{"number":38,"title":"Of Christian Mens Goods, which are not common","part":null,"questions":[],"paragraphs":["38.1"],"clauses":[],"items":[],"text":"> The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right Title and Possession of the same; as certain Anabaptists do falsly boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give Alms to the Poor according to his Ability.\n\nThere is no great difficulty in this Article; as there is no danger to be apprehended that the Opinion condemned by it is like to spread. Those may be for it, who find it for them. The Poor may claim to it, but few of the Rich will ever go into it. The whole Charge that is given in the Scripture for Charity and Almsgiving; all the Rules that are given to the *Rich,* and to *Masters,* to whom their Servants were then Properties and Slaves, do clearly demonstrate that the Gospel was not designed to introduce a Community of Goods. And even that Fellowship or Community which was practised in the first beginnings of it, was the effect of particular mens Charity, and not of any Law that was laid on them. *Barnabas having land, sold it, and laid the Price of it at the Apostles feet.* And when St. *Peter* chid *Ananias* for having vowed to give in the whole Price of his Land to that distribution, and then withdrawing a part of it,[^1] and by a Lye pretending that he had brought it all in; he affirmed that the Right was still in him, till he by a Vow had put it out of his power. When God fed his People by Miracle with the *Manna,* there was an equal distribution made; yet when he brought them into the promised Land, every man had his Property. The equal division of the Land was the foundation of that Constitution; but still every man had a Property, and might improve it by his Industry either to the increasing of his Stock, the purchasing Houses in Towns, or buying of Estates, till the Redemption at the Jubilee.\n\nIt can never be thought a just and equitable thing, that the sober and industrious should be bound to share the fruits of their labour with the idle and the luxurious. This would be such an Incouragement to those whom all wise Governments ought to discourage, and would so discourage those who ought to be encouraged, that all the Order of the World must be dissolved, if so extravagant a Conceit should be entertained. Both the Rich and the Poor have Rules given them, and there are Virtues suitable to each state of Life. The Rich ought to be sober and thankful, modest and humble, bountiful and charitable, out of the abundance that God has given them; and not to set their hearts upon uncertain Riches, but to trust in the living God, and to make the best use of them that they can. The Poor ought to be patient and industrious; to submit to the Providence of God, and to study to make sure of a better Portion in another State, than God has thought fit to give them in this World.\n\nIt will be much easier to persuade the World of the Truth of the first part of this Article, than to bring them up to the Practice of the second Branch of it. We see what particular Care God took of the Poor in the Old Dispensation, and what variety of Provision was made for them; all which must certainly be carried as much higher among Christians, as the Laws of Love and Charity are raised to a higher degree in the Gospel. Christ represents the Essay that he gives of the Day of Judgment, in this Article of Charity, and expresses it in the most emphatical words possible; as if what is given to the Poor were to be reckoned for as if it had been given personally to Christ himself: And in a great variety of other Passages this matter is so oft insisted on, that no man can resist it who reads them, and acknowledges the Authority of the New Testament.\n\nIt is not possible to fix a determined Quota, as was done under the Law, in which every Family had their peculiar Allotment, which had a certain Charge specified in the Law, that was laid upon it. But under the Gospel, as men may be under greater Inequalities of Fortune than they could have been under the Old Dispensation; so that vast variety of mens Circumstances makes that such Proportions as would be intolerable Burdens upon some, would be too light and disproportioned to the Wealth of others. Those words of our Saviour come pretty near the marking out every mans measure.[^2] *These have of their abundance cast into the offerings of God, but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had. Abundance* is Superfluity in the *Greek*; which imports that which is over and above the *food that is convenient*;[^3] that which one can well spare and lay aside. Now by our Saviour’s design it plainly appears that this is a low degree of Charity, when men give only out of this; though God knows it is far beyond what is done by the greater part of Christians. Whereas that which is so peculiarly acceptable to God, is when men give out of their *Penury,* that is, out of what is necessary to them; when they are ready, especially upon great and crying occasions, even to pinch Nature, and straiten themselves within what upon other occasions they may allow themselves; that so they may distribute to the necessities of others who are more pinched, and are in great extremities. By this every man ought to judg himself, as knowing that he must give a most particular Account to God, of that which God hath reserved to himself, and ordered the distribution of it to the Poor, out of all that *Abundance* with which he has bless’d some far beyond others.\n\n[^1]: Acts 4.36, 37.\n[^2]: Luk. 21.4.\n[^3]: Prov. 30.8."}