# Louis Cappel on the right to private property



## Reformed Covenanter (Mar 21, 2021)

This extract is quite important in the current climate when some are saying that, in the future, we will own nothing and be happy. Such a utopian notion is wildly unbiblical and unconfessional. The Huguenot theologian, Louis Cappel, helpfully reminds us of the right to private property:

... From all these forementioned, it appears that the distinction of _Mine_ and _Thine,_ and the difference of Possessions of Goods and Heritages, proceeds from an immutable and Natural Right grounded in Reason, Equity, and Justice, and not an arbitrary thing merely depending upon the Fancy of men that would have it so, whence the impertinency of _Plate_ is evident, who would in his Common Wealth have all things, even Women and Children common, for besides that, in this state of sin which man is now involved in, such a thing is both absurd and impossible, and would introduce in the society of men a monstrous confusion of things, I say that even if there were no sins in man, and that he was in his first are of purity, it could not with any pretence of Reason have place any where, as before it hath been shewed.

Now in this difference of _Mine_ and _Thine,_ which is, and ought to be among men, and without which their society cannot subsist, is ground the Exercise of all Virtues, as of Justice, Temperance, Truth, Fidelity, Magnanimity, Liberality, _&c._ This being so, we must necessarily acknowledge a Providence and infinite Wisdom which hath endowed man with this Reason, and ground of this difference of _Mine_ and _Thine,_ and so consequently of all Moral Virtues which all do acknowledge to be the most glorious, admirable, & excellent things in all the world, and which could never have had for its Author, Fate, or change, or any irrational thing, such as necessarily the order of Nature is, unless it be ruled and governed by a superior wisdom. ...

For more, see Louis Cappel on the right to private property.


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