Note 43 — BOOK IV.

Too much liberality in Christians towards their brethren, or even pastors, suffering in the cause of Christ, is a fault of very rare occurrence. There they often withhold more than is meet, and find in their experience that it tendeth to penury; for the Lord has many ways of taking from his people the money they think they can employ better than by lending to him; and perhaps many of the excellent persons who in this reign suffered the spoiling of their goods, might have to regret that they had not more freely contributed to supply the wants of their more needy fellow-christians. But no man knoweth either love or hatred from outward dispensations; and it is impossible for others to say, whether as a rebuke or a trial, the persecutors were permitted to plunder the devoted south and west.