor and rich mistake their Fortune for their Nature. All men coming naked into the World, enter presently into the fortune of their Family. Some fall from the Womb upon the ground, and there stay; but most get as it were upon Stilts, some higher, some lower, according to their Parents degree. And the Children as soon as they begin to know any thing, mistake their Stilts for their Legs. They take their degree to be their own substance; an error which they keep long. One must live the third part of a Man's age before he can distinguish betwixt his being a Man and his being a Gentleman. Hence this ordinary expression that such a one is great by birth: An improper speech; for although Greatness be tied to his Birth, it is by the Law of the Nation, not by that of Nature; for Nature bestowed as much cost upon the Plowman's as upon the Emperor's Son. Both came naked into the Midwife's lap.
This I say, not only for great Persons, but for inferiour people, who having less breeding have also less knowledge of themselves and the World. Experience sheweth, that many times those are the proudest that have least cause for it. Many stand highest upon their points, that stand not very high from the ground, and at the least push will fall into the dirt. Finding themselves lyable to contempt, they take great care to defend themselves from it: But they take a wrong course for it. The true way for the poor to get respect, and for the rich to keep it, is humility, and knowing ones self. Let the great remember that they are Men, and the low that they are poor men: Let none mistake his Condition for his Nature, like Children that mistake their Nurse for their Mother. For what course soever God giveth to our Fortune, Nature will keep her course, and make the Pulse beat alike in the rich and poor, and inflame both alike with Fevers, and chill both alike with Rheumes, and finally close the Eyes of both alike by Death, which draweth the curtain of the Stage, and then the Comedy of Fortune is at an end. Nature which brought them forth naked, taketh them in more naked than she brought them forth, stripping the Soul off the body, and the very Flesh off the bones.
Truly it is in death especially that poor and rich meet together. Death divesteth all the Actors of this Play of Life, of the false properties of Fortune. And then who can say, This is the noble, and that the ignoble dust? You will say, The rich have magnificent Tombs, The poor lie in the dust. But stay a while, Sunt & sua fata sepulchris, The very Tombs have their death; and when they are worn out and pulled down, (an ordinary accident in Turns of State) the Bones of rich and poor are hurled down into Charnel-houses: No distance there between the Superiour and Inferiour, Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat. All are, dust to dust, blended together. The great and the small are there, Job 3.19.and the servant is free from his Master, saith Job.
Now as poor and rich meet together in their Weakness, they meet also in the Excellency of their Nature. To be made after the Image of God, and though naturally corrupt, yet naturally capable to know God their Maker, to love and praise him; The only Creature in the world that God loveth, and for whom he sets the whole course of this great Nature on work. This common Excellency of Mankind, greater than man himself is able to imagine, is so high, that the differences arising from the petty degrees of Fortune are scarce considerable.
As after admiring the distance between the Earth and the Firmament, the difference of Hills and Dales is counted for nothing; so after the contemplation of the excellency of man's Soul, and how God by the work of Grace makes her partaker even of the divine nature, saith St. Peter, 2 Pet. 1.3.the difference of Civil conditions between men is of small consideration. Sure he that is proud of his Fortune, is not worthy of his Nature; and no more he that is dejected with his Fortune, and out of a spite that he hath not outward goods at will makes no use of his inward goods to glorifie God, and comfort himself in him. Let the sense that we have God's Image within us (now I hope reformed in some measure, and mended by Grace) breed in us such a respect to our selves, that we take great heed of defiling such a sacred treasure by wilful sin. Let a generous esteem of the excellency to which God hath raised our Souls, giving his Son for them, make us contemn the contempt of men. And in consideration of that Excellency, common to God's children, let the poor and the rich meet together in a charitable esteem one of another.
II. But as poor and rich meet together in Nature, (to which I have also joyned the mending by Grace) we must shew that they meet also in Fortune. And whereas this may seem a strange affirmation, it shall be made good by comparing the poor and the rich in the revolutions of Houses and States, and in the commodities and incommodities of private persons.
For the first, it is visible that great and low Houses have their alterations. Every one hath his turn. The Imperial House descends in time to the Cottage; The Cottage groweth in time to the Imperial Palace. Some Houses are worn out by their antiquity; Other Houses grow and flourish because their Nobility is fresh and young. And as new Houses rise up and old Houses go down, they meet in the way. Let a Noble House stand never so fast, it is impossible but that some Cion shall once in an age be grafted upon a mean stock, where the poor and the rich, the noble and the ignoble, shall meet: But that is one of the least Entercommunes.
