Debt is duty, and laws do not make or unmake duty. They simply define duty, and often do that very imperfectly. What you owe to another that other has a right to have; for obligations \u27on one side involve correspondent rights on the other.  Abridged from a sermon published in  The Standard.https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdigitalresources/1171/thumbnail.jp

Moxom, Rev Philip S

English

Asbury Theological Seminary

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A ny dupli cDlion, reprnd uclion, or modifi catinn of th is mater ial without expreSI wr itlt n consent fro m Asbury Then]ogiul Seminary ~ndlor the original publisher is pro hibit ed. o Asbury Theological Seminary 201 1 100.2 4S8U I!Y .>bo'Y""""''Y.odu ""' .. 3 .. ' W4 ....... """""'" __ •.-,..oJ'" New Series.] [No. 178. PAY YOUR DEBTS.* • BY BEV. PHILIP S. MOXOM • • WITH reference to the debt which one is morally but not legally bound to pay, there cannot be two opinions where there is conscience. Debt is duty, and laws do not make or unmake duty. They simply define duty, and often do that very imperfectly. What you owe to llnother that other has a right to have; for obligations 'on one side involve correspondent rights on the other. * A bridged from a sermon published in "The Stand-ard." 2 PAY YOUR DEBTS. And it is always the moral, rather than the merely legal, element which is rightly pre-dominant in a debt. There are many men who have false ideas of the ethics of debt. A debt that does not bind them by law is considel'ed as having a doubtful claim. The result is that debts are often evaded through , legal defects, or l'epudiated because ther,e is no power to compel their payment. Need I say that this is dishonest, that it is scarcely removed from robbel'Y? Pi man, through misfortune which h0 oould not avert, may be placed in such circumstances that he cannot pay his debts, and in certaiIt Cases the law mercifully ste~ in to save him fwm such utter destitution as would deprive- him of power evei' to reCOVeT his loss; But whether bound by legal requirement or not, the debtor is morally bound" and if be is a true man, the only thing that will prevent him from meeting all his obligatious- is abS()ltite inability. There are a great many people who seem to think lightly of debt, as thoGgh it were a No. 178. PAY YOUR DEBTS. 3 small matter to be under financial obliga-tions. Not a few have 110 hesitation in in-curring debt without the slightest intention of ever troubling themselves about paying the debt.. Yet they would scorn to steal. Meanwhile, it would puzzle a. very subtle casuist to draw a broad and valid distinction between many a debtor and a thief. Al ways a real debt expresses a moral obligation, and whether there be legal obligations or not is a small matter before the bar of conscience . . It is a lesson which multitudes need to ·learn, and which, simple as it is, many have not learned; namely, a. debt is meant to be paid. Whatever the laws of men say, God's law says, "Pay what thou owest." A debt may be forgiven and so dissolved; but it eannot be repudiated. Moral obligation is the most tenaciolls and persistent thing in this universe. The debt which you refuse to pay has in it a moral element that will abide w hen time has gone and the world has passed away, and will haunt you, like a con-demning spirit, in eternity. No sophistry No. 176. 4 PAY YOUR DEBTS. will extinguish a duty; no change in circum-stances will soften the stern impel'ati ve of moral law. The requirement of civil law, then, does not affect the essential quality of debt, either by its presence or its absence. What is right is right, what is due is due, whether it be recognized or 1I0t. Debt should be incurred only where there. is a clear certainty that it can be dis-chal·ged. That is, the obligation to pay should always be accompanied by the mani-fest ability to pay. This is simply a requi; site of common honesty. No man and no government has any right to make debts in excess of clear assets. Assets may be in the form of actual possessions or power to create possessions. Credits should always be offset by real values. As a rule, debt should be avoided by the young, and it should be reso-lutely avoided by all who have not in pre>'ent possession or present power the guarantee that the debt will be paid. Young men are prone to go in debt. I .. ife is 80 full of prom-ise to them, the future shines so bright to No. 178. PAY YOUR DEBTS. 5 young eyes, youth is so I'ichly endowed with hope and confideD0e, that the incurring of financial obligation does not seem a very sel'ious matter. '1'he result is that many, thinking lightly of debt, have mortgaged their whole future, and committed them-selves to a life-long struggle to meet demands which are nearly or quite beyond their pow-er to fulfil. Discontented with present cir-cumstancell, impatient of restrictions on theil' wants, eager for pleasures that are costly, ambitious to display a style of living which is beyond present means, they bonow money on pledges which are easy to make but hard to redeem, and ere long wake up to the fact that t.hey have spent a small fortune before they have earn'ed it. And then they begin the wearisome, painful fight to retrieve their folly, or, disheartened, sink into perpet-ual discredit among' their fellows, or, still worse, are tempted to indulge in enterprises for gain that are evil. It is curious what ideas some men have as to financial prosper-ity. They measure their success bv their No. 178, 6 PAY YOUR DEBTS. ability to get in debt. A young man who had settled in a we~tern town was visited, after a year or two, by an old friend. When a8ked how he liked the place, and