Note 603 — Chapter IV

See this theory worked out in Cockburn's Jacob's Vow, or Man's Felicity and Duty, pp. 71–75. He says, ‘And certainly to crave and be desirous of more than what is competent for the maintenance and support of our lives, is both inconsistent with that dependence and subjection we owe to God, and doth also bespeak a great deal of vanity, folly, and inconsiderateness.’ Boston, striking at the very foundation of that practice of providing for the future, which is the first and most important maxim in all civil wisdom, and which peculiarly distinguishes civilized nations from barbarians, asks his hearers, ‘Why should men rack their heads with cares how to provide for to-morrow, while they know not if they shall then need anything?’ Boston's Human Nature in its Four-fold State, p. 300. Hutcheson thinks that those who are guilty of such impious prudence, deserve to be starved. ‘When men are not content with food and rayment, but would still heap up more, it is just with God to leave them not so much as bread; and to suffer men to have an evil eye upon them, and to pluck at them, even so long as they have meat.’ Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of Job, p. 296. Binning, going still further, threatens eternal ruin. ‘Ye may have things necessary here,—food and raiment; and if ye seek more, if ye will be rich, and will have superfluities, then ye shall fall into many temptations, snares, and hurtful lusts which shall drown you in perdition.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 355.