133 / 674
SERM.
XXXVII.]
THE CHRISTTAN'S
TREASURE.
113
they are most
times
poor
and mean
in
this world,
many
of
them
destitute
of
the common
supports
Of
nature,
and
the
comforts
of
life.
Christ
himself,
their Lord and
Master,
had
not
where
to
lay
his
head
:
And
the apos-
tles, who
were
the
chief of
christians,
suffered
" hunger
and
thirst, were
naked and
buffeted
;
they
had some-
times
neither
food
nor raiment, neither rest nor
peace;
nor
any
certain
dwelling-
place,"
1
Cor.
iv. 11.
2.
And
as
all things are
not
in
their
possession, so
neither are
we
to understand
that
all things in
a
civil
sense
are their right and property. They
have
not
a
just
claim and
demand
of
the
good
things which
their neigh-
bours
possess,
nor
ought
they to
take
possession
of
them,
though they had power
to do
it.
It
is
a
very
wicked
principle which
has no
countenance
from
scripture,
and
has
been
abused
to
most
unrighteous and bloody
pur-
poses,
that
dominion
is
founded
in
grace,
or
that the
saints
have a
present
civil
right
to
all
the
earth, and the
good things
of
it.
From
this
sort of
doctrine,
some
men
of
furious
zeal
and enthusiasm have
been
tempted
to
rise
and
seize on
the
property
of
their neighbours. And
in-
deed,
all
the persecution
'in
the world upon the
account
of
religion,
is
built
on this
principle,
"
that the
saints
alone
have
a right
to
peace and
liberty, to
honour
and
money,
and
all
the
good things
of
this
life
;
and
that the
heretic
and the sinner have no
right
to any
thing." And
though persecutors
are
very much ashamed to
own
this
doctrine
in words,
yet
they confirm
it
and comment
upon
it, in
all
their
oppressive and bloody practices.
But
the
christian religion
knows no
such principles;
it
allows every
man's
property
and
interest
in
the
goods
of
this world, whether
he be
a
Turk
or a Jew, a
heathen
or
a
christian,
a saint or a
sinner.
It
is
providence has
disposed
of
these
outward things
in
the
civil life,
and,
men become
intitled
to
them,
by
the
laws
anii
agreement
of
civil
society: And thus a rich wicked man may be
righteously
possessed
of
a
fine
house,
and
purple
rai'
ment,
may have
a
well-
spread
table,
and large lands,
and
dominions,
while a
saint
may
happen to lie
at
his
door destitute
of
bread and
clothing.
But
in
what
sense
then can
it
be said,
"that
all
thing
are theirs."
To
give
a
just
answer to
this
enquiry,
we
must take
VOL.
II.
T