Earlier text: Trade BooksThe Law of Tithing
By Uriah Smith
THE reader will be interested in the following article, particularly when he learns the source from which it comes, and considers the subject to which it is devoted. It comes from the pastor of a Methodist church in Ohio, and is published in the form of a leaflet, with the title, “Is the Law of Tithing Binding on the Christian Church?” It is a conclusive argument in favor of the practice of tithing by Christians, according to the law of God, and was handed to us by a brother, to be compared with the ten commandment law. This latter law, commonly known as the moral law, or ten commandments, points out just as definitely and directly our duty to God, as does the law on the subject of tithing. In Lev. 27: 30-32 we read: “And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s; it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem aught of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.” Deut. 14: 22 says: “Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.” This, in brief, is the statement of the law on the subject, as recorded by Moses for the children of Israel. Following these statements are directions for the disposition, or use, of the Lord’s portions. Where it was impracticable to deliver the animals or fruits of the field, they were to be sold, and the money delivered, the evident intent of the law being to deliver into the Lord’s house, or treasury, one tenth of the income of each person or family. These commandments are written in the same books, at the same time, and by the same authority as the ten commandments. The same authority which made the seventh day holy unto the Lord, made also the tenth of the increase of the field and flock holy unto the Lord. The ten commandments, or moral law, cover our moral obligations to God and humanity. The tithing of incomes provides for the maintenance of God’s worship, and the care of helpless humanity. These laws are as eternal as our relations to God and humanity. We cannot disobey either without seriously violating our obligations to the one or the other. That the law is eternal, and not a Mosaic enactment, is shown by Abraham’s offering to Melchisedec, God’s high priest, a tenth of all he had, five hundred years before the time of Moses; by Jacob’s giving a tenth of all God gave him; by its frequent mention all through Jewish history; and by Malachi’s startling announcement that his people were robbing God by withholding tithes and offerings. Four hundred years later, Christ, when observing the extreme care the scribes took in tithing, said, “These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other [the weightier matters of the law] undone.” Later, Paul exhorted the laying aside every week as the Lord prospered his people; and in writing to the Hebrews, he mentions the tithing law and its obligations as eternal. In short, there is no place in Sacred Writ, or in history, where there is any indication of an abrogation of the law. The tenth is always spoken of as belonging to God,—not a gift to God, but his by right,—and every withholding of the tenth as robbery. When a man pays rent for the use of a house or of land, or interest for the use of money, he never considers this a gift to the owner of the property. It is simply paying an obligation, or debt, which it would be regarded as dishonest to try to evade. So the Scriptures treat the payment of tithes. It belongs to God, and a man has no more right to withhold the payment of his debt to God than to withhold the payment of his debt to any other friend. If this view is correct, the payment of tithes, church dues, or support of the poor, is not a matter of charity or benevolence, until it exceeds a tenth of one’s income, but simply the payment of an honest debt. The fact that a man has contracted other debts, or has pressing wants, that make it seem impossible to pay God his just dues, does not lessen the obligation to pay them any more than it does the payment of any other debt. The man who has the reputation of paying his honest debts, can obtain any reasonable favor he asks from his fellow men. The man who pays his honest debts to God can obtain any reasonable favor he may ask of him. The converse of this is true of men, and equally so with God. The man who will not pay his honest debts, cannot obtain special favors of either God or man. When we learn that all God’s laws are right and reasonable, and that it does not pay to violate them, but does pay to obey them, then we shall have learned a great lesson. When we learn that these laws are immutable, unchangeable, and that the results of obedience or disobedience infallibly follow, whether we know it or not, we shall seek to know these laws as we have never done before. At some future time, we will notice the results of the operation of the law of tithing as given in the Scriptures, and observed in the actual practice of those who have obeyed the law. We congratulate our Methodist friend on his clear apprehension of the great duty we owe to God, to pay into his cause one tenth of all our increase for the support of his work; but what about that other law, which is equally plain and direct on our duty to God, as the other one is on the duty of paying into his treasury one tenth of our income for the support of his