This is greater. Any man may observe any where, as much as Servius Sulpitius writes to Tully: As he travelled through Greece, he had observed here the place where Megara once stood, there the ruines of Argina; at his right hand the desolations of Pyreus, at his left hand the ashes of Corinth; and there broke into a lamentation at the Human frailty and the instability of the strongest and fairest things of the world. Stand ye in any place where you may have a large prospect, You may say as much as Sulpitius. There is the ruine of an old Castle, once the Mannour of many Thousands a Year; About it many little Houses raised out of the decay of the great one, as so many Bees out of a dead Oxe. Yonder the corruption of an Abby hath been the generation of a Knight; whose fourth generation was turned out by a swarm of begging Fryars. Then say with David, Surely man walketh in a vain shew; Psal. 39.6.Surely he disquieteth himself in vain. ‖Ps. 75.7.God putteth down one and setteth up another. Upon him, not upon the quick-sand of the world, I will build my trust, and there stand fast, among the vertiginous turns of the world.
Observe that the nature of man's desire and that of worldly objects which mens desire fasteneth upon, meet quite cross. For our desire naturally tends upwards; every one would rise and increase: but worldly wealth and greatness tend downwards. Sidunt ipso pondere magna; Cedítque oneri fortuna suo. They are heavy things and sink by their own weight. There is need of a great industry, and the blessing of God upon it, to keep them up. No wonder then that the rich meet so often with the poor, and is reduced to his condition. Wherefore it would be a wise course for us to place our desire, which naturally tends upwards, upon those things which ever keep above, and never go down. This was St. Paul's Philosophy:Col. 3.1, 2. If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. Besides those revolutions which come in a manner by course, and by the decaying nature of Humane things, the provoking sins of men and the just wrath of God upon them worketh greater and more sudden changes in the World. God poureth contempt upon Princes, and weakeneth the strength of the might,, Job 12.21.saith Job. I have seen servants upon horses, Eccl. 10.7.and Princes walking as servants upon the earth, saith Solomon. Many besides him have seen as much. How fast doth the turning of the wheel bring dirt to the top, and the top to the dirt; and with another turn bring dirt to dirt again? So fast that the poor and the rich in their sudden shifting of places, are gone a great way before they can perceive that they have met by the way. It is marvellous in our eyes, but it is the Lord's doing, let no man murmur. God imployeth sinners to punish sinners, Assur to punish Israel, Babylon to punish Assur, Persia to punish Babylon, Greece to punish Persia, Rome to punish Greece. God imployeth hungry Invaders to get the ill gotten wealth of proud and lazy Nations. And when those Invaders are grown arrogant and insolent, God maketh them a prey for other Invaders. The Histories of the World are full of those Turns. But we need not look for the great Revolutions, to find the meeting of the rich and the poor; You may compare them nearer in the daily condition of particular Men, and find them meeting in condition, even while they are keeping the greatest distance.
Here I would do a good service to the rich, helping them out of the envy of the poor; and a good office of the poor, shewing the little reason they have to envy the rich.
For if the rich have some advantage above the poor, it is either in the ease of his body, or in the content of his mind. As for the body, the rich fareth more plentifully, but not always better; It being certain, that plain Diet with a daily labour is better for health, than plenty and variety of dainties with little or no labour: for then the more food, the more preparatives and accumulation for indisgestion and sickness. Take the two extremes of the two conditions, the Lord and the Beggar. They will get the same diseases out of different causes. The one gets a Consumption by short and course diet; the other gets the like by a surfeit: But the last is more ordinary and more dangerous; Et pejor ex saturitate quàm fame macies. The rich hath softer beds, but the poor hath harder sides, and can sleep in any bed, and without bed.
The rich hath more superfluous things. But in things necessary he goeth little beyond the poor. Neither of them liveth by the work of Goldsmiths and Painters, but by that of Plowmen and Bakers. The profit of the earth is for all, the King himself is served by the field. Eccl. 5.9.If the poor have but sufficiency of meat, drink and raiment, it is hard to say what the rich hath above him. Solomon saith, that‖Pro. 13.23 there is much food in the tillage of the poor: Whereas in a rich house many times there is so little, that he is put to borrow of his poor Neighbour. Saepe etiam dives à paupere plura petebat. The rich is as often beholden to the poor, as the poor to the rich.
And now for content of mind, I must needs say, that the rich in one point hath wherewith to content himself more than the poor, That he hath more means to do good, and to share in his measure with God's happiness, for it is more blessed to give than to receive. Act. 20.35.And doing good is God's nature and felicity.
Yet the poor is not deprived of that happiness, witness the poor Widow that put but two Mites in the Churches Treasury, yet in the judgment of the Lord Jesus, she had given more than the rich with their great gifts; because he valued the gift not by the quantity, but by the heart.
