Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/73

Christ's body who are the objects of our charity. For if we hold all that we have in trust, for our Lord, for them, and for ourselves, are we at liberty to spend more in providing for our own wants than for those of any other individual? Scripture enables us to answer the question. For if this were not allowable, there would no longer be any distinction of rich and poor among Christians, and property itself would be practically at an end. But our Lord has declared, that the poor shall be always with us, and so allows of such distinctions: and the practice alike of apostolic and of primitive times forms a comment upon his words. St. Paul certainly considered it no part of the Christian duty of Philemon to abandon the superiority of worldly position which he enjoyed; and when directing with the authority of inspiration, that every man should "abide in the same calling wherein he was called," he seems to sanction the gradations of society which have ever existed. The terms of our trust, then, as collected from God's word, (and the New Testament is no code of rules, but a law of liberty to be carefully studied, and sincerely loved and followed,) seems to be well summed up in the counsel of a great divine. "Whatsoever is superfluous in thy estate, is to be dispensed in alms. He that hath two coats must give to him that hath none; that is, he that hath beyond his need, must give that which is beyond it. Only among needs, we are to