An Earnest Appeal to the Free Church of Scotland, on the subject of Economics. By THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. First American from the Second Edinburgh Edition. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication. 1847. Pp. 64.—PRINCETON REVIEW, July, 1847.
THIS suggestive and teeming pamphlet has now been several months before the churches, and we presume in the hands of almost all our ministers. We cannot suffer ourselves to think that so much practical wisdom, enforced by the earnest eloquence of Chalmers, can fail to influence for good a multitude of minds. We may not immediately see its effects, but the principles here suggested, the plans proposed, and the motives urged, must commend themselves to the judgment and conscience of the readers, and must induce them to act, or at least prepare them to act with greater intelligence and zeal, in the prosecution of the various enterprises in which, as a church, we are engaged.
We propose to select from the numerous topics here discussed, the support of the clergy, as a subject of a few remarks. That it is the duty of the church to sustain those who are engaged in preaching the gospel is not a disputed point. The apostle rests this obligation on the following grounds. 1. The general principle that labor is entitled to a reward, or, as our Saviour expresses it, the laborer is worthy of his hire. This principle the apostle reminds us, is recognized in all the departments of human life, and has the sanction of the law of God in its application even to brutes, for it is written: Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. 2. It is a simple matter of commutative justice. If we have sown unto spiritual things, is it a great matter that we should reap your carnal things? If we do you a great good, is it unreasonable to expect you to do us a less? 3. In all countries, and under all forms of religions, true or false, those who minister at the altar are partakers with the altar. 4. It is an express ordinance of Christ that they which preach the gospel should live by the gospel.
It is not, however, every one who preaches the gospel, who is entitled to the benefit of this ordinance. In many cases men, who by profession are lawyers, merchants, or mechanics, are at the same time preachers. Preaching, however, is not their vocation; it is not the work to which their time and talents are devoted. It is a service in which they occasionally engage as opportunity offers without interrupting their ordinary engagements. It is evident that such men, however laudable their motives, or however useful their labors, are not entitled by the ordinance of Christ to live by the gospel. Others, who by profession are preachers, who have been educated and ordained in reference to the sacred office, are at the same time something else, teachers, farmers, or planters. They unite with their vocation as preachers some lucrative secular employment. Sometimes this is a matter of choice; more frequently perhaps, of necessity; sometimes, as in the case of Paul, of disinterested self-denial, that they may make the gospel of Christ without charge. No one can doubt that there may be excellent and adequate reasons why a preacher should be a teacher or a farmer. Nor can it be questioned that every one has a right to judge of those reasons for himself, and to determine whether he will support himself, or throw himself on the ordinance of Christ. But he cannot do both. He cannot support himself and claim the right to be supported by the church. He throws himself out of the scope of the ordinance in question by devoting his time and talents to the work of self-support. The plain scriptural principle is, that those who devote themselves to the service of the church, have a right to be supported by the church; that those who consecrate themselves to preaching the gospel are entitled to live by the gospel. As this is a truth so plainly taught in the sacred Scriptures, and so generally conceded, it need not be discussed.
A much more difficult question is: What is the best method of sustaining the ministers of religion? In attempting to answer this question, we propose first to state historically and very briefly the different methods which have been adopted for that purpose, and secondly to show that the duty in question is a duty common to the whole church.
As to the former of the two points proposed for consideration, it may be remarked that under the Mosaic dispensation, the Levites being set apart for the service of the sanctuary, had thirty-five cities with a circle of land of a thousand cubits around the walls, assigned to them, and a tithe of all the produce of the ground, of the flocks, and of the herds. The priests were supported by a tithe of the portion paid the Levites; by the first-fruits which, according to the Talmudists, were in no case to be less than the sixtieth of the whole harvest; by a certain portion of the sacrifices offered on the altar; by the price paid for the redemption of the first-born among men, and of those animals which were not allowed to be offered in sacrifice. They were moreover exempt from taxation and military duty. Such was the abundant provision which God ordained for the support of the ministers of religion.