"The Quintessence of Nonsense"

I've been thinking recently about the biblical views on usury, interest, micro-finance, loaning money, and giving to the poor which led me to John Wesley's sermon "On the Danger of Increasing Riches" (1790).

J.W. whips himself up to full form by paragraph 12. This is one of the juiciest bits, and reminds me so much of why I'm glad to be a Wesleyan:

"Perhaps you say you can now afford the expense. This is the quintessence of nonsense. Who gave you this addition to your fortune; or (to speak properly) lent it to you? To speak more properly still, who lodged it for a time in your hands as his stewards; informing you at the same time for what purposes he entrusted you with it? And can you afford to waste your Lord's goods, for every part of which you are to give an account; or to expend them in any other way than that which he hath expressly appointed? Away with this vile, diabolical cant! Let it never more come out of your lips. This affording to rob God is the very cant of hell. Do not you know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessaries for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud your Lord, by applying it to any other purpose? When he entrusted you with a little, did he not entrust you with it that you might lay out all that little in doing good? And when he entrusted you with more, did he not entrust you with that additional money that you might do so much the more good, as you had more ability? Had you any more right to waste a pound, a shilling, or a penny, than you had before? You have, therefore, no more right to gratify the desire of the flesh, or the desire of the eyes, now than when you was a beggar. O no! do not make so poor a return to your beneficent Lord! Rather, the more he entrusts you with, be so much the more careful to employ every mite as he hath appointed."

Paragraph 14 has this morsel:
"But this vice [the love of money] is very rarely found in children or young persons; but only, or chiefly, in the old,--in those that have the least need of money, and the least time to enjoy it."

Paragraph 15 has the oft-quoted: "gained all you can…saved all you can…give all you can" with the oft-forgotten injunction to "hoard nothing."

And, of course, this remark in paragraph 16 just made me laugh out loud: "Let me add one word more. After having served you between sixty and seventy years; with dim eyes, shaking hands, and tottering feet, I give you one more advice before I sink into the dust." Seriously, those three self-mocking descriptors counter the warnings of 1 John that he quoted earlier in paragraph 10 against the "desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life."