cause? Our friend speaks of this moral law in a manner to show that he is not far from the kingdom of God on this point. He says: “The ten commandments, or moral law, cover our moral obligations to God and humanity. . . . These laws are as eternal as our relations to God and humanity. We cannot disobey either without seriously violating our obligations to the one or the other.” Of the ten commandments the reader will remember that he also says, “The same authority which made the seventh day holy unto the Lord, made also the tenth of the increase of the field and the flock holy unto the Lord.” Thus he introduces a point which all would do well to remember, and that is that the ten commandments and the duty of tithing are intimately associated. This is true. How, then, we ask, can we deviate from the Christian observance of the seventh day, and be clear? or ignore any obligation which the ten commandments lay upon us, and not come under condemnation? We may apply to this the language of Paul, in Rom. 2: 21: “Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?” or, in other words, “Thou that boastest of the law of tithing, through breaking the moral law, dishonorest thou God?” U. S. THE principles which were the foundation of the Reformation of the sixteenth century were genuine gospel principles. Truths which had either been obscured or wholly lost sight of during that time of darkness when the Word of God, the light of the world, had been shut away from the people, were reaffirmed with great power, and an effort was made to call the people back again to a genuine Christianity. In this effort the authority of God was recognized instead of that of man, the Word of God was accepted in place of the traditions of men, and spiritual power was depended upon in the propagation of the gospel instead of looking to civil power. In describing these events and what came of them, the historian, D’Aubigné, says:— The Reformation was accomplished in the name of a spiritual principle. It had proclaimed for its teacher the Word of God; for salvation, faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had by these very means rejected all worldly elements. Rome had been established by the law of a carnal commandment; the Reformation, by the power of an endless life. If there is any doctrine that distinguishes Christianity from every other religion, it is its spirituality. A heavenly life brought down to man—such is its work; thus the opposition of the spirit of the gospel to the spirit of the world, was the great fact which signalized the entrance of Christianity among the nations. But what its Founder had separated, had soon come together again; the church had fallen into the arms of the world; and by this criminal union, it had been reduced to the deplorable condition in which we find it at the era of the Reformation.5 Thus one of the greatest tasks of the sixteenth century was to restore the spiritual element to its rights. The gospel of the Reformers had nothing to do with the world and with politics. While the Roman hierarchy had become a matter of diplomacy and a court intrigue, the Reformation was destined to exercise no other influence over princes and people than that which proceeds from the gospel of peace. If the Reformation, having attained a certain point, became untrue to its nature, began to parley and temporize with the world, and ceased thus to follow up the spiritual principle that it had so loudly proclaimed, it was faithless to God and to itself. Henceforward its decline was at hand. It is impossible for a society to prosper if it be unfaithful to the principles it lays down. Having abandoned what constituted its life, it can find naught but death. It was God’s will that this great truth should be inscribed on the very threshold of the temple he was then raising in the world; and a striking contrast was to make this truth stand gloriously prominent. One portion of the reform was to seek the alliance of the world, and in this alliance find a destruction full of desolation. Another portion, looking up to God, was haughtily to reject the arm of flesh, and by this very act of faith secure a noble victory. If three centuries have gone astray, it is because they were unable to comprehend so holy and so solemn a lesson. —“History of the Reformation,” Vol. IV, pages 103, 104. Three centuries have gone astray. The descendants of the Reformers, while holding to the names and forms of Protestantism, have really repudiated the principles of the Reformation, and themselves need to be reformed. The work to be done now in preparing the way of the Lord is to re-establish the principles of the Reformation, and carry them to their full development. And in doing this work we ourselves need to guard against making the same mistake which was made before. The successors of Luther began to accept what Luther taught as final authority, rather than follow his method of dealing directly with the Word of God, and consequently they became Lutherans. The same tendency has characterized the other movements for reform under Wesley and other religious leaders. As a result the vital power of these reformation movements was soon lost, and they have crystallized into so many denominations, struggling merely to maintain a denominational existence. Let us learn the lesson of history. We are not to inquire after the teaching of the fathers, as though that were final authority. “To the law and to the testimony.” We honor the fathers for their faithful work, and whatever of their teaching was in harmony with the Scripture will stand, not because they taught it, but because it is the truth, and “the truth of the Lord endureth forever.” Let the sons of the fathers follow the principles of the fathers, and we shall soon experience more of the power which was manifested in the teaching of the fathers. Studies in the Gospel Message
