II.] POOR MAN'S FRIEND. 35 



bly take the goods of others for his present relief, is 

 because his condition renders all things common. 

 For it is the ordinance and institution of nature itself, 

 that inferior things should be designed and directed 

 to serve the necessities of men. Wherefore the divi- 

 sion of goods afterwards introduced into the world 

 doth not derogate from that precept of natural reason, 

 which Suggests, that the extreme wants of mankind 

 may be in any manner removed by the use of tempo- 

 ral possessions." PUFFENDORF tells us, that PERESIUS 

 maintains, that, in case of extreme necessity, a man 

 is compelled to the action, by a force which he can- 

 not resist ; and then, that the owner's consent may be 

 presumed on, because humanity obliges him to suc- 

 cour those who are in distress. The same writer cites 

 a passage from St. AMBROSE, one of the FATHERS 

 of the church, which alleges that (in case of refu- 

 sing to give to persons in extreme necessity) it is the 

 person who retains the goods who is guilty of the act 

 of wrong doing, for St. AMBROSE says, "it is the 

 bread of the hungry which you detain ; it is the rai- 

 ment of the naked which you'lock up." 



43. Before I come to the English authorities on 

 the same side, let me again notice the foul dealing of 

 Blackstone ; let me point out another instance or two 

 of the insincerity of this English court-sycophant, who 

 was, let it be noted, Solicitor-general to the queen of 

 the " good old King." You have seen, in paragraph 28, 

 a most flagrant instance of his perversion of the Scrip- 

 tures. He garbles the word of God, and prefaces 

 the garbling by calling it a thing "certified by King 

 Solomon himself;" and this word certified he makes 

 use of just when he is about to begin the scandalous 

 falsification of the text which he is referring to. Nev- 

 er was anything more base. But, the whole extent 

 of the baseness we have not yet seen ; for, BLACK- 

 STONE had read HALE, who had quoted the two verses 

 fairly ; but besides this, he had read PUFFENDORF, 

 who had noticed very fully this text of Scripture, and 

 who had shown very clearly that it did not at all 

 make in favour of the doctrine of Blackstone. Black- 

 17 



