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benevolence to sustain His cause and relieve the necessities of the
suffering and needy. He has ordained that giving should become a
habit, that it may counteract the dangerous and deceitful sin of cov-
etousness. Continual giving starves covetousness to death. Systematic
benevolence is designed in the order of God to tear away treasures
from the covetous as fast as they are gained, and to consecrate them to
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the Lord, to whom they belong....
The constant practice of God’s plan of systematic benevolence
weakens covetousness and strengthens benevolence. If riches increase,
men, even those professing godliness, set their hearts upon them; and
the more they have, the less they give to the treasury of the Lord. Thus
riches make men selfish, and hoarding feeds covetousness; and these
evils strengthen by active exercise. God knows our danger and has
hedged us about with means to prevent our own ruin. He requires the
constant exercise of benevolence, that the force of habit in good works
may break the force of habit in an opposite direction
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