THE subject of the Sabbath school lesson for May 17, the seventh in the present series, is The Coming of the Seed. There is one thought which runs like a thread of gold throughout the whole Bible. In some places it appears in varied forms as a direct statement, and in other places it is implied; but in one form or another it gives its color to all the teaching of the Scripture. This central idea of the gospel is God’s gift of his own Son to be one with the human family, to be the head of a new humanity, to be “the man Christ Jesus,” through whom the Father’s original purpose for man and this earth should be fully accomplished. This is the gospel of the kingdom. In the unfolding of this gospel from the time when it was first preached in the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:15), the hope of salvation from sin has been made to rest upon the manifestation of God in the flesh in the person of his Son, the coming of the Son of man. It was the seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent’s head. It was “to Abraham and his seed” (Christ) that the promises were made. It was “a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren” (Deut. 18:15), whom Moses foretold. The whole book of Ruth sets forth the fact that the Redeemer would be a near kinsman according to the flesh. Isaiah gave his name as Immanuel (Isa. 7:14), or “God with us,” and taught that this Wonderful One would be united to the human family by birth. Isa. 9:6. To David it was revealed that through the coming seed his house and his kingdom should be established forever. 2 Sam. 7:12-16. The prophet Daniel was divinely instructed as to the exact time when “the Messiah the Prince” should appear among men. Dan. 9:24, 25. And so “all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after” made this their theme, and “showed before of the coming of the Just One.” Acts 3:24; 7:52. All these promises and prophecies grew out of, and were simply the development of, the one original promise of the coming of the seed of the woman, who should bruise the head of the serpent. The whole plan was present in the mind of the Lord, and entered into the original promise, and it was all included in the one idea of the coming of the Seed. When this gospel has fully accomplished its work, its final and open triumph over sin and Satan will simply be the last step in the coming of the Seed. In the working out of God’s plan and purpose for our salvation and complete restoration, there are two definite events which, when taken together, constitute the fulfillment in its outward features of the promise of the coming of the Seed. These events are usually called the first and second advents of our Lord. Strictly speaking, they are simply two prominent experiences in the fulfillment of the one promise of the coming of the Seed. No such expression as “the first coming” or “the second coming” is found in all the Old Testament prophecies. Of course various events are set forth in the prophecies which can only be fulfilled by the first and the second coming of our Lord, but in the prophecies they seem to be regarded as simply different parts of one complete whole,—the coming of the Seed. After the Son of God was actually manifested in the flesh as the Son of man, he himself spoke of his going away and his coming again; the men in white apparel, who stood by when he ascended into heaven, said, “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven;” and in writing his epistle to the Hebrews the apostle Paul has assured us that “unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” In this coming the second time will be found the glorious consummation of all that was included in the promise of the coming of the Seed. All the promises of salvation and blessing which have been made to humanity have been made to humanity in Christ the Seed. We have nothing and can receive nothing apart from him. It was not man as man who should bruise the serpent’s head, but it was the Seed. The original promise of the land to Abraham, which is shown in the letter to the Romans (Rom. 4:13) to include the whole earth, was not made to Abraham primarily, but it was said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” The promise of the everlasting kingdom was not made to David directly, but instead it was said, “His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” This seed is Christ, “the son of David, the son of Abraham.” As all the promises were made to the Seed and to humanity in the Seed, so all the promises will be fulfilled to the Seed and to humanity in the Seed. