Part 4

Second: ALTHOUGH UNIVERSAL IT WAS INCORPORATED INTO AND MADE THE BASIS OF THE MOSAIC SYSTEM OF TITHES.

In the Mosaic system there was a general tithe, conforming in every feature to this universal tithe. Then there was a second tithe, of national significance only, used as material for a feast at a designated place the first and second year. But the third year it was to be eaten at home, the poor sharing in the feast. This is the best view, I think, of what some call the third tithe. Hence every Jew offered two-tenths each year besides the first-fruits and all other offerings free-will and required. Counting the first-fruits at from one-thirtieth to one-sixtieth (as rabbis tell us they were estimated) the Jew must needs give about twenty-five per cent of all his yearly income. Chrysostom figures it at a third to a half, but the probability is that he has it too high. Those of us who speak on the tithe are often accused of trying to put the Church back on the Jewish basis, which is another of those foolish things that even some fairly intelligent people seem to never tire of saying, no matter how little sense there is in them. To reach a Jewish basis, the average Christian would have to give at least ten times what he is now giving, not merely one-tenth of his income. Let us get up to the heathen standard, before we worry too much about being Judaized.

Third: BEING UNIVERSAL THE PRINCIPLE OF THE TITHE IS NOT TO BE COUNTED AS ABROGATED WHEN THE OLD TESTAMENT ECONOMY ENDED, UNLESS IT BE SO STATED OR AT LEAST BY FAIR INFERENCE BE IMPLIED.

It certainly is not stated anywhere in the New Testament that the tenth is no longer the Lord’s. Neither can any fair inference be drawn showing that it is no longer holy to the Lord. The two incidents cited, it is true, contain rebukes to the Pharisees who were tithers, but the tithing is not condemned any more than is prayer or fasting. It is the manner, not the principle, that is condemned. On the contrary, tithing is emphatically commended. For the Savior says, “These ought ye to have done and not to have left the other undone.” I am well aware that it is the reply of many that Christ merely commended their doing what was a plain duty under the Mosaic law, but that he in no way implies that such a duty was binding on others. Granting that the first statement is an assumption, then we have it answered by another assumption, with the result that the whole statement of Christ is of no weight in the matter. Christ did not always fall in with the teachings of the Mosaic system, as for example in the matter of granting divorce. If He had wanted to do away with the tithe, certainly He could have said so, as clearly as He did in matters of divorce. He does not here, or elsewhere, offer any substitute for this universal standard, and He spoke often on the subject of money and of covetousness. One verse in every four in the gospels by Matthew, Mark, and Luke have to do with these subjects, and one verse in every six in the whole New Testament. Certainly if a new standard were to be revealed, there is abundance of opportunity.

The objection may be stated here that sacrifice was likewise universal. True enough, but we have fulfillment of all its obligations and typical significance in the perfect sacrifice, “The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,” “Our High Priest who needeth not daily like those high priests who offer up sacrifices, first for his own sin and then for the sins of the people. For this he did once for all when he offered up himself.”

I have also met this objection. Circumcision and polygamy were universal, and your argument would establish them. In the first place circumcision was never universal, and even if it had been, we have numerous statements in the New Testament denying its further claim and a seal of the covenant, as I believe, clearly revealed which was to supersede it. As to polygamy, it may be safely affirmed that it never was divinely commanded, it is contrary to a definite law of God, announced to our first parents, and reaffirmed in the New Testament.

With sacrifice all the rites of ceremonial significance and the retinue of priests and Levites which administered them came to an end. All moral obligations, however, were not abolished, but many of them were more strictly interpreted. The Sermon on the Mount reveals a higher conception of moral obligation and requires a purer motive than any precept of the Old Testament. The laws of home relationship are made more binding. The bill of divorcement is swept away and only the great principle recognized, namely, faithlessness to the universal law, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Even in the case of ritual offering this is true. Take an example. While incense is abolished, that which is symbolized, the great heart beat of humanity which we call prayer, is not abolished but is enlarged to a precept of exceeding broad scope, “Pray without ceasing.”

Now we demand some word of fair implication at least, or some example to show that the universal obligation of the tithe has been set aside in the general shaking up of the earth. It was not removed as being one of “the things that are made,” but, as I believe, it remains as one of “the things which cannot be shaken.” This statement is borne out by the evidence afforded from its history. “These thing ought ye to have done” is a word that justifies our conclusion.