But as the rich hath more means to do good, he hath more temptations to do evil. And whereas the rich often curseth the time that ever he had means and power to do those things which have made him guilty and miserable; the poor may praise God for that happy poverty, which hath kept him many times from running headlong into sin and ruine. Haec si neque ego, neque tu fecimus, non sinit paupertas facere nos. Blessed be God for keeping us in sobriety and fear by the weakness of our condition.
And for the content in the use of necessary things, the Apostle teacheth us, that a small thing will make the poor and the rich meet in that point:1 Tim. 6.8. Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. No more did Jacob ask to satisfie his mind that the Lord was his God. Those holy men conceived no good in outward things above the use; for what is above the use is of no use, unless you will call it use to serve to torment the mind, as Solomon found it, and yet he had plenty of wisdom with plenty of riches.
If the poor and the rich have wisdom and grace that make them contented with the means they have, they are met together; Both have sufficiency: If both want wisdom and grace, They are met together; Both are in want. If the folly of the rich be towards lavishness, he will soon meet with the poor, yea with the beggar: But if his folly be a covetous folly, he is met with the poor already: For he that wants means, and he that hath not the power to enjoy his means, are two poor men. But he that is rich at the out-side, and poor within, hath the greater wants. Multas inter opes inops.
It was the ingenious cruelty of an Italian so to kill his enemy, keeping him tied, and giving him good meat to smell, but none to eat. Miserableness doth the like cruel usage to the wretched rich man. It tieth him near his goods, but giveth him no leave to feed upon them, and so starveth him. It is the singular folly of that vice, that whereas other passions, both good and bad, labour for their own satisfaction, this laboureth against it. For never any glutton abstained from a good morsel out of gluttony, nor a wanton from his pleasure out of wantonness: Covetousness only pineth her man; for the covetous man abstains from spending money, out of longing to have money to spend.
But methinks I hear the poor murmuring, Tell me not of satisfaction in the mind, while I feel real wants for my body. I want that which I see my neighbours have.
I will shew presently what satisfaction a Christian may and must take in poverty: I will but shew before to the envious poor, that if the wants of his rich neighbours may comfort him, he shall find there matter of comfort. For there is none of them but meeteth with the wants of the poor. He hath seen but little of the world that hath not observed how poor and rich have enough to do to come to the years end; and that the great Wants attend the great Estates. The Beggar wants a garment, and the Great man wants a hundred thousand Pounds to pay his debts. It will be easier to supply the first want than the second. Many a rich man should enjoy a quieter sleep, if he could as easily get relief for himself as he relieveth his meanest neighbours that eat his scraps. The very greatness and numerous Attendance of a Noble house, sheweth the greatness of the Masters need. For that which appeareth to the eyes of all, is, that there is need of much bread to feed so many bellies: But what the Master hath to feed them, that is concealed with an industry attended with a bitter care. That multitude of Officers and Servants brings more care than use. He laboureth more for them all, than any of them laboureth for him. Multorum dominus est multorum servus.
Then great Estates are subject to great Incumbrances. For where many things must concur that the whole may go right, it is impossible but that of those many pieces always some be out of order. A small want, a little rub, will clog a great Estate; as a whole Train of Artillery will stand for want of a Pin. Where there is much to receive, there is also much to lose, and much to tempt foul dealers. Thence comes Care, the inseparable companion of wealth; a far greater care than that of the poor man, who hath nothing but a little meat and clothing to care for. It is the observation of rich Solomon: The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, Eccl. 5.12.whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. For although the revenue be more than enough, one hath not the power to use it whensoever he would. To have and to hold, meet always in a Lease, but not always in the enjoying.‖Eccl. 6.1, 2. A man wanteth nothing of all he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eats it before him. This (saith Solomon) is an evil which I have seen under the Sun, and it is common among men.
Now as the rich meets with the wants of the poor, so doth the poor meet with the plenty of the rich: For what doth the rich do else with his plenty, but to feed many poor? Many perhaps by his Charity, but more by his Grandeur, to keep many Attendants about him, and set many poor to work? Yea, often he feeds them so against his will, that they become rich, and he poor.
When we look for an increase of our Estate, we make account then to save so much: But when that increase is come, we find the truth of Solomon's sentence,Eccl. 5.11. When goods increase, they are increased that eat them; And what good is there for the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?
The difficulties sticking to an Estate make those that have none, patient and willing to go to service. And being more sensible of real commodity than of conceited generosity, they will hold it a greater ease to eat that which they have not provided for, than to be troubled to provide it, and then see it eaten before their eyes.