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” God gave the inheritance, the6land, the earth, to Abraham by promise, and he gave it to Abraham by promise by promising to give it to his seed, and the essential thing in the promise and in the fulfillment of the promise was the coming of the Seed. If the Seed should fail to come, there would be no giving of the land to Abraham, since it was to be given to Abraham, and to us as his seed, by giving it to the Seed which was to come, and to us in him. This is the eternal purpose. It is plain, therefore, that all our hope centers in the coming of the Seed. And this does not mean simply the looking forward to a definite date in the future when we may expect “the manifestation of his coming.” It includes all that was involved in the original promise of the bruising of the serpent’s head. It means “being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” It means the actual fulfillment of the promise, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. . . . At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. . . . If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” It means the experience of being children of “the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed,” and of knowing that unto us God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless us in turning away every one of us from our iniquities. And it also means to be “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” And so to-day we look for the final step in the development of the original promise in Eden, waiting and working “till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” And while the scoffers say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” we know that “the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness,” and that the long delay is because he is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” And yet “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.” This gospel of the kingdom, this gospel of the coming of the Seed, “shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” “And there shall be delay no longer.” This is the generation which will witness the consummation of the promise in the coming of the Seed. “Lift up the trumpet, and loud let it ring;
Jesus is coming again!
Cheer up, ye pilgrims, be joyful and sing;
Jesus is coming again!” An Unoccupied Missionary Field
By David Paulson
MANY of our people living in the immediate vicinity of jails and county prisons, have never discovered that these institutions present wonderful missionary opportunities. A prisoner is a sinner, like any other mortal, the only difference being that he has positively learned that the way of the transgressor is hard, and so he is likely to be in a favorable state of mind to be reached with the story of the gospel. He has plenty of time to think, and one reason so many people get into trouble is that they do not take time to think. We have left this kind of missionary work almost entirely to the Salvation Army and the missionaries of other denominations, and God has certainly blessed them in their efforts. Some have stated that they have difficulty in securing permission from the jailers and sheriffs to do missionary work in their institutions. This is partly because these officials have learned from experience that there are many well-meaning persons who are extremely indiscreet, having utilized such opportunities in listening to the prisoner’s supposed or real grievances, and unduly sympathizing with him, or perhaps in circulating gossip in regard to the prison management, in the community; therefore they can scarcely be blamed for being somewhat suspicious of every one who desires to secure these privileges. Nevertheless we have found that as soon as prison officials are satisfied that we are doing good in a reasonable way, and have no other motive, there is no class of men who are more ready to co-operate with us than they are. We have letters from all the leading officials in this country, expressing the warmest appreciation for the Life Boat and its work among the prisoners. We suggest this plan for those who wish to work in this field: write to us, inclosing a few stamps, and we will send you several copies of the Life Boat, and also copies of some of the best letters from leading prison officials; and then you can send the same to your jailer or sheriff, and after he has read them, and noted with what appreciation these prison officials regard the Life Boat, he will, in most cases, readily grant you permission to come there once a month and distribute Life Boats to the prisoners. You can send to us for the number that you desire, and pay for them at the rate of one and one-half cents a copy. For the first month or two, until you and the prison officials become well acquainted, it will be the wisest course merely to hand the papers to the prisoners through the bars, with perhaps a cheering word or two, going about quickly and quietly. If the Lord sees that you can be trusted in this kind of work, you will soon secure permission to hold regular jail services on Sunday, or what would be still better in most cases, have personal talks at some length with each of the prisoners, and a word of prayer with those who desire it; and then you will soon find yourself in the center of a most interesting work, one that will give you experience for other lines of missionary work. In such work you will frequently be thrown in contact with good people of other denominations, and you will discover, if you have not already done so, that some of them have a deep Christian experience, and that many of them have made far better use of their opportunities to assist their fellow men than many of our own people who have had great light, but have shed so little of it abroad on a lost humanity who are sitting in darkness. Address all communications to 28 Thirty-third Place, Chicago, Ill. “Get Thyself a Teacher”
