Quote 4377
as the ivy grows with the oak, so covetousness hath grown with riches.
Henry Smith
The Benefit of Contentation119
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
Lay aside covetousness. Covetousness is not only getting worldly gain unjustly, but loving it inordinately. This is a great hindrance to the preached word. The seed which fell among thorns was choked. The covetous man is thinking on the world when he is hearing; his heart is in his shop. "They sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words…but their heart goes after their covetousness" (Ezek. 33:31).
Covetousness is a sin that wears a cloak; it cloaks itself under the name of frugality and good husbandry. It hath many pleas and excuses for itself—more than any other sin, as the providing for one's family. The more subtle the sin is, the less discernible.Body of Practical Divinity, 334
Covetousness is an uncontentedness, or a desire of having much, arising from an uncontentedness with a man's condition. It is an uncontentedness with or a desire of having abundance out of a discontentedness with a man's present estate, though he might by lawful means mend or better it.
If covetousness reigns in the heart, commonly all compassion is banished from it.
Three things children receive of their parents: life, maintenance, and instruction. For these three they owe other three; for life they owe love; for maintenance they owe obedience; for instruction they owe reverence. For life, they must be loved as fathers; for maintenance, they must be obeyed as masters; for instruction, they must be reverenced as tutors.Sermons, 207
The heart must be kept courageous and strong and lively, like an instrument which is tuned to tune all the rest, or else every grief will make thee impatient. In Deuteronomy 30:9 it is said that God rejoices to do us good, and therefore in Deuteronomy 28 the Jews are reproved because they rejoiced not in the service of God. As He loveth a cheerful giver, so He loveth a cheerful server and a cheerful preacher and a cheerful hearer and a cheerful worshiper; and therefore David saith, "Let us sing unto the LORD" (Ps. 95:1), showing, as it were, the tune which delights God's ears. Sermons, 115
If we covet heaven more, we shall covet earth less. To those who stand on the top of the Alps, the great cities of Campania seem but as small villages; so if our hearts were more fixed upon the Jerusalem above, all worldly things would disappear, would diminish, and be as nothing in our eyes.
A covetous man is like a bee that gets into a barrel of honey, and there drowns itself. As a ferryman takes in so many passengers to increase his fare, that he sinks his boat; so a covetous man takes in so much gold to increase his estate, that he drowns himself in perdition.
A man is given to covetousness when he so sets his heart upon worldly things, that for the love of them, he will part with heavenly; for the 'wedge of gold,' he will part with the 'pearl of price.'The Ten Commandments, 175
A man may be said to be given to covetousness, when all his discourse is about the world.The Ten Commandments, 175
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