When the poor liveth thus by the plenty of the rich, he may call that plenty his own; for enjoyment is the only true possession. And so for the pleasures of the rich. For what I could ever see, the servant and the poor neighbour shares with the Lord in his sports and magnificence. Stately Buildings, costly Gardens, curious Walks, pleasant Water-works, spacious Parks, dainty Musick, Coursing, Hunting, Hawking, the Servants are as much delighted with these as the Master; And if they be of my mind, they shall take more pleasure in them than the Master, because all these curiosities cost them nothing. They may relish the pleasantness of them, and not be concerned to mend the defects.
III. You have seen how poor and rich meet, both in their Nature and in their Fortune: So they do also in their Moral and Spiritual parts. This needs not to be much insisted upon: for neither the one nor the other condition giveth Wit or Vertue; and neither of them is exempted from the vices of Mankind. Thus much only: Some Vices are more incident to riches and greatness, as immoderate Self-love, and little considering the interests of others; Covetousness, Luxury, Wantonness, insatiable Ambition, Pride, and Idleness. These two, Pride and Idleness, are set with fulness of bread by Ezekiel. Ezek. 16.49Some Vices also are more incident to poverty, as Envy, Stealing, Baseness, Ignorance of that a civil Man and a Christian ought to know and do. Yet those Vices creep into both Fortunes, and in them the poor and the rich meet together; For one may be a niggard, though he have nothing to save or spend. Under raggs there is often a proud ambitious heart. And God hath done much for Mankind, by giving less power to them that have most insolency. Woe is to the World when War or Sedition puts power in the hands of such Men, who will justifie Solomon's saying,Pro. 28.3. that oppression coming from poor men is like a sweeping rain that leaveth no food behind. For as great Cattel after they have eaten a pasture, leave yet some remnant for small Cattel to bite; but small Cattel will eat to the very root: So the oppression that cometh from great men and rich, is far less outragious than that which is wrought by the raskality, for those leave nothing, but sweep all clean. Plures servorum irâ cecidere quàm regum. The wrath of Varlets hath done more harm to the World than that of Kings.
And so for other Excesses. Inferiour men not being able to equal the parts of their betters, will strive to out-do them in their Vices. Debauched Tradesmen and idle Servants will dice, swagger, and swear like Gentlemen.
On the other side, the rich will meet also with the poor in their Vices. For it is not only the poor that envieth the rich. Many envy their neighbours Estate, that have most reason to be contented with their own, as Ahab sick for Naboth's Vineyard. They are the great persons that commit the great robberies: A poor man will steal a Sheep, and is hanged for it: A King will rob a Kingdom, and is worshipped for it. The poor is apt to be ungenerous and base, because poverty beateth down his spirit: And the rich will fall to the same Vice because his spirit is softned with ease and plenty. Both are much alike dejected with their losses, as it is as much pain for a bushy head of hair as to a bald Pate to have a hair pluckt off. Commonly ignorance goeth along with poverty. Yet it were to be wisht that many rich Persons were not as ignorant out of laziness as the poor out of want. For it is less shame for a labouring man to understand nothing above Corn and Cattel, than for a Gentleman to have no meditation above bowling, and never to look up to heaven but to see his Hawk flie.
We have seen wherein poor and rich meet together, comparing them in their Nature, in their Fortune, and in their spiritual and moral parts, having regard only to those incidents which are most usual in poverty and riches: But now let us labour to make both the conditions to meet in the state of Grace.
To that end we will turn the affirmative doctrine of the Text into a precept. Let poor and rich meet together, making this enterchange sweetly exprest by Saint James, Jam. 1.9, 10.Let the brother of low degree rejoyce in that he is exalted, but the rich in that he is made low. He saith first, Let the brother of low degree rejoyce in that he is exalted. Let him remember that the Son of God made himself low to make us high, and poor to make the poor rich. Let him rejoyce that Christ leads him the same way as himself went, through humility to glory. Let him rejoyce that being made slender by poverty, he shall get more easily in at the strait door of the Kingdom of Heaven, than the rich swelled with pride and love of the World. That God hath chosen the poor of the world rich in faith, Jam. 2.5.and heirs of the kingdom of God, which he hath promised to them that love him. That out of his love he giveth them but short diet of the goods of this World, that they may be hungry and thirsty after the plenty of a better. That he giveth them but a light load of wealth, that they may with more ease travel to the kingdom of Heaven. And that if one may have the grace to be the child of God, brother of Christ, and Citizen of the new Jerusalem; his low condition in this frail life of few days doth but set off his heavenly Nobility, as a black foyl under a bright Diamond.
