Tithes & Offerings

Reformed Books Online

Quotes

On Zwingli

William M. Blackburn, Ulrich Zwingli: the Patriotic Reformer. A History  (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication), pp. 99-100.  See also p. 78.

“Thus Zwingli gained a support and greater influence among the canons, which was the more desirable, since certain of these clerical gentlemen kept a suspicious eye upon him.  They had made a noise because he did not act more zealously as a revenue collector, a sort of publican in the service of those Pharisees.  ‘Indeed’ said they,

‘instead of urging his hearers to pay their tithes as a religious duty, he denies their divine origin altogether, and represents their strict exaction as a tyranny.  He thereby seeks to gain the confidence of the people in the same measure that he makes the monks hated and despised as mere cap-divines.’”

The Discipline of the Reformed Churches of France  1559

Synodicon in Gallia Reformata, vol. 1, p. xxvii

Canon IV

“That our churches may be always furnished with a sufficient number of pastors, and of other persons fit to govern them, and to preach the Word of God unto them…

Kings, Princes and Lord shall be exhorted and petitioned particularly to mind this important affair and to lay by some part and portion of their revenues towards their maintenance…  Colloquies and provincial synods shall as they see meet notify and solicit this affair, and take the best courses that matters of so great necessity may be successful…

that one poor scholar at the least may be maintained in every Colloquy, and rather than this design should miscarry, the fifth penny of all our charities shall be set apart, if it may conveniently be done to be employed in this service.”

John Calvin

‘The Third Sermon of Melchisedech, wherein is treated of the use and right of tithes, and also of an oath’, pp. 64-68 on Gen. 14:20-24  in Sermons on Melchizedek & Abraham, Justification, Faith & Obedience  (1592; rep. Old Paths Publications: 2000)

“We see then how that the tithes which were contained in the law were especially for the people of Israel.  And yet notwithstanding the tithes were very common amongst the Heathen, even for kings, princes and noblemen.  We see likewise by profane histories, that they were also exacted, and that in some countries they exacted more than in other some…  But be as be may, this word ‘Tithe’, or ‘Tenth’, has been a common and ordinary amongst all nations.

And all Princes and great men as I have already said, sithens [since] the Gospel was received, have bestowed part of the tithes towards the maintenance of the Ministers of the word, as is very great reason, according to the saying of Saint Paul, “That they which ministered at the Altar in the old Testament were maintained, that they which at this day sacrifice unto God after a more excellent manner,” (1 Cor. 9:9-13) that is, which win souls unto Him, to make of them sacrifices unto his majesty, that they should also be as well provided for and maintained: and although God has not qualified how nor by what manner of revenue they should be maintained, yet is there a law for it.  Now then, sith [since] God has been known through the preaching of the Gospel, a Christian order and law has been made for the giving and bestowing of one part of tithes [as opposed to other uses, such as giving to the poor, etc.].

And herein we may see the deceit of the Pope and of his shavelings [def: contemptuous epithet for a tonsured ecclesiastic, i.e. monk]: for, when they handle the law of tithes in their Canons, they take it as if it were transferred to them after that Jesus Christ had put an end unto the priesthood of Levi.  All these are very leasings [lies], falsifying the holy scripture, and wickedly corrupting the same.  For we see to the contrary, as has been before showed, that it is long ago sithence [since], that it was not known what the paying of tithes was by virtue of the law of Moses, and they were always paid either to the Emperor, or to some other particular great men.  But now sith [since] the thing has been so ordained (so therein be no abuse, and to make men believe contrary to all truth, that it came from the holy scripture: but to be taken for a politic law).

Let us hold that rule which Saint Paul sets down: to wit, “That we must not [muzzle] the mouth of the ox when he travels to feed us”: and therefore it stands with a far greater reason, that they which preach the doctrine of the gospel, ordained in so excellent an estate, should not be abridged and deprived of their maintenance, but be very well waged.

Now as I have already said, when tithes and such like are bestowed unto a good use: we must not so straightly look into the matter, as to ask the cause of why it is so, as many fantastical fellows will, who at this day could be contented to turn the whole world upside down saying, O, it is no time now to pay tithes, for seeing the thing has been so long abused, it is no reason it should any longer continue.  Then must we by their laying scrape out all: for they think that Christianity consists in changing the color of the sun and the moon.  But if there be anything that is to be amended, as I have said, as if the Papists have brought in any false opinion, let that be utterly abolished.

