Chapter 30

§ 1.

Those again who upbraid and charge us with the circumstance, that the people by command of God, on point of departure, received of the Egyptians vessels of all sorts and apparel,¹ and so went away; of which stores the Tabernacle also was made in the wilderness,² prove themselves ignorant of God’s ways of justification, and of His providences; as that Elder likewise used to say. Since, had not God permitted this in the typical journey, no man could at this day be saved in our real journey, i.e., in the faith wherein we are established, whereby we are taken out of the number of the Gentiles. For we are all accompanied by some property, moderate or large, which we have gotten out of the Mammon of iniquity. For whence are the houses in which we dwell, and the garments which we put on, and the furniture which we use, and all the rest of what serves us for our daily³ life, but out of what in our Gentile state we gained by avarice; or what we have received from Gentile parents, or kinsmen, or friends, who acquired it by injustice? Not to say that even now, while we are in the Faith, we gain. For who sells, and desires not to gain from the buyer? And who buys, and would not fain be dealt with by the seller to his profit? Again, what person in business does not therefore carry on his business, that he may get his bread thereby? And how is it with those believers who are in the royal court? have they not goods from among the things which are Cæsar’s, and doth not each one of them according to his ability impart unto such as have not? The Egyptians were debtors to the people not only for their goods but for their life also, through the former kindness of the Patriarch Joseph: but in what respect are the Gentiles debtors to us, from whom we receive both profit and the commodities of life? Whatsoever they gain with toil, that we, being in the Faith, use without toil.

§ 2.

Besides, the people were serving the Egyptians in the worst of servitude,⁴ as saith the Scripture, And the Egyptians violently oppressed the children of Israel, and made life hateful to them by hard labours, in clay and in brick, and all the works which they did in the fields, in all the tasks wherein they crushed them by violence; and with much toil they built them fortified cities, adding to their stores for many years, and in every kind of servitude; whereas the others, besides their ingratitude toward them, were fain even to destroy them utterly.

What then was unrighteously done, if they took a little out of much, and if those who might have had much property, and gone away rich, had they not served them, went away poor, receiving for their heavy servitude very scanty wages? So, if any free person, carried away violently by some one, and serving him many years and increasing his goods, should afterwards, upon gaining some little support, be suspected of having some small portions of his master’s (whereas in fact he goes off with a very little, out of his own many toils and of his great gain) and if this were charged on him by any one as a wrong; the judge himself will rather appear unjust towards him who had been reduced to slavery by force. Now of like sort are the aforesaid, who blame the people for taking to themselves a little out of much, yet blame not themselves,⁵ who have made no due return according to the merit of their parents, but rather, reducing them into most heavy servitude, have obtained from them very great advantage. And while they charge the Jews with unjust dealings, for receiving, as we said before, in a few little vessels some uncoined gold and silver [of their own toils]; of themselves (for the truth shall be spoken, ridiculous as it may appear to some) they say that they do justly in bearing about in their girdles stamped gold and silver and copper from others’ toils, with the inscription and image of Cæsar.

§ 3.

But if we and they are compared, which will seem to have received more honestly? the people from the Egyptians, who were in all their debtors,⁶ or we from the Romans and other nations, those even who owe us no such debt? Rather the world hath peace by them, and we walk in the ways without fear, and sail whithersoever we will. Against this sort of objector then, our Lord’s saying will be applicable, viz.⁷ Thou hypocrite, take first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to take away the mote from thy brother’s eye.

⁸For so, if he who lays this to thy charge, and glories in his knowledge, is cut off from the assembly of the Gentiles, and there is nothing of others’ property with him; if he be simply naked and barefoot, and haunt the mountains without a home, like some of those animals which eat grass: he will obtain pardon, as not knowing what is needed in our manner of life. But if he take from men his share in the property (so called) of others, while he finds fault with the Type of the same: he proves himself to be most unjust, turning back on himself the aforesaid accusation. For he will be convicted of carrying about what is another’s, and of desiring what is not his own: and with a view to this, they report, the Lord said, Judge not that ye be not judged:⁹ for with whatsoever judgment ye shall judge, it shall be judged concerning you. Not of course that we rebuke not sinners, or consent to things done amiss, but that we judge not unfairly God’s ways of ordering things, whereas He hath provided in righteousness whatsoever shall be profitable. Thus, because He knew that we would make a good use of our substance, which we should have, receiving it from another,¹⁰ He that hath two coats, saith He, let him impart to him that hath not: and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.¹¹ Again, For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me to eat,¹² and I was naked and ye clothed Me. Again, When thou doest alms,¹³ let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: and all other acts of bounty upon which we are justified, redeeming our own as it were by what was another’s. And when I say, Another’s, I do not mean that the world is alien from God, but that we receive from others and possess the aforesaid gifts, even as they from the Egyptians who knew not God; and by the same we build up for ourselves the Tabernacle of God. For with doers of good, God dwelleth: as saith the Lord,¹⁴ Make to yourselves friends of the Mammon of iniquity, that they, when ye are put to flight, may receive you into everlasting tabernacles. For look what things we had acquired, when we were Heathens, by unrighteousness; those same, now we have believed, we turn to the Lord’s service, and so are justified.

§ 4.

These things were then of necessity practised in type beforehand, and out of those materials the Tabernacle of God is wrought; in which matter, as we have explained, both they received justly, and we were prophetically indicated, how we should begin to wait on God with things not our own. For all that journey of the people, whereby God brought them out of Egypt, was the type and image of the Church’s journey, which was to take place from among the Gentiles; which journey accordingly ends also with leading her hence into her inheritance, which not indeed Moses the servant of God, but Jesus the Son of God, will give her to inherit. And if any one will look more carefully at what the Prophets say of the end, and at all that John the Lord’s disciple saw in the Apocalypse, he will find the Gentiles generally enduring the same plagues, which at that time Egypt in particular had to endure.