By E. A. Sutherland
IN a list of Jewish maxims, the one which heads this article especially caught and held my eye. That people to whom the commandments of God were first intrusted had engraved in their very natures the importance of universal education. Teachers were reverenced and obeyed. If, as they believed, “the town which had no school must perish,” what wonder that the admonition, “Get thyself a teacher,” was often repeated. The Seventh-day Adventist Church to-day bears the same relation to the gospel message as was once occupied by the Jewish nation. To-day the saying must be changed to read, “The church which has no school must perish.” It is time, then, that one Christian should meet another with the words, “Get thyself a teacher!” for the salvation of our children and the hope of our work for the world depend upon heeding this admonition. Two thousand churches in the United States, and only three hundred schools! Thirty thousand children of school age, and not over one sixth of them have Christian training! And to this add the numbers in lands beyond our own. Hitherto we have had no educational system with which to meet the worldly schools, but to-day one is developing. But what is our educational system without teachers? And how hard is the teacher’s work without the co-operation of an intelligent, consecrated patronage on the part of parents and church members! Our need to-day is therefore for teachers; we are looking everywhere for teachers. The Foreign Mission Board alone has made a call for one hundred thoroughly qualified teachers for foreign countries. Our own churches should have several hundred recruits next fall. Except we act with rapidity, the children7of to-day will be lost to the cause. Another generation will be required to finish the work in the earth, for God cannot translate a people who cannot or will not properly educate their children. Let us keep pace with our profession. If we are preparing for the end, let us seek for our children a thoroughly qualified Christian teacher. For the training of teachers, there will be conducted at Berrien Springs, Mich., a summer school of ten weeks, from June 12 to August 20. A promiscuous class of students will not be accepted. The work is for teachers. Those who apply for admission should, at least, be able to pass a satisfactory examination in all tenth grade subjects. The standard is high, and the work done will be first-class. Owing to the combined interest of the Mission Board and the Lake Union Conference, students qualified to take this training are offered free tuition, free room rent, and board on the European plan. If interested for yourself or friends, write for further information. Address President of Emmanuel Missionary College, Berrien Springs, Mich. A GREAT falling off in the consumption of beef, in some cities amounting to nearly fifty per cent, is reported as the result of the high price of beef, which is generally believed to be due to the extortion of the beef trust. Meanwhile the government investigation into the business methods of the trust, preliminary to a prosecution of the trust should evidence be found which will warrant it, is proceeding; and the beef packers, who at first professed to court investigation by the government, have combined to resist the efforts of the investigators, by employing the best legal talent in their defense that can be obtained. In a general way, much good has resulted from this rise of meat to an almost prohibitive figure, since multitudes throughout the country have no doubt discovered that existence can be just as well maintained on a diet which includes little or no animal flesh. A powerful influence will be exerted to this end by a statement issued by Prof. H. W. Wiley, chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, calling public attention to the cereals as articles of food containing all the essential elements of nutrition, and citing the fact that men who live almost wholly on cereals are capable of the hardest and most enduring manual labor. Professor Wiley calls on the workingmen of the country to consider this fact, and accustom themselves more and more to a cereal diet. The price of meat, Professor Wiley thinks, will never again descend to a very low point. THE Pittsburg Christian Advocate (Methodist) calls attention to an “astonishing measure” recently passed by the Ohio Senate, which, as the Advocate rightly observes, is “a distinct recognition of the Roman Catholic Church as entitled to special privileges and honors.” The measure is thus worded:— It shall be the duty of the warden, with the advice and consent of the board of managers, to appoint a chaplain, who shall also act as librarian, at a salary not to exceed ten hundred dollars per year; a Roman Catholic chaplain approved by the bishops of the Columbus diocese, at a salary of fifty dollars per month.