how he was' getting on, he replied, " 0, it's a capi. tal place, a first··rate place for a young man. When I came here I wasn't worth a cent; and now lowe a thousand donal'S." Those were wise words which Horace Gree-ley wrote: "Hunger, cold, rags, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are dis· agrepable : and debt is infinitely worse than them all. And, if it had pleased God to spare either or all of my sons to he the sup-port and solace of my declining years, the lesson which I should have earnestly sought to impress upon them is 'Nev~r run into debt. Avoid pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or famine. If you have but fifty cents, and can get no more for a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and live on it, rather than owe any man a donar.'" Greeley's life was a noble commentary on his words. He fou.ght his way from poverty to competence, .No. 178. PAY YOUR DEBTS. 7 and from obscurity to fame, and I never heard that he had an unpaid debt. Many a man has condemned himself to per· petual hardship because of a fatal facility in getting trusted. Many another has sunk. into confirmed vice through the influence of early, unmanageable debt. So, too, many a disaster in business has c.ome as the direct result of carelessly incurring ~bligations which could not be met, and of trading on chimerical probabilities. Like Horace Greeley, Thomas Carlyle hated debt so violently that he would not borrow even to relieve real distress, and toiled through years of ill·paid labor to win for himself a competence. The eccentric John Randolph once sprang from his seat in the House of Representatives·, and exclaimed in his piercing voice: "Mr. Speaker, I have found it;" and then, in the stillneRR which followtld this strange outburst, he added, "I have found the philosopher's stone: it is, Pay as you go." . It is a fact that more dishonesty, often in· voluntary dishonesty, is caused by reckless· No. 178. 8 PAY YOUR DEBTS. ness in incurring debt than in any other way. Let every young man write it down ,as a fundamental principle of practical ethics, that simple honesty demands that he shall make no debt which he cannot surely pay. Nothing will compensate for a failure reso-lutely to observe this principle. No amount of genius atones for dishonesty. It is said that when Sidney Smith once went into a • new neighborhood, it was given out in the local papers that he was a man of high con-nections, and he was be~ought on all Rides • for his "custom." But he speedily unde-ceived his new neighbors. " Weare not great people at all," he said; "we are only common honest people-pe0t'le that pay our debts." The writings of Benjamin Franklin should have a place in every young man's library, if for no other reason, for the sake of the soundness and pointedness of such counsel as this: "Think-think what you do when you go in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, . No. 178. PAY YOUR DEBTS. you will be ashamed to see your creditor; yon will be in fear when you speak to him, you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and by degl'ees come to lose your veracity, alld sink into base, downrig-ht lying; for, 'the second vice is lying, the first is running into debt,' as poor Richard says; and again to the same purpose, Lying rides upon Debt's back." We speak now of the broali etymological significance of debt as something which is due-that is as Rynonymolls with duty. Be-cause man is a moml being having relations with his fellow-creatures and with God, he is subject to duty. As being under a compre-hensive, beneficent moral law he is in debt to men and to God. This debt is permanent. It is not extinguished by payment, for it rises freshly into existence every moment of life. We do not assume this debt, nor can we throw it off. 'Ve may refuse to acknowl-edge it wholly, or in part, but its claim is never relaxed, and never becomes. outlawed. No man is, or ever can be, clear of it. It inheres in the very fact- of his moral being. No. 178. 10 PAY YOUR DEBTS. There is no difference with reference to this fundamental fact of moral life .between the Christian and the heathen, between the believer and the unbeliever. The one may recognize what he owes to his fellow-men and to God, and the other may not; bllt the . recog-uition does not make the debt, nor does the lack of recognition unmake it. Every man is bound to live justly and benevolently toward other men alld righteously and wor-shipfully toward God. The fact · that the best of men do this imperfectly does not affect the ' obligation, does not make it less than absolute, imperative, and everlasting. Salvation is the process of bringing men to the perfection of moral life which this obliga-tion implies as the true ideal and destiny of the soul. There are many false notions with respect to the scope of moral obligations. Many men eay that the Christian ought to be bet-ter than he that is not a Christian, the preacher ought to he better than the pew·hold-er. Properly qualified, this is true, but with-No. 178. PAY YOUR DEBTS. 11 out proper qualification it is not true, it is vic-iously false. Everyone is bound to be, in character and conduct, that which God de-signed him to be. It is recognized that the follower of Christ should exemplify the graces and virtues which Christ inculcates. But it is often not recognized that he who refuses to follow Christ should exemplify the same vir-tues and graces. The truth is that the former in some measure recognizes what he ought to do and be, while the latter makes no such recognit.ion in any practical way. Sometimes people think they escape ohli-gation by refuRing to believe in Christ and refusing to enter Christ's Church. They greatly err. .God is no respecter of persons. Moral law is universal. This is one chief function of Christianity, to teach and con-vince men that they all should obey God, that they all should follow Christ, that they all should turn from sin and live the beauti-ful life of holiness. God's love regards not a favored few, but humanity; so God's claim rests not on the few, but on the race. Obli-No. lT8. 