rather blessed for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will bear both sences to give than to receive And though we read not this saying of our Saviour in terminis in any of the Gospels of the Holy Evangelists who professedly undertook the penning of his Speeches and Actions yet have we not therefore any sufficient Reason to doubt the Truth of the Apostles Quotation seeing it was not as one of them professeth for himself and it is with the John 20 30 31 21 25. same reason to be so judged of all the rest the design of those holy Penmen to give a perfect numerical account of every individual Passage of our Saviours Life but only to commend so much of it to Posterity as might without tiring the Reader and confounding his memory with the length suffice to beget a Faith that he was the Son of God and to instruct him sufficiently in those Doctrines that were necessary to salvation Yea rather we have very weighty reasons to justifie the Apostle in this Quotation against all exception 1. Because it is a saying which doth so aptly sute some others recorded from his mouth by the Evangelists and which some Interpreters mention to salve Interpreters mention to salve this Objection by Equivalency For we find him in his first Sermon commending mercifulness to his Disciples under the same encouragement of Blessedness and promising Matt. 5. 7. in the account he gives them of the last Judgment that he will then pronounce them eternally blessed who extend their bounty to him in his members and those eternally cursed who have in such good deeds been notoriously negligent and defective Matth. 25. 34. to the end 2. Because our Apostle quotes it before those to whom the very form of his Speech supposeth it to be as well known as to himself if not to some of them better who it may be personally conversed with the Lord Jesus which he himself did not and heard it from his own lips For he tells it them not as a new thing that they knew not before but onely bids them remember it intimating that their own memories could not but attest that it was his saying to whom he attributed it 3. Add we to this Evidence that the natural import of the Doctrine herein contained is such that it cannot with like Decorum be ascribed to any man as to him who was himself electively the greatest Giver and the least Receiver that ever was in this world and one therefore who must be supposed to have most amply experimented the blessedness it speaks of by the constant practice of it 4. Mind we lastly that the Saying it self is a most divine saying every way besitting that mouth which spake the very thoughts of God's bosome to men Joh. 1. 18. seeing it so aptly and adequately expresseth the very inward sentiments and satisfactions of the Divine Essence which imploys it self incessantly in being the inexhaustible Fountain of all good Jam. 1. 17. givings and perfect gifts to his Creatures upon no other account as you will see more fully anon but only the pleasure he takes therein You see by this time beloved a double motive to engage your attention to what I have to say to you on this Text the great Authority by which it comes recommended and the great Truth contained in it Which attention so prepared I shall employ by handling it in this method 1. I shall open the words by a brief Explication 2. Shew you the Foundations of Reason upon which the great Doctrine contained in them stands 3. Gather some practical Inferences from it I. In the Explication of the Words I have promised to be brief And therefore I shall wave the Philosophical Notions in a great measure which being in general considered without the coherence in which here they stand they would afford as concerning The nature and kinds and degrees of humane Blessedness and that which might in some sort also conduce to our present purpose the natural tendency of Acts of giving beyond those of receiving to that blessedness naturally considered as apprehending partly that those notions are not much conducing to your Christian Edification and partly that our Saviour and our Apostle quoting this saying from him cannot be supposed to intend the instruction of their Hearers in a Metaphysical Speculation but rather the laying before them and us a moral direction to teach us by what actions in this life men may most contribute to the advancement of their own felicity And so the words are a determination of our Saviour upon a supposed Question concerning the comparative Acts of Giving and Receiving the good things of this Life to wit which of the two doth most truely and most plentifully conduce to man's blessedness In which Determination he casts the scale on the side of Giving which imports in general the doing good to others in whatever kind or way and in special by Acts of Liberality and Bounty against Receiving which in general includes whatever way of doing good to a man's self in this life and in special by Acts of getting and keeping this World's goods to his own single emolument and advantage as tending to make him more certainly and cumulatively blessed For in this sence it is plain by the Context this Proverb of our Saviour is here made use of by the Apostle as an Argument to perswade the Elders of Ephesus to preach the Gospel to their people in their present state of affairs gratis and therein to give them that temporal reward in to the bargain which they might as he elsewhere determines viz. 1 Cor. 9. 