Fourth: NOT BEING ABROGATED WHEN THE OLD TESTAMENT ECONOMY ENDED, IT IS UNIVERSALLY BINDING IN THE NEW TESTAMENT DISPENSATION.

Notwithstanding all that has been written to the contrary, I am firmly persuaded that this was recognized by the early Church. The quotations cited are abundantly sufficient to prove this statement, if fairly interpreted. And this leads me to enter a protest against the unfair presentation of this evidence on the part of many writers. This can be illustrated by the case of Irenaeus who is invariably, so far as I have seen, set down as on the side of the abrogation of the law of the tithe, because he said in one place as quoted on page 17 “instead of the law enjoining the giving of tithes, (He told us) to share all our possessions with the poor.” Certainly nothing could be found, nor is found, more explicit than that statement. Yet any one who reads the whole context will see that Irenaeus is contending for just the opposite thing. He classes the tithe, not with the ceremonial things, but with the natural precepts, by which he means the moral law as is clearly shown. To argue that Irenaeus is abrogating the tithe, is to argue that he is doing away with the law of adultery and murder, for he mentions them in exactly the same language. The same thing would be true of the commandment to love our neighbors. But why should we debate this point when Irenaeus distinctly says, “all these precepts, as I have already observed, were not (the injunctions) of one doing away with the law, but of one fulfilling, extending, and widening it among us.”

Now I should like to know how it comes that all these learned men who speak so surely of Irenaeus have always neglected to quote Irenaeus as to what he really meant? Personally, I am willing to stake the whole case on Irenaeus. For I do not know a better presentation of the whole question than he makes. When he includes tithing under the head of the moral precepts of the law and then says emphatically “that the Lord did not abrogate the natural (precepts) of the law,” I am sure that he stated the whole truth in respect to this subject. That he enlarged their scope and raised the maximum of moral requirement, he rightly affirms. When that is understood there is no more room for debate.

But why such dreadful alarm over this tithe law? Why, for example, should the writer in Smith and Cheetham’s Dictionary try to minimize all this testimony of the Father’s? He is anxious to prove that “the evidence belonging to this period would seem to show that payment of tithe was first regarded as a duty soon after A. D. 350. By that time the idea generally prevailed that the priest of the Christian Church had succeeded to the office of the Levitical priests, and consequently to their rights and privileges.” His bogy comes to light in the following: “Cyprian (Epist. 1:9, Ed. Erasmus, 66 Pamel.) writes to dissuade a presbyter from accepting the position of guardian on the ground that the clergy are separated from all secular business. The tribe of Levi had no inheritance but was supported by tithes, that they might devote themselves entirely to divine service; ‘the same plan and form is now preserved in regard to the clergy’ that they may not be diverted from their sacred duties, but ‘receiving as it were tithes may not depart from the altar.’ Here the phrase tanquam decimas is decisive against the payment of tithe as a fixed legal due, for decimae paid as legal dues could not be tanquam decimae. There is analogy, not identity in the method of support.” The word “legal” is the key to all this twisting and trembling. This will be explained, perhaps, when we recall that he is an Englishman, and comes of a race that has suffered much from enforced tithing. Uhlhorn’s Christian Charity in the Ancient Church is marred by the same tremendous anxiety to kill off any hope of this legal monster ever getting loose again. Hence it seems that it is now time to say that the tithe never was in Bible times, the legal monster that it afterward became. Under Old Testament teaching and practice, the tithe was voluntary. No hand of force was used to collect it, but as in the time of Hezekiah, the people brought in the tithes willingly and abundantly. It was a moral precept, enforced by appeals to the conscience. Hezekiah does not reckon on the tithes in a way that indicates that he would compel them to be brought in, but expresses his gratitude when he finds that so much was brought in by the people. The appeal of Malachi to the nation that had robbed God is a moral appeal and is based upon the same thought that we find in all such appeals of Scripture. That the Pharisees by their traditions had reduced it to a burdensome legal requirement need not be questioned. So did they weigh down every moral precept that the Lord ever laid upon the conscience of men. The advocacy of the tithe in this country is always on the voluntary basis, so far as I know. I feel that it would be a calamity were it put on any other basis, and I know that all who are working in this line, so far as I have become acquainted with their work, have the same feeling. What we believe is that this is God’s standard of giving, a minimum below which one cannot fall and be entitled to a claim on God’s rich promises of blessing to those who give money for His work. The maximum claim is the one of which the Fathers so often speak. Matt. 19:21. “Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” Between these two claims love finds its field of operation and its measure of perfectness. This is our view and the view which I think prevailed in the early Church.

Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians, the nearest writing to the inspired books of the New Testament, says: “Those who present their offerings at the appointed times are blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord they sin not.” (See page 14.) The context clearly shows that he has in mind the laws governing the offerings to the priests and Levites. The Teaching speaks of “giving according to the commandment,” which must mean the Levitical commandment, or one similar to it. Justin Martyr first says that they put what they “have into a common stock” and later says “they who are well-to-do and willing, give what each thinks fit,” and in both cases seems to intimate that what is contributed is given to the dependent. (See page 16.) His last instance of giving as each one thinks fit, may be a description applicable to those who sought to follow the law of the free-will offering which is laid down in Deut. 16:10, 17, and reaffirmed by the Apostle in I Cor. 16:2. A special contribution to the poor would be made now on the same basis in any of our churches and does not touch the subject of the regular support of the Church. Yet many ministers who ought to know better, insist on saying that this is the New Testament law of giving. It is most decidedly not a New Testament, but an Old Testament law, confirmed by the New Testament, and by common sense apart from any question of Scripture authority.

If Justin meant to affirm that this regulation was in force, well and good. But if he meant to say, as some would have us believe, that the Church had thus early gotten on the basis of every man doing exactly as he pleased, then all we have to say is that from our modern experience with that sort of teaching, we cannot commend his judgment or the practice of the Church of which he was a part, for no such principle, ever had, or ever can have, the sanction of God. Again how this can be reconciled with the statement that they have put all into the common stock is more than I can see. How could men be well-to-do who had sold all and put it into the hands of others? It may be for convenience of his argument that he describes in the first case what some few have done, perhaps himself among the number, and that in the Church service, he is telling of either the observance of the rule of the free-will offering, or else is letting us into a state of anarchy respecting the proper teaching on the subject of giving, which led to the difficulties of the later centuries. The same comment may be made on the statements of Tertullian. It will be noted that he does not tell how the aggressive work of the Church is to be supported, but only of what is secured for what we commonly call charitable purposes.

It may be that the reason we begin to hear of shortcomings in giving as early as in the time of Origen and Cyprian, is that this every-man-do-as-he-thinks-fit teaching is bearing its legitimate fruit and that now there must be some heroic measures taken to offset its fatal influence. From what these witnesses tell us, the Church of the third century was reaping the fruit of some erroneous teaching and practice in respect to the giving of money. From that time on the call is to a recognition of duty, as all the extracts go to show. The gift of the maximum had been made by the few. The many had followed their own will and the result was disastrous to the Church, and we are not surprised that the later writings abound in appeals to the people to meet even the minimum demands of the tithe, if they ever expected to exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees.

But it is to be noted that only Justin Martyr and Tertullian seem to endorse a hit and miss plan of giving. With these exceptions, the Fathers agree that the laborers in the kingdom of Christ take the place of the ministers of the Mosaic period, and deserve to be as well supported, according to the teaching of Christ in Matt. 10:10 and Luke 10:7, enforced by that of Paul in I Cor. 9:7-11 and I Tim. 5:18. And here it may be said in passing, that Paul justifies his plea for support in the work of the Gospel by--“Saith not the law the same also?” If the law confirms the justice of the laborer’s claim under the Gospel, is it such a perversion of the spirit of the Gospel to urge that one do not fall short of a plain requirement of that same law? This identification of the teachers of both dispensations and of the method of their support is not a later growth, as the Smith and Cheetham’s writer would have us believe, but is found in the very earliest writings. It is quite likely that different practices prevailed at different times and in different places in the Church. But it is to be borne in mind that with the two exceptions named, the testimony is for meeting God’s requirement, whether it be that the requirement was considered to be the whole or the tithe, and that there is no approval given to the do-as-you-please plan in matters of conduct.