The Advocate remarks that, “as the law now stands, it provides for a chaplain who is competent, but does not require that he shall be of any particular church. It is non-sectarian and wise, and should not be changed.” That is, it is all right for the State to appoint and pay a “non-sectarian” chaplain, but all wrong to appoint one who belongs to some particular church. But who could have confidence in a chaplain whose religious knowledge and convictions were not definite enough to ally him with some particular church? And from the standpoint of the State, what religion can there be that is not sectarian? The attempt of the State to define and support a non-sectarian religion could not but lead to State support of the larger and more powerful sects against the smaller and weaker sects; for the religious problems which would grow out of such an attempt could not possibly be resolved into any other shape. The smaller and weaker the sect outside of this religious combine, the more scant consideration would be given it; and the more dominant this “non-sectarian” union became in the religious world, the more intolerant and despotic would its character be. If the State of Ohio had not already violated the principle which demands the separation of church and state, the Ohio Legislature would not now be ready to take the advance step of appointing a Catholic chaplain in a State institution. So long as the principle upon which State chaplaincies rest is indorsed, there will be a clash between the sects over the question of which one shall benefit the most from the State’s support. Protestant Churches Adopt Vested Choirs and Ritual Innovations
The New York Sun, which in religious matters speaks from the Roman Catholic standpoint, points to certain “suggestive religious changes,” or innovations, in worship that are being made in leading Protestant churches, for the apparent purpose of attracting people to the church service. We quote from what the Sun says with reference to the nature and significance of these changes:— The most remarkable, not to say curious, of these innovations are the vested choirs, borrowed from Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, which have been introduced even into a Baptist church of New York, but more extensively into Methodist churches in several places. On Easter Sunday the Washington Heights Baptist church started the innovation of a vested choir of sixty voices, with cassock and cotta, and the women wearing also mortar-board hats. That is, the investments are the same as in Episcopal churches. The introduction of such a choir into the Metropolitan Methodist Temple, a year ago, proved so successful, apparently, that the example has been followed by other Methodist churches, one at Chicago having come into line recently and conspicuously. This is very suggestive because the two Protestant churches which in the past were always most distinguished by the extreme simplicity of their worship and their church architecture, and were most violently opposed to anything like mere æstheticism in religious services, were the Baptist and the Methodist. They were plain people, and all worldly display, in raiment and in social life, was eschewed by them. Methodists were enjoined by Wesley, in his “General Rules,” to “evidence their desire of salvation” by refraining from the “putting on of gold and costly apparel.” Like austerity of life was the Baptist rule, and the meeting houses of both denominations were usually without steeples or any other marks of a distinctively ecclesiastical architecture. The change from all this to the pomp of vested choirs and the imitation of purely ritualistic features is revolutionary. A generation ago it would have stirred up violent protest throughout those denominations. Now it seems to cause no disturbance whatever, but rather to provoke an amiable desire to repeat and extend the innovation. Will these ritualistic Baptist and Methodist churches stop with vested choirs merely? Will they not go on, naturally and logically, to the adoption of other features of the liturgical churches they are imitating? We are likely to see the cross introduced, and perhaps the time will come when the plain communion table will give place to a veritable altar, with all its religious significance. This is, therefore, a serious innovation, suggestive of a radical doctrinal transformation in the future. We have seen how ritualism in the Episcopal Church has advanced to a bold teaching of the real presence. The same paper notes that while there is this rapid move Romeward in the bodies that have constituted the stronghold of Protestantism, the inroads of Mormonism, Christian Science, and the “New Thought” into the domain of orthodox religion constitute a phenomenon no less striking; and it rightly observes that “the religious waters seem to be more disturbed at this time than ever before in the history of Christianity, and signs of unprecedented revolutionary changes appear in many directions.” Though men know it not, the world is fast ripening for the final harvest.