12. have challenged of them together with the Gospel it being as much a gift to forgive a Debt as to give a summ of money out of ones own Purse which piece of bountiful self-denyal he exhorts them to for this end that they might for their more effectual edification comply with the weakness of their young converts who loved not as few do a chargeable Gospel though they were thereby forced in the mean while as he himself did to labour with their own hands to get a livelihood And this is that which in the beginning of this Verse he calls supporting the weak to induce them whereunto he quotes this notable saying of our Lord Jesus to assure them that the inward satisfaction which they would receive from the conscience of having faithfully promoted the salvation of souls by preaching under such disadvantageous circumstances would be of more worth to them than the richest temporal Rewards and Revenues they could expect or might lawfully challenge for their pains So that in summ you may take the whole sence of the words in this short Paraphrase Q. d. I know the World is generally apt to think that the way to Happiness is by getting and possessing abundance of earthly goods But I tell you from the Lord Jesus that man provides more truly and effectually for his own blessedness and promotes it more plentifully by contributing to
THE BLESSEDNESSE OF BEING BOUNTIFULL OR Our Blessed Saviours usual PROVERB Opened Asserted and Practically Improved By SIMON FORD D. D. LONDON Printed for James Collins at the Kings Arms in Ludgate-street 1674. VIRO NATALIBUS ERUDITIONE Omnimodisque VIRTUTIBUS Nobilissimo GEORGIO Baroni de BERKELEY IN ALBUM CURATORUM HONORIFICORUM HOSPITII Vulgo DICTI DE BRIDEWELL Alteriúsque de BETHLEM DEMISSIONE SUI GRATIOSA NUPER ADSCRIPTO ET PROINDE IN HAC PAGELLA HONORIS ergô SEPARATIM NOMINANDO HUNC TANQUAM TESTI EXPERTO De BEATITVDINE BENEFICENTIAE TRACTATULUM Humillimè Offert OMNI OBSERVANTIAE GENERE ADDICTISSIMUS SIMON FORD TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFULL Sir William Turner Kt. PRESIDENT With his Assistants the Governours of the two HOSPITALS of Bridewell and Bethlem Gentlemen IF as it hath of late in like cases been customary I should plead the Authority of your Court as that which hath without any inclination of mine own solely prevailed with me to print this Discourse I must ingenuously confess it would be no other than a modester kinde of dissimulation with you and the World For I must own that when I delivered the substance of it from the Pulpit in two Sermons the one at the Spittle before the Lord Maior then being and the Aldermen of this City on Wednesday in Easter-week 1672. and the other which was but the former at the Instance of some of you repeated with some suitable enlargements in your own Chappel of Bridewell at your late General Meeting 1673. I was not without thoughts of publishing it because my principal Design in preaching it being as in Duty I am bound having by your favour been elected and hitherto continued Preacher to one of them to promote the good of the two Hospitals under your Government I justly conceived that the more publick I made it the more effectually it was like to answer my end Only I must withall acknowledge that the general acceptance which it found from those of you that heard me in both Auditories and the testification of your Desires by an express Order of Court to have it printed concurring with mine own inclinations gave me a great additional encouragement to adventure it thus to the publick View Concerning the success of which undertaking I am not altogether out of hope that it may in some sort answer my desires considering the serious Importance of the weighty Argument it handles and the great suitableness of the matter contained in it to the blowing up those few sparks of Charity which notwithstanding these hard Times remain yet unextinguished in the breasts of many worthy Citizens and others into such Acts and Expressions as the great Exigences of this City and particularly of these your Hospitals do require However if my hopes of success upon others should unhappily fail me yet I have reason to believe that my Endeavours herein will meet with a favourable acceptance and compliance from you who have already given me so great a pledge of it in commanding its publication I shall not farther enlarge this Dedicatory Address to you because I shall thereby the longer detain you from the Discourse it self which I hope you had no other design in calling for than that you might read and practise it and thereby acquire that Blessedness to your selves unto which it directs Which also that you may obtain is and shall be the constant Prayer of Right Worshipfull Your Obliged Servant in the Work of our Lord Jesus Simon Ford. The Blessedness of being Bountiful c. Acts 20. 35. It is more blessed to give than to receive SUch hath always been the acknowledged Dominion of Proverbial Sayings over the Principles and Lives of mankind that some Etymologists have thence taken an Argument to derive the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 name of them from a Root which though it have another signification besides yet seems most of all to fit their purpose in that of ruling or commanding This Dominion besides what the worth and weight of their matter gives them is in a great degree conferred upon them by the great Reputation of their Authours who being ordinarily either wise or great or prosperous beyond the rate of other men contribute that veneration to their Speeches which is wont to be given to their Persons Which veneration also they obtain the rather because they are looked on by Posterity as the Abstracts of those grand Principles