12 PAY YOUR DEBTS. gation is not nullified . by the denial of it. There is no hiding place for the soul that repudiates the claims of righteousness. There is no recess in this universe where the pressure . of moral law does not pene-trate. It is as pervasIve and omnipresent as the air. Let us have clearly in mind the fact that there is one debt which rests on all of us. It is neither unequal nor transient. And this debt is not a burden but a blessing. It is the necessary condition of happiness and peace , if it be recognized and accepted. It is inex-orable, yet beneficent. When" oughtness " is met by willingness then heaven has begun. "Great peace," said the psalmist, grasping this truth, " great peace have they that love thy law." \Vhen men speak -of duty in a universal sense, it is customary for them to make a distinction between duty to our fel-low-men, and duty to our Oreator and Sav-iour. But there is in reality no distinction. The Bible clearly recognizes and affirms the truth that all duties are to God. No. 178. PAY YOUR DEBTS. 13 But for convenience in setting forth our duties we may make the distinction. 1. Weare debtors to our fellow-men. We owe it to them to love them, to help them in their toils and struggles, to sympathize with them in their sorrows, and to serve them in their needs. We owe it to them to practice virtue and purity, to set before them an elevating example, to share with them our blessings and to impart to them our joys. The claims · of a common humanity are con-stant. The debt is continuous. It is not discharged and done with by any single act of beneficence, but only by a life, which never ends, of holy, loving service. All great souls have in some measure recog-nized this. Paul said of himself: "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barba-rians; both to the wise and to the· nnwise." So all have said who have caught the spirit of Christ, and learned from him the meaning and pnrpose of life. 2. Weare debtors to God. He gave ns being, power, and the capacity of blessedness. No. 178. 14 PAY YOUR DEBTS. We owe it to him to love him, to obey him, to give him · the joyful worship of pure hearts. He claims this of us, and ,emphasizes his claim by the revelation of his goodness in the redeeming work of Christ. It is thun-dered in the law on Sinai; it is sung in the angelic evangel at Bethlehem; it is breathed in the dying prayer of the crucified Christ; it is trumpeted in the apostolic call to repent-ance; it is voiced in the psalms of the redeemed, who chant the praises of "the Lamb that was slain" in the Apocalypse. Every gift of God to us is a witness and evi-dence of our debt. Every sunrise proclaims it. Every providence declares it. Every blessing, as of life and air and food and power of limb and faculty of mind, attests it. Our debt to God is expressed in every holy hymn that makes melody amid the sorrows of earth. Every church-spire pointing to the sky is a mute witnes!! of it. Every prayer gives it utterance. It is the one thing that makes life intelligible and sacred . . It is a tremendous question which, some No. 178. PAY YOUR DEBTS. 15 time, all of us must raise and answer. Are we recognizing our manifold debt to men and to God? . Are we striving to meet this debt by a life of faith and purity and love? The debt is one, for God in Christ has inseparably associated himself with his crpattlres. Some men attempt to recognize their debt to their fellows, but deny their debt to God. It is a vain attempt. If you are truly serving God you are most truly serving your brothers and sisters about you; If you are truly serving men you are truly serving God. One man says, "I believe in philanthropy; but I do ·not believe in Cbriet," What! believe in philanthropy and not believe in bim who is the author and supreme exemplar of philan, thropy, whose love is the highest philanthropy conceivable ? You pride yO'Urself f1lI your charity. Ot friend, have yau exercised such charity as be did who gave himself far the salvation of the world? Y 011 talk at loving your fellow"tnell and ignore him who taught men the real meaning of love? Yon acknowl-edge that you al'e a debtor to those about ~. 178'. 16 PAY YOUR DEBTS. you, but what of your debt to God, by whose mercy alone both you and they- have hope of life and peace? You are not your own, but Christ's. You are bought with a price, even the precious blood of Chri8t. What do you say of this debt ? You may ignore it, you may deny it, but you cannot annihilate it, and at last every blessing of God to you, every warning of his providence, every invitation of his word, will rise up against you with condemning testi-mony. Meantime, what about your honesty? If you owe your fellows any thing, you seek to pay it, scorning all suggestion of repudiating it. But if you repudiate your greatest debt, your duty to God, how can you look up in the face of heaven and say you are an hon--est man? Every claim of your neighbor for fulfillment of obligation to him preaches .to you a sermon on your obligation to God. . .. PHILLIPS &: HUNT, 805 Broadway, New York. CRANSTON &: STOWE, Cincinnati. No. 178. 

Pay Your Debts

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Pay Your Debts

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