On the other side, let the rich rejoyce in that he is made low. Let him make himself poor by humility. For this is a doctrine of a most necessary observation, That no man is accepted before God nor saved, but considered as poor. The Church is represented by Ezekiel as a poor, naked, polluted and forsaken child,Ezek. 16. when God cast his first look of compassion upon her.
God in the redemption of Mankind considereth all men as naked of means, naked of help, naked of merits. They that boast or trust in any of these, and are rich and strong in their own conceit, set a barr between themselves and the mercy of God by that conceit. It is the right sense of that sentence of the Blessed Virgin, He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away. And of the Prophecy of Isaiah which our Saviour was pleased to make the Text of his first Sermon,Luk. 4.18. That God had anointed him to preach the Gospel unto the poor. Be ye sure that unless you make your selves poor, the Gospel will yield you no benefit. And to be poor as God would have you, you need not throw your Money into the Sea, and you need not to be dehorted from that. But wean your heart from the World, Wean it from self-love, Wean it from self-conceit. So much is being poor in spirit; a quality prescribed by Christ to all that will be once owners of the Kingdom of Heaven.
To be poor and have the kingdom of heaven, Who would not be thus poor? Let every one make himself poor, that he may be rich. A lesson expounded and urged to the full in that divine doctrine of St. Paul, Charge them that are rich, 1 Tim 6.17, &c.that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. That they do good; That they be rich in good works; ready to distribute, willing to communicate; Laying up for themselves a good foundation, that they may lay hold of eternal life.
That the poor and rich may meet together to their eternal comfort with charity and mutual respect suitable to their several conditions, St. Paul in my Text giveth a strong reason, a consideration which obligeth them to it, That God is the maker of them all. For the End of Solomon, and our End in all that was said before, is double; That the rich despise not the poor, and that the poor murmur not against the rich. These two Ends shall be obtained if this doctrine be once well learned, that the Lord is the Maker of them all.
First, let not the rich despise the poor, for the poor is the work of God. He that mocketh the poor despiseth his Maker, saith wise Solomon. Pro. 17.19.For despising the work is despising the Work-man. It is reproaching the Creator, that he hath made a contemptible work; That he hath made a man, and hath taken no care that he should live like a man. But who will be so bold as to find fault with God's wisdom? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? saith Isaiah. Isa. 45.10.Though you despise the poor, God despiseth him not; He hath made him with his own hand; He hath framed him after his image; He hath bestowed his Son, and his Son hath bestowed himself upon him. God's grace in this World, and his glory in the World to come, will be never the further from him for his being poor. Rather if his poverty be in the lowest degree of indigence, God's mercy towards him is the more evident, because he is fed by miracle, and sustained without means. Which sheweth that God is his daily Purveyor, and as it were his daily Maker; who giveth him life when he hath nothing to live upon. Such objects will move the rich Christian to say, It is the Lord's doing, that I depend not upon this Man's assistance, but he upon mine. My better condition must stir up my thankfulness to God, and my charity towards my poor Neighbours.
The same doctrine that God is the Maker of poor and rich, ought to stop the murmuring of the poor against the rich. So much is murmuring against God. Shall the Clay say to the Potter, Why hast thou made me thus, and why hast thou made him thus? Nay, God is the Judge, he bringeth down one and lifteth up another; And who shall say to him, What doest thou? Since God hath made us and placed us in our several stations, let us all learn this lesson of Saint Paul, Brethren, let every man wherein he was called, 1 Cor. 7.24therein abide with God. For it is not the high degree, but the well behaving our selves in our degree, that makes men honourable before God. Every one of us is an Actor on the Stage of the World, of which God and his Angels are Spectators. It is not bearing the Person of an Alexander, or a Caesar, that will obtain the applause of those great Spectators, but acting that part well which is assigned to us by our great Master, though it be but that of a Servant.
And because the life of a Christian is a commerce with God and the World, and he hath a Talent intrusted to him to trade with, Let us be covetous to trade with the true riches which lie upon poor and rich alike. Let us covet, let us husband, that good part of Mary which shall never be taken from them that get it; those great and precious promises which go so far as to make us partakers of the Divine nature. There be many that say, Who will shew us good? But as for us, let us say, Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. There are many that worship Mammon; But as for us, let us say, Lord incline our hearts to thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. Let us labour to be of those poor in spirit, rich in faith and good works: Yea, let us make bold to take God for our portion, and then we are rich. All that God hath is ours, if God be ours. And his is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Be we poor or rich, if we be faithful subjects of God's Kingdom, we have so much part in the expected glory of that kingdom, as to be sure to be made by Christ, Kings and Priests unto God and his Father; and our glory shall be to give him glory for ever.
The End of the Sixth Sermon.