by the Practice whereof those eminent Persons arrived at that degree of excellency in which they were placed and are therefore esteemed the most certain and compendious measures by which the actions of all others can be governed who design to arrive at the same degree of eminency by their examples And hence probably it is that the wisdom of God thought meet to place a Book of such Sayings in the Canon of Holy Scripture with the great name of Solomon who was most eminently both wise and great and prosperous prefixed that the Principles of true Religion and Vertue of which that Book is composed might not be destitute even of that lower degree of recommendation superadded to their divine Authority which results from the credit of humane Testimonials To shorten this Preface It is upon this account that I chose at this time to speak from this Text which is much of the nature of a Proverbial Paradox which not only contains in it a great Truth and therein the most powerful motive to Works of Charity that can be couched in so few words but is withall recommended from the excellency of its Authour beyond any of that kind For supposing all those that are digested into that one Book of Holy Scripture before mentioned to be originally Solomon's which yet some question and only entitle him to the collection of the greatest part of them yet this Proverb is quoted from an Authour in all the mentioned respects far beyond both him and all other men one that was more truly than he wiser than all men ◠King 4. 31. 1 Cor. 1. 24. for he was the wisdom of God one that was infinitely greater than he or any other meer man for he was the Power of God and Psal 72. 8 9 10. of whose greatness even that of Solomon himself was but a Type or shadow and one that was also more prosperous than he and all the most successful men in the world seeing the greatest design that ever was undertaken in the World the redemption of mankind from all their greatest that is spiritual dangers and enemies prospered in his hand Is 53. 10. For it is the Lord Jesus Christ himself whom our Apostle having occasion to make use of this Proverb in his Visitation Sermon to the Elders of Ephesus of which my Text is a part avouches to be the utterer and frequent user of it Ye ought saith he to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said and it was his usual saying for so such forms of quoteing commonly import that it is more blessed or
of this worlds goods in all such cases as indeed in all other wherein any of those uses are concerned which God and Nature have made necessary for the support of common Humanity in the several generations of the World to quit his propriety so far by his own consent as may suffice for the relief of his Brethren and the satisfying of those uses whatever they be without which mankinde cannot be preserved or maintained as it ought to be Which is the Reason in likelyhood why the abundance of any mans Riches is called by our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is Luk. 16. 12. anothers i. e. anothers with him and not entirely his own so that no man can justly say of his worldly Estate as Nabal did and in his sense My bread and my 1 Sam. 25. 11. water and my flesh c. as if no creature had any share therein but himself For indeed besides that all we have even whiles we have it is in reference to God not ours for he loseth not his Supreme Right and Propriety of Dominion by any of his bounties a greater part of most mens Estates than usually they imagine is by the Original Divine Law that I told you of before not entirely their own even with reference to their brethren in humanity but they in several capacities may justly challenge considerable shares therein which cannot with Justice be denyed them And particularly in the case of Charity which I specially here drive at Almes is therefore frequently called Justice or Righteousness and he that gives them a Just or Righteous man in the usual Hebrew Idiom throughout the Scriptures of the Old Testament and some say in the New Mat. 6. 1. 2 Cor. 9. 10 c. also in some places of special note which I will not now insist on And he that denyes or delayes his relief in his Brothers needs is said by Solomon to withhold Prov. 3. 27. good from those to whom it is due or as the Margin reads it from the Owners thereof So that Justice which is the foundation of all moral vertues being on that account Honourable and Bounty an Act of Justice and tenaciousness or sordid parsimony on the contrary of injustice it is evident that that act which bears most conformity to Justice must be more Honourable than that which for a great part is and more commonly is suspected to be of Confederacy with Injustice i. e. Giving then Receiving 2. And lest any person should seek protection from the dishonourable Reflexions this Doctrine makes upon his sordidness by alledging that this Judgement concerning the real excellency of acts of Giving above Receiving is not made by competent Judges I shall in the next place shew you who they are on whose determinations I rely for the justifying this Assertion who I am bold to assert are not to be refused by any person who owns himself a Creature a Man or a Christian as the most meet to determine in this matter 1. The first Judge to whom I appeal in this cause is God himself who must needs be owned by every Creature as the Supreme Judge in a Court of Honour being the most excellent of Beings and the Fountain of all that is honourable Now God besides what he hath declared in his written word which tells us that the horn Psal 112. 