may enable him to support the charge, to which the use of it ART may put him. And as a private man owes, by the ties of XXXVII. humanity, assistance to a man whom he sees in the hands of thieves and murderers; so princes may assist such other princes as are unjustly fallen upon, both out of humanity to him who is so ill used, and to repress the insolence of an unjust aggressor, and also to secure the whole neighbourhood from the effects of success in such unlawful conquests. Upon all these accounts we do not doubt but that wars, which are thus originally, as to the first occasion of them, defensive, though in the progress of them they must be often offensive, may be lawful.

6

Luke iii.14, x.

God allowed of wars in that policy which he himself constituted; in which we are to make a great difference between those things that were permitted by reason of the hardness of their hearts, and those things which were expressly commanded of God. These last can never be supposed to be immoral since commanded by God, whose precepts and judgments are altogether righteous. When the soldiers came to be baptized of St. John, he did not charge them to relinquish that course of life, but only to do violence to no man, to accuse no man falsely, and to be content with their wages.' Nor Acts X. did St. Peter charge Cornelius to forsake his post when he baptized him. The primitive Christians thought they might continue in military employments, in which they preserved the purity of their religion entire; as appears both from Tertullian's works, and from the history of Julian's short reign. But though wars, that are in their own nature only defensive, are lawful, and a part of the protection that princes owe their people; yet unjust wars, designed for making conquests, for the enlargement of empire, and the raising the glory of princes, are certainly public robberies, and the highest acts of injustice and violence possible; in which men sacrifice to their pride or humour the peace of the world, and the lives of all those that die in the quarrel, whose blood God will require at their hands. Such princes become accountable to God, in the highest degree imaginable, for all the rapine and bloodshed that is occasioned by their pride and injustice.

When it is visible that a war is unjust, certainly no man of conscience can serve in it, unless it be in the defensive part: for though no man can owe that to his prince to go and murder other persons at his command, yet he may owe it to his country to assist towards its preservation, from being overrun even by those whom his prince has provoked by making war on them unjustly. For even in such a war, though it is unlawful to serve in the attacks that are made on others, it is still lawful for the people of every nation to defend themselves against foreigners.

There is no cause of war more unjust, than the propagating the true religion, or the destroying a false one. That is to be

ART. left to the providence of God, who can change the hearts of XXXVII. men, and bring them to the knowledge of the truth, when he

will. Ambition, and the desire of empire, must never pretend to carry on God's work. The wrath of man worketh not out the righteousness of God.' And it were better barefacedly to own that men are set on by carnal motives, than to profane religion, and the name of God, by making it the

pretence.

ᎪᎡ Ꭲ, XXXVIII.

ARTICLE XXXVIII.

Of Christian Men's Goods, which are not common.

The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the Right, Title, and Possession of the same; as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every Man ought of such Things as he possesseth, liberally to give Alms to the Poor, according to his Ability.

THERE 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 lay 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 men's charity, and not of any law that was laid on them. Barnabus having land, sold it, and laid the price Acts iv. of it at the apostles' feet." And when St. Peter chid Ananias 36, 37. for having vowed to give in the whole price of his land to that distribution, and then withdrawing a part of it, and, by a lie, pretending that he had brought it all in; he affirmed Acts v. 3, that the right was still in him, till he by a vow had put it out 4. 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.

It 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 luxurious. This would be such an encouragement 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

ART. the living God, and to make the best use of them that they XXXVIII. 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.

4.

8.

It 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 often insisted on, that no man can resist it who reads them, and acknowledges the authority of the New Testament.

It 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 men's 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 man's measure. Luke xxi. 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 imProv. xxx. ports that which is over and above the food that is convenient;' 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 judge 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 blessed some far beyond others.

ARTICLE XXXIX.

Of a Christian Man's Oath.

As we confess that vain and rash Swearing is forbidden Christian Men by our Lord Jesus Christ, and James his Apostle; so we judge that Christian Religion doth not prohibit, but that a Man may swear when the Magistrate requireth, in a Cause of Faith and Charity, so it be done according to the Prophet's teaching, in Justice, Judgment, and Truth.

An oath is an appeal to. God, either upon a testimony that is given, or a promise that is made, confirming the truth of the one, and the fidelity of the other. It is an appeal to God, who knows all things, and will judge all men: so it is an act that acknowledges both his omniscience, and his being the Governor of this world, who will judge all at the last day according to their deeds, and must be supposed to have a more immediate regard to such acts, in which men made him a party. An appeal truly made, is a committing the matter to God: a false one is an act of open defiance, which must either suppose a denial of his knowing all things, or a belief that he has forsaken the earth, and has no regard to the actions of mortals: or, finally, it is a bold venturing on the justice and wrath of God, for the serving some present end, or the gaining of some present advantage: and which of these soever gives a man that brutal confidence of adventuring on a false oath, we must conclude it to be a very crying sin; which must be expiated with a very severe repentance, or will bring down very terrible judgments on those who are guilty of it.

Thus, if we consider the matter upon the principles of natural religion, an oath is an act of worship and homage done to God; and is a very powerful mean for preserving the justice and order of the world. All decisions in justice. must be founded upon evidence; two must be believed rather than one; therefore the more terror that is struck into the minds of men, either when they give their testimony, or when they bind themselves by promises, and the deeper that this goes, it will both oblige them to the greater caution in what they say, and to the greater strictness in what they promise. Since therefore truth and fidelity are so necessary to the security and commerce of the world, and since an appeal to God is the greatest mean that can be thought on to bind men to an exactness and strictness in every thing with which that appeal is joined; therefore the use of an oath is fully justified upon the principles of natural religion. This has spread itself so universally through the world, and began so

ART. XXXIX.