Proverbs 11:24 There is that scatters, and yet increases; and there is that withholds more than is meet, but it tends to poverty. The words of this text carry an air of improbable and surprising paradoxes to the covetous and worldly-minded, who naturally imagine that scattering tends to poverty, and withholding to increase. But if we take them to be allusive to the management of a husbandman in sowing his seed, the sense will stand as easy as the thought will appear to be beautiful and just (compare 2 Corinthians 9:6). I. THE DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS OF VERY OPPOSITE CHARACTERS. "Scatter" is the same word as "disperse" (Psalm 112:9). He that scatters is the liberal soul; the man who, with a free and generous spirit, labours to spread the most useful and extensive influence, by all manner of means; the man who is ready to distribute of his temporal substance for promoting religious and civil liberties and interests, for doing good to the souls and bodies of men, and, particularly, for relieving the necessitous and the distressed. We should manage our religious and charitable distributions, not with contrivance how to shift off our obligations and opportunities for them, but with devising how in the best manner to improve them; not with a grudging, but with a free and cheerful heart. On the contrary, he that withholds, keeps back, or spares, more than is meet or right, is the covetous man, whose narrow, selfish spirit will not suffer him cheerfully to pay his personal or his public debts, much less to practise beneficence at an expense that cannot be demanded by human laws. No arguments derived from humanity or Christianity can work his heart up to bear his proper proportion in generous and beneficent acts. II. WHAT IS AFFIRMED OF THESE PERSONS RESPECTIVELY. We might consider this increase and want with respect to our best interests, that relate to the enrichment of the soul in goodness. Distributing enlarges the heart, and makes it open, free, and generous, with growing propensions to every good work. The man who withholds is poor-spirited; he has a contracted soul; he is destitute of those amiable graces by which our God and Saviour are most conspicuously imitated and glorified. We may also consider this increase and want with respect to our worldly substance. That is not lessened but improved by distributions on all proper occasions. Withholdings, more than is meet, ever tend to poverty and want. God's blessing on the generous comes either as a visible increase of their outward estates, or as a secret increase of the inward contentment of their own minds. Those who are of a covetous temper, do not enjoy what they possess. According to a just estimation of things, they are no richer by all their silver and gold than if it still lay in the ore of the Indian mines. III. ACCOUNT FOR THE TRUTH OF BOTH THESE PROPOSITIONS. Every virtuous, spiritual, and holy disposition of the soul increases by frequent and proper exercise; and loses its force and vigour, and aptness for action, by disuse and neglect. This is common to all principles and habits of the moral or religious and supernatural kind. 1. The blessing of God is upon them that scatter, and His blast is upon them that withhold more than is meet. 2. The friendship of men is toward them that scatter, and their disaffection toward those who withhold more than is meet. (J. Guyse, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. |
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