Here I think it in place to repeat some things said in Tithe Conferences at Winona and elsewhere during the past year in regard to one of the most persistent and misguided of all the objections with which we are confronted. It is urged that the New Testament bases all action on love and that one must give according to his love and that this is the only Christian standard of life and service. This is confusion much confounded. It is a fixed principle of ethics that men cannot be a law to themselves and civilization be preserved and conduct properly regulated. Though good men may fail to see it, this method of giving according to the measure of one’s love is, at the bottom, anarchy pure and simple. Every man is left to determine what he shall do according to the impulse of the moment and without any regard to a fixed standard of right. Such a principle cannot be tolerated in social life. There is a standard of law which makes the right for one the right for all and to set this aside in any case is to invite trouble. In all human conduct, a fixed standard, apart from men, must be the basis of right. It must be invariable and must obtain in one life as much as in another. Hence this high-sounding plea for love as the basis of all action is pure anarchy in Christian guise. Lawless grace is as loveless as lawless humanity. License claimed on account of standing under grace, though put on a heavenly plane, is hell-born just the same. License means anarchy, and anarchy is devilish though concerned with the holiest of occupations. To make love a standard of action is to confuse a motive and a standard. Love is variable, not the same in any two individuals, and not the same in any individual at different times.

Has love no place in God’s scheme? Certainly it has, and a very large place at that. God’s plan does not limit love in its maximum which is all “that thou hast.” But what we contend is that God does have a minimum standard below which one cannot fall and claim to have the love of Christ constraining him. Love fulfills law, doesn’t abrogate it as so many seem to think. The law says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Love says, I will make that day and every day holy unto the Lord, but does not say, I will do away with the law altogether as to that which God has made the minimum requirement of the race. Love may go beyond the law’s requirement, but will not fall below it. Love does not and cannot repeal law, but obeys it and furnishes the only true motive to obedience. Grace alters and exalts the motive but cannot free from the obligations of law.

A little clear thinking at this point would do much to set many people right on this question and on many other questions of Christian life. The large amount of Pharisaical floundering and pietistic mouthing with which the Church is persecuted on this behalf is not creditable to our intelligence or to our Christianity. So simple and fundamental is this point both from the standpoint of ethics and of religion that it seems strange that sane men should ever call it in question. But men were troubled with it when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans and are still troubled with it and strangest of all quote Paul’s words which were written to set people straight on this matter as the justification of the very thing he was trying to correct. To me this is one of the most peculiar perversions of Scripture which has ever arisen in the history of the Church. That the epistle to the Romans which has for its key word righteousness (which I think means rightness according to God’s standard and which can have no other satisfactory meaning), should be taken as the authority for Antinomianism which practically annihilates law is certainly a singular proof of the fact that some people have the logical faculty in a very rudimentary state. It seems to me that we ought to be able to see that if God’s standard of right is abrogated, then nothing can control a man’s life but his own promptings. What is a law but God’s standard of right in respect to that particular line of conduct to which it applies? What is the abrogation of law but the doing away with God’s standard and the substitution of a human standard? We have become so afraid of the charge of legalism that we have swung far to the side of anarchy, and, as between the two, legalism is the least to be feared, as bad as it is. Plain speech is needed for we must not palliate the consequences of such teaching. Paul meant well as a persecutor, but Paul the preacher greatly deplored his course of action in such a rôle. Men may think they are doing God and humanity service by such advocacy, but to me it is the devil’s work and makes for lawlessness which is sin and which when finished brings forth death. Lawlessness abounds in teaching of school and Church and is it any wonder that we stand horrified at some of its outbreaks in our very midst? Herein I find a most urgent call to advocate the right as God has indicated it in respect to giving as well as to any other of the lines of conduct which go to make up a well-rounded life.

Giving is not left to the emotions of men, no matter how pure and holy they may seem to be. Giving is to be according to God’s measure or requirement. To this it seems we ought all to agree. Has God a measure? If so, what is it and how does it operate? Some of us think that He has and that it is fixed and invariable, the same always and for all. Why should he not have? Honest people of business ability do not sell wheat by whim, potatoes for appearance sake, or calico by hysterics. Produce is measured by well-defined standards and disposed of in due regard to and careful consideration of the principles of economic distribution. Why be so careless in respect to moral conduct? Ethical principles ought to be, and I believe are more clearly defined than are economic principles. What is the rule, what the standard, are the first questions concerning any moral act. When this is known the character of the act is easily determined. Every grace or fruit of the spirit is to be tested by this vital inquiry. Faith, the first-fruit, has a unit of measure. Belief unto salvation is the minimum of faith. Beyond that faith may reach to heights that seem to have no limit. But it must measure up to that minimum, or fail to merit the name of faith. Love the final-fruit, as we sometimes say, has its unit, namely, the gift of self. No gift without the giver, no love without the lover. These minimum requirements are agreed upon by all teachers of the gospel of redemption from sin through the blood of Jesus Christ. No one supposes for a moment that such teaching involves the idea that faith and love shall never go beyond this minimum. They must go on to perfection.