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_! Give to the poor with a single eye, with an upright heart, and “Write, so much given to God.” For _inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me_. This is the part of a _faithful and wise steward_. Not, to sell either his houses or lands, or principal stock, be it more or less, unless some peculiar circumstance should require it; and not to desire or endeavour to increase it, any more than to squander it away in vanity: but to employ it wholly to those wise and reasonable purposes, for which his Lord has lodged it in his hands. The wise steward, after having provided his own houshold, with what is needful for life and godliness, _makes_ himself _friends with_ all that remains from time to time of the _mammon of unrighteousness; that when he fails, they may receive him into everlasting habitations_: that whensoever his earthly tabernacle is dissolved, they who were before carried into _Abraham’s_ bosom, after having eaten his bread, and worn the fleece of his flock, and praised God for the consolation, may welcome him into paradise, and into _the house of_ God, _eternal in the heavens_.