9. of him that disperseth and giveth to the poor shall be exalted a Metaphor taken from those ruling Beasts in the Herd that carry their horns higher than the rest with a kinde of glorying and confidence with honour I say besides what his Word in that and other places declares expressely God doth most evidently pronounce his Judgement in this matter by his own actions who renouncing the capacity of receiving from any other Being as a disparagement takes it for his honour to be and to be owned as the universal Giver that gives to all life and breath and all Act. 17. â—5 things and argues with some kinde of exprobration the unworthiness of those mens thoughts concerning him that conceit any man can give any thing to him from the precedency and causality of his Bounty to all that capacity we can pretend to to do any thing to oblige him withall seeing that of him and through him Rom. 11. 35 37. are all things 2. Nor can the Lord Jesus be refused as a competent Judge in this matter by any that owns the Name of Christian and acknowledgeth the highest Honours of the whole Creation to be due to him who is worshipped by all the Angels of God and Heb. 1. 6. Phil. 2. 10. hatha Name above every Name a Name to which every knee must bow c. Now it must needs be yielded by any rational man that had he not as he hath verbally declared his Judgement in this particular of Blessedness as well in many other Scriptures as in the Text yet he hath sufficiently by his deeds proclaimed that to be the most worthy and honourable action by the constant exercise whereof he procured his own Honours emptying himself that he might fill us and becoming poor for our sakes that we Phil. 2. 7. 2. Cor. 8. 9. through his poverty might be rich and in the prospect whereof he quitted the natural Honour of being equal to his Father to assume an office wherein he was to be his Inferiour that he might thereby acquire the peculiar Honour of being our Redeemer Now it is evident that the whole work of our Redemption consisted of acts of Giving not Receiving 3. However as Men it is to be hoped that none that owns himself of that number will in this matter refuse the Judgement of all mankinde Which Judgement may be evidently gathered 1. From the respect and Duty which all the world over superiour Relations expect and receive from their Inferiours which in humanity are equal to themselves whereof if we enquire the Reason there can be no other given antecedent to Divine or Humane Laws which yet are founded upon antecedent Reason than this that they are or else are supposed to be the Authors of such and such benefits either of Being or conducing to well-being which those Inferiours receive from them or enjoy under them 2. From the Testimonies of Gratitude which are every where and in all Ages given to those who are eminently beneficial to Mankinde or to particular Societies of men Wherein there could never be so universal a consent but from the concurrence of all mens Judgements in this Principle that to do good is more noble than to receive Now this is evident in matter of fact from all Histories The old Heathens thought they could not honour such Instruments sufficiently with any humane Honours and therefore they deified as far as in them lay by Temples and Altars and Sacrifices c. the Inventours of usefull Arts and Sciences the Founders of Kingdoms and Empires the Authours of publick Constitutions and Laws and the great
averse is recommended as the way to blessedness Do I therefore say this of my self or saith not the Scripture the same also View the Text again and read there It is a blessed thing to give 3. Is it an inferiour and less effectual means to the attainment of that end than that which the general practice of mankinde seems more to recommend the way of receiving that is of getting and keeping the good things of this life to your selves Glance on it again and it tells you farther It is more blessed to give than to receive 4. Does this seem an hard saying to you a Paradox which you are difficult to believe without good Vouchers to assure you of the Truth of it Look on once more and you will finde it is quoted as the saying of the Lord Jesus an Authour beyond all exception especially to Christians as we all profess our selves and one who as I have before shewed you is the most competent Judge in this case of all men that ever were or shall be 5. Do you question whether he indeed said so or is rather quoted as if he had said it to give reputation to that which had its original from an obscurer Author Surely you cannot be of that minde when you look backward and there read that it is a saying attributed to our Saviour by the great Apostle St. Paul in a Solemn Visitation Sermon before the Elders of Ephesus whom he calls in as Witnesses to the Verity of his Quotation as I told you before and knew if he had falsifyed in that quotation they were able to have confuted him 6. Does it seem seeing it is only in this one place taken notice of to be a casual word dropped from him by the by as we sometimes throw out Paradoxes to maintain discourse without Premeditation and therefore used only once or twice by him not frequently much less constantly as an axiome of approved Verity The very form of the Apostles quotation confutes this conceit for it is quoted as Proverbs are wont to be with an implication that it was his familiar and constant word for which he was noted as governing his whole life by this Principle 7. Will you object as we are wont to be very inventive when we study excuses to ward off a Truth we