We fully sympathize with you in your feelings as to professing Christians going in debt.
The utter want of conscience on this subject is really dreadful. It must sadly grieve the Spirit of God, and bring in leanness, barrenness and deadness of soul. If I am in debt, I have no right to give money in charity. Were I to do so, there would at least be, as another has said, a measure of honesty in my writing on the back of whatever I bestow, these words, " Borrowed from my creditors without their consent." But, dear friend, we should go very much further than this. We believe that, as a rule, Christians should not go into debt at all. " Owe no man anything," is so plain. Rom. 13:88Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8). We do not here enter upon the question of how far persons engaged in trade can carry out this holy and happy rule.
There are certain terms upon which the manufacturer sells to the warehouseman, and the warehouseman to the shop-keeper. Such as, for instance, " Cash in a month." We believe that it would be far safer and better in every way, for persons in trade to pay cash, and take the discount.
It is a poor, hollow, worthless, unprincipled thing, for a man to traffic with fictitious capital, to live by a system of " kite-flying," to make a show at his creditor's expense. We fear there is a deplorable amount of this sort of thing even amongst those who occupy the very highest platform of profession. As to persons living in private life there is no excuse whatever for going into debt. What right have I before God or man, to wear a coat or a hat not paid for? What right have I to order a ton of coals, a pound of tea, or a joint of meat, if I have not the money to pay for it? It may be said, what are we to do? The answer is plain to an upright mind and a tender conscience, we are to do without rather than go in debt. It is infinitely better, happier, and holier to sit down to a crust of bread and a cup of water paid for, than to roast meat for which you are in debt.
We do not believe that the word of Christ can be dwelling in a person who has no conscience as to debt, and we are disposed to think that faithful personal discipline in all such cases, would have a good effect. We should feel called upon to mark such a person and have-no company with him. (2 Thess. 3 chap. 6th and 14th verses.
As to persons who have failed in business and compounded with their creditors, we consider them morally bound to the full amount of their liabilities; and they are in debt until that amount is paid. No legal exemption could ever release a really upright person from the righteous obligation of paying what he owes. We feel called upon to write strongly on this subject, because of the sad laxity which obtains amongst professors with respect to it. All we want is to see some exercise of conscience; some measure of effort, however feeble, to get out of an utterly false position. A. man may find himself unavoidably plunged into debt in fifty ways, but if he has an upright mind and a healthfully exercised conscience, he will use every effort, he will curtail his expenses within the narrowest circle possible, he will deny himself in every way, in order to pay off the debt, even by twenty-five cents a week. May the Lord give us to look at this great practical question with that amount of seriousness which it demands! We fear the cause of Christ is sadly damaged, and the testimony of professing Christians marred, through lack of sensibility and right-mindedness as to going into, and being in debt. Oh, for a tender conscience.