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man, whom the law has made to be the avenger of blood, ART. or of other crimes, to refuse to comply with that obliga- XXXVII. tion, which is laid upon him by the constitution under which he is born: he can only forgive that of which he is the master, but the other is a debt which he owes the society; and his private forgiving of the wrong done himself, does not reach to that other obligation, which is not in his own power to give away.

The last paragraph in this Article is concerning the lawfulness of wars. Some have thought all wars to be contrary to Christian charity, to be inhuman and barbarous; and that therefore men ought, according to the rule set us by our Saviour, not to resist evil; but when one Matth. v. injury is done, not only to bear it, but to shew a readi- 39. ness rather to receive new ones; turning the other cheek to him that smites us on the one; going two miles with him that shall compel us to go one with him; and giving our 40. cloak to him that shall take away our coat. It seems just, that, by a parity of reason, societies should be under the same obligations to bear from other societies, that single persons are under to other single persons. This must be acknowledged to be a very great difficulty; for as, on the one hand, the words of our Saviour seem to be very express and full; so, on the other hand, if they are to be understood literally, they must cast the world loose, and expose it to the injustice and insolence of wicked persons, who would not fail to take advantages from such a compliance and submission. Therefore these words must be considered, first, as addressed to private persons; then, as relating to smaller injuries, which can more easily be borne ; and, finally, as phrases and forms of speech, that are not to be carried to the utmost extent, but to be construed with that softening, that is to be allowed to the use of a phrase. So that the meaning of that section of our Saviour's sermon is to be taken thus; that private persons ought to be so far from pursuing injuries, to the equal retaliation of an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth, that they ought in many cases to bear injuries, without either resisting them, or making returns of evil for evil; shewing a patience to bear even repeated injuries, when the matter is small, and the wrong tolerable.

Under all this, secret conditions are to be understood, such as when by such our patience we may hope to overcome evil with good; or at least to shew to the world the power that religion has over us, to check and subdue our resentments. In this case certainly we ought to sacrifice

ART. our just rights, either of defence, or of seeking reparation, XXXVII. to the honour of religion, and to the gaining of men

6,7.

by such an heroical instance of virtue. But it cannot be supposed that our Saviour meant that good men should deliver themselves up to be a prey to be devoured by bad men; or to oblige his followers to renounce their claims to the protection and reparations of law and justice.

In this St. Paul gives us a clear commentary on our 1 Cor. vi. Saviour's words: he reproves the Corinthians for going to law with one another, and that before unbelievers; when it was so great a scandal to the Christian religion in its first infancy. He says, Why do not ye take wrong? Why do not ye suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Yet he does not deny, but that they might claim their rights, and seek for redress; therefore he proposes their doing it by arbitration among themselves, and only urges the scandal of suing before Heathen magistrates; so that his reproof did not fall on their suing one another, but on the scandalous manner of doing it. Therefore men are not bound up by the Gospel from seeking relief before a Christian judge, and, by consequence, those words of our Saviour's are not to be urged in the utmost extent of which they are capable. If private persons may seek reparation of one another, they may also seek reparations of the wrongs that are done by those who are under another obedience; and every prince owes a protection to his people in such cases; for he beareth not the sword in vain; he is their avenger. He may demand reparation by such forms as are agreed on among nations; and, when that is not granted, he may take such reparation from any that are under that obedience, as may oblige the whole body to repair the injury. Much more may he use the sword to protect his subjects, if any other comes to invade them. For this end chiefly he has both the sword given him, and those taxes paid him, that may enable him to support the charge, to which the use of it may put him. And as a private man owes, by the ties of 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, defen

sive, though in the progress of them they must be often ART. offensive, may be lawful.

XXXVII.

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 Luke iii. 14. content with their wages. Nor did St. Peter charge Cor-Acts x. nelius 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 left to the providence of God, who can change the hearts of men, and bring them to the knowledge of the truth, when he will. Ambition, and the

ART. desire of empire, must never pretend to carry on God's XXXVII. 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 pre

tence,

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. Barnabas Acts iv. having land, sold it, and laid the price of it at the Apostles' 36, 37. 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, and, by a lie, 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.

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

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