have no minde to entertain that it was a saying indeed of his but hardly thought great enough to be quoted from him by any of those Apostles that heard him or recommended to Posterity by any one but him that heard him not in person they that did so not minding it so much as to commit it to memory The Text also confutes this fond conceit For it supposeth it to be famously known even as far as Ephesus and so noted that it needed only to be remembred by them actually as a constant motive to Beneficence which they had long before treasured up in their memories notionally as a saying of special note and eminency 8. Lastly will you suppose that the Apostle who then quoted it as he had occasion to stir up the Charity of Christians did as too many Preachers do press upon his Auditory a saying of our Lord Jesus which he and his Brethren did not so far value themselves as to practise it in their own Persons Look then a little farther backward of the Text and you will finde him there urging his own example and experience in the practical use of this Principle For he appeals to all their knowledges to attest that his own hands whiles he V. 34. preached the Gospel freely among them ministred by daily labouring to his and his companions necessities and that he exhorted them not only to follow their Saviours Doctrine but also his own example in conformity to it So that you see beloved no starting-hole is left by the prudent fore-sight of the holy Pen-man of this Scripture for infidelity to escape the force and authority thereof but every word and circumstance so ordered as to contribute more strength and efficacy to it And now what shall I say more what need I to say more upon this head If such a saying of such an Authour recommended to you by such an Oratour in such an Assembly in so solemn and affectionate a manner and preferred by him to that place in his discourse which was most likely to commend it to the special notice and remembrance of his hearers the very last close and concluding period of the last Sermon that ever he was to make among them I say if such a saying so circumstantiated will not bear weight with you it will be vain for me to imagine that any thing said by me superadded thereunto should be of any force or prevalency upon you And therefore for a close of this part of my Address to you I shall only recommend it to your own thoughts as a matter of serious consideration how you will answer it at the last day when that blessed Apostle that spake these words from the mouth of our Lord Jesus and that holy Evangelist who hath transmitted them on Sacred Record to us that I joyn not my self with them who have all this while been pressing them upon you shall take up the Prophets complaint against you and say Lord who hath believed our report Isa 53. 1. Yea when your blessed Saviour himself shall charge you with infidelity as those in whom his own words have no place How Joh. 8. 37. do you think you shall be able to look him in the face when it shall be objected to you before his terrible Tribunal that the dirty Principles and sordid Practices of a brutish sort of Worldlings and Muckworms have had more force with you for the government of your lives than his heavenly Doctrine and glorious Example that you never stuck at the gratifying your lusts with vast expenses whenever they called for them and never dropped half-pence or farthings so penuriously on any occasion as when you were called upon in his Name and for his sake to promote a good work that the Furniture of one room to beautifie your new dwellings the expense of one Treatment to entertain your riotous Guests the price of one Jewel or other costly Ornament to express your vain Pride the charge of one Moneths keeping for a cast of Hawks or a kennel of Hounds for your Countrey Recreation yea which is far worse the great stakes that you adventure upon one cast of a Die the value of one bribe to blinde the eyes of Justice and promote a wrongfull cause the Hire of an Harlot for one nights sinfull pleasure and the like rates of other costly Debaucheries toties quoties a mounted to more by far than all the summes put all together that all your lives long you have bestowed upon Religious and Charitable Uses Are these my friends are these the fruits that you desire may abound to your account at that Phil. 4. 1â— Day If they be I fear you will make but
the benefiting of others then by doing good to himself he is a surer and a greater gainer by giving then by having by laying out thus then by laying up as the most of the World do by Bounty and Charity then by Covetousness and Parsimony II. And this Paradox for such it seems to all Worldlings thus explained I am in the next place engaged to make good from its proper foundations of Reason For though speaking to an Auditory of professed Christians as I do I might very well acquiesce in the great Authority of our Saviour to which we all submit as a sufficient justification of that which is his own Assertion Yet because the greatest divine Truths carry greater Evidence with them when they are proved to be consonant to the common Notions implanted in humane nature I therefore think it needful to fortifie this Doctrine abundantly capable of it with Proofs of that kind also And this undertaking I thus endeavour to perform All the good things which generally even in the opinion of worldlings are thought contributary to selicity are either honourable pleasurable or profitable and if this be granted which I know none that denies I must confess my self much out of the way in the matter