Maclear and Williams on Article XXXVIII: Of Christian men's Goods, which are not common

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Of Christian mens goodes which are not common.

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i. Connection. The previous Article dealt with the Anabaptist objections to capital punishment and the right of Christians to carry arms. The present Article deals with another erroneous doctrine of the same sect1, who held that the goods of Christian men were common to all alike, and pushed their peculiar doctrines so far as to leave no man anything which he could call his own2.

ii. Analysis. The Article asserts two things : —

(1) That the riches and goods of Christian men are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same ;

be treated as an innocent enthusiasm, but to be denounced as a dangerous error.” Bp Browne On the Articles, p. 830.

(2) That nevertheless every man ought to give liberally of such things as he possesseth to the poor, according to his ability, iii. The Teaching of Scripture. It is true that our Lord in several passages of the Gospels dwells on the danger of riches, and exhorts His disciples to a renuncia- tion of worldly wealth1. And it is beyond doubt that in the earliest ages of the Church, the first believers had all tilings common (Acts ii. 44, 45), and sold their possessions and goods, and brought the prices of the tilings that were sold, and laid them at the Apostles feet, and distribution was made unto each according as anyone had need (Acts ii. 45 ; iv- 34- 35)2- But on the other hand it is to be borne in mind that this community of goods was not even then absolute or compulsory. S. Peter says to Ananias respecting the piece of land he pretended to have sold, while it remained, did it not remain thine own ? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power3? (Acts v. 4). His sin lay not in the re- taining of his goods, but in pretending to give all while he kept back a part. Again, Mary, the mother of John Mark, had a house at Jerusalem, and practised no little hospitality (Acts xii. 12)*.

1 Comp. Matt. v. 42, Give to him 4 There was no formal community

that asketh thee, and from him thai of goods and abolition of private

would borrow of thee turn not thou property in the early Jerusalem

away; vi. 19, Lay not up for your- Church. There was a common

selves treasures upon the earth, where purse for supporting the needy, into

moth and rust doth consume, and which many rich persons put the

where thieves break through and steal: proceeds of the sale of their estates

but lay up for yourselves treasures in (Acts iv. ^sg//.), while everyone was

heaven; and see the parable of the allowed to possess, his own property

Rich Man and Lazarus, Luke xvi. (Acts xii. 12). There was also a

19 — 25. community of the daily use of all

s Comp. for the state of things worldly, possessions (Acts iv. 32), and

somewhat later Justin Mart. Apol. i. when ttie Church assumed a larger

14, 67 ; Didache, I. 4 ; Hermae Pastor, scale, this community of use developed

Vis. iii. 9. into the active charity and hospitality

3 “Sinollesvendere.quistecogeret? upon which S. Paul insists (Rom. xii.

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totum?” S. Aug. Sermo 148. ’ which is quite evident from the

iv. A Strict Community of goods would render the sixth and eighth commandments superfluous, and would be in direct opposition to many exhortations of our Lord and His Apostles. Thus

(i) Christ bids us give alms (Matt. vi. 4 ; x. 42) ; make friends by means1 of the mammon of un- righteousness (Luke xvi. 9) ; call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind to our feasts (Luke xiv. 13), feed the hungry and clothe the naked (Matt. xxv. 35) ;

(ii) Again, S. Paul bids us as we have opportunity, work that which is good (Gal. vi. 10) ; be given to hospitality (Rom. xii. 13); communicate to the necessity of the saints (Rom. xii. 13) ; lay by in store as God hath prospered us (1 Cor. xvi. 2) ;

(iii) And S. Peter exhorts his converts to use hospi- tality one to another without murmuring (1 Pet. iv. 9).

v. The Right of Property. Now all these exhorta- tions acknowledge the strongest obligations to abundant and liberal almsgiving. But it would be impossible to obey them, if a strict and absolute community of goods was enforced. By the very terms, in which they are ex- pressed, they presuppose the existence of distinct pos- sessions in the hands of members of the Church, and leave to the conscience of each man the extent to which he shall give liberally in alms to the poor and needy.

writings of the early Christian Fathers, or, to put it otherwise, it was the application to very simple ind ex- ceptional circumstances of the dis- tinctively Christian virtue of dydnv. Comp. Dollinger, First Age of the

Church, ii. pp. 240, 241 ; Shirley, The Church in the Apostolic Age, p. 7.

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Notes

• “Exchuletur etiam ab eisdem Anabaptistis inducta bonorum et pos- sessionum communitas, quam tanto- pere urgent, ut nemini quicquam relinquant proprium et suum.” Re- formatio Legum, De hieresibus, c. 14, “With them the doctrine was a source, not so much of personal self-denial, as of efforts to subvert civil govern- ment and the whole framework of society ; and it was not therefore to
• “The idea of property has been challenged in modern times by such communists as St Simon, Fourier, and Proudhon, who boldly stake the matter on the apparent paradox that it is property that is the theft.” Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 791.