of Reason and Argument if I be not able to make it good that Giving hath more of all these in it than Receiving 1. Begin we therefore with the greater Honourableness of Bountiful Actions Honour is the real inward esteem that Persons who are meet Judges therein have of any one for things and actions of true worth and excellency So that to be truly Honourable is to be and do that which is really worthy and excellent and which is so esteemed to be by the most competent Judges Whence I have two things on this Head to prove 1. That Acts of giving are Acts of more real worth and excellency than those of receiving 2. That they are and have always been so esteemed by the most competent Judges and such as in this case can rationally be refused by no man 1. There is a real worth and excellency in Acts of Giving beyond those of Receiving Which is to me evident from two main Arguments 1. From the greater conformity which the former bear to the genuine temper and constitution of the Soul of Man The strength of which Argument lies in this Principle That where any Nature is acknowledged in it self to be Honourable as certainly humane Nature is being in the confession of Heathens themselves God's off-spring Acts 17. 23. in a special way of Descent and standing not so many removes from him as all other sublunary natures do there it is most honourable for all that partake of that Nature to act conformably thereunto Now the humane Soul is certainly a Being endowed with large generous and beneficent propensions so that it cannot without very great uneasiness be confined and cooped up within narrow and selfish Principles It is strongly inclined to be sociable and conversive to be communicative and obliging to be pitiful and compassionate all which qualities are of a giving nature and that to such a degree that the expressions of these inclinations by one man to another are ordinarily called as if they only were so and the contrary propensions were accounted an implicite abrenunciation of humane nature and an herding ones self with Brutes by the name of Humanity Insomuch that our Saviour when he was to undertake an Office for our benefit which required compassionate affections chose to be made like unto us in all things that he might by the inclinations of his own assumed humane nature as well as by the determinations of his Divine Will become a Mercifull Heb. 2. 17. 4. 15. High Priest and compassionately touched with the feeling of our infirmities Adde we for a close of this Head to this evidence of Reason one or two from Experience which where it is constant is wont to found Maxims and Principles for the use of Reason it self The first Instance I shall give shall be in Friendship wherein the soul of man doth most voluntarily fling off all disguises and appears most delightfully in its proper Naturals to the object of its dearest Affections Now in such circumstances wherein usually contests of friendship do arise the great dispute betwixt those Souls that are so linked together is whether the one or the other shall exceed in acts of noble and generous bounty which extends to a pulling down all the Inclosures of Meum and Tuum and rendring all things even life it self mutually common The other Instance shall be in a Vice which even in those who at other times use all the Arts they can to disguise their natures and keep their breasts shut to all mankinde is wont to pick the lock of mens bosoms and whether they will or no to expose them to common view I mean that of Dunkenness Now in that sinfull excess among many vicious inclinations which are various in several men and which then appear variously this one vertuous propension which that vice that most transforms men to beasts cannot eradicate doth most evidently and almost universally discover it self insomuch that the most covetous and illiberal Persons in the world are in their cups alwayes generously frolick and free of their Purses and those that can worst spare it many times are yet apt to take it ill that any one in the company offers to pay any part of the reckoning but themselves Which I make use of only as an argument of great force from common experience that the purely Natural Temper of the Humane Soul is more inclined to Giving than Receiving and by consequence that that Propension which is thus naturally implanted in us renders those Acts which are most couformable to it viz. those of Giving most Honourable My first proof 2. The second I shall take from the greater agreeableness of Acts of Giving to principles of Justice than those of Receiving Which if I can make good I doubt not of gaining what I intend by it Now this Notion I thus make out God hath originally by the Law of the Creation given the Psal 115. 16. Earth to the Children of men that is hath entituled every man to so much of it as may yield him a competent and comfortable subsistence And the propriety that one man hath in this and another in that proportion of the common Fathers Bounty is not set out by him immediately but by particular Compacts and Constitutions of men themselves Which Compacts and Constitutions though they be sufficient barres even upon the obligation of Conscience to fence mens particular rights against the irruptions of fraud or violence to alter the possession against the owners will yet cannot destroy the fundamental Title that any man in want hath to be supplyed in his necessities sutably to his occasions out of the abundance of other men Whence it necessarily follows that there lies an obligation of Justice upon the abounding possessor