But in the meanwhile, let us hold unto all good ordinance: to wit, let the tithes and all such things that are for the maintenance of the poor, and the Ministers: let these things be reduced to their lawful use, and let not unsatiable wide gullets devour all.  Let them not consume them upon their superfluities, in pomps, drunkeness, and other dissolutions: but let them know, that these are holy goods, which ought to be reserved for the use of the Church, as well for the maintenance of the poor as I have already said, as also for the feeding of those which serve God and his people.”

David Calderwood

Altar of Damascus (1621), pp. 123-127  See also the EEBO ed.  Calderwood was a Scottish presbyterian.

“Ecclesiastical dues and rights are 1. tithes, which are either praedial, personal or mixed.

Praedial are such as come of the fruit and crop of the ground, as of corn or fruit of the trees.  Personal are such as are paid by reason of the person himself, out of the gain that he makes of this trading, handicraft, hunting, warfaring, etc.  The mixed is added by some as a third kind, but others reduce them according to their diversine [division] to one of the first two, and such are the birth of beastial [offspring of beasts], wool, milk, whether they be fed at home or be at pasture in the field.

Tithes of whatever kind are but temporal goods, not spiritual, howbeit they be annexed to spiritual things and be appointed to uphold and maintain divine service and spiritual functions.  Tithes were of old recovered in the King’s Court, not in ecclesiastical, as is averred in a treatise alleged by the author of the Apology of Proceedings in Courts-Ecclesiastical [Calderwood is quoting the concessions of an opponent].  ‘We think that the King’s courts be put out of jurisdiction for tithes by a custom of the realm and not by the immediate power of the bid of God.’  And again, ‘That suit for tithes shall be taken in the spiritual court, is only grounded upon a favor that the kings of this realm, and the whole realm, have in times past born to the clergy.’

That the King’s courts of his bench and common pleas, and also other inferior courts, were put out of jurisdiction for tithes and suits for tithes [and] were granted to spiritual courts was a favor, it is true, granted to the clergy, enabling them with power within themselves to recover tithes destinate[d] to their maintenance, but we must not look so much to the commodity we may reap by the grants of princes, as whether Church consistories [courts] should meddle with such controversies concerning things temporal.

[Calderwood seems to be saying that ideally the Church need not, and should not be involved with collecting such temporal teinds, or ‘tithes’.  The previous context to this passage is Calderwood arguing against his prelate opponents that prelacy had unwarrantably taken over many purely temporal and civil affairs.  Near the beginning of the Reformation though (1560’s and following) a portion of such teinds were in some measure put into the hands of the reformed presbyteries for their support and maintenance, the teinds being seen as the traditional patrimony of the Church.  Hence Calderwood below tolerates this practice, though complains of the recent change of it into the hands of bishops.]

This man owe me a cole, that man a stick, the third two stone of butter, the fourth such a number of saffron [spice] heads, the fifth so many sallow [willow] trees: such and such suits were very pertinent for a presbytery to sit [rule] upon; for the presbytery is the true and right consistory.  Now change this consistory as ye please, and make the bishop alone to be the Church-consistory, it is all one.  For the causes themselves being temporal, the quality of the person does not alter the nature of the cause.  In the Assertion for True & Christian Policy (p. 99) [an opponent’s work], it is said, that by a statute, 32, Hom. 8, ch. 44:

“it is enacted, that the parsons and curates of five parish churches whereunto the town of Royston did extend itself and every of them, and the successors of every of them shall have their remedy by authority of that act to sue, demand, ask and recover in the King’s Court of Chancery the tithes of corn, hay, wool lamb, and calf, subtracted or divid[ed] to be paid by my person, or persons.”

Are the tithes of other parishes more spiritual than these of Royston?  But admitting such pleas to be pertinent for a spiritual court, they should not be turned over to a civilian, the bishops’ official.  And what favor is granted to Churchmen by princes, when a doctor of the law shall determine in these pleas!”

Samuel Rutherford

Due Right of Presbyteries (1644), 2nd Part, pp. 465-66  Scottish commissioner to the Westminster Assembly

“Answer: This [argument of Rutherford’s Independent opponent] speaks against glebes [contracted lands] of ministers, but the New Testament speaks not of manses or houses, or of moneys for ministers; yet a wage we know is due, Matt 10:10; 1 Cor. 9:8-10; Gal. 6:6, and the Levites were not to be distracted from the most necessary work of the Tabernacle and service of God more than ministers, yet they had lands and towns assigned of God to them; though the less distractous the wages be, the better and the more convenient they are, 2 Tim. 2:3-5.

As for the tithes, we think quotta decimarum, or a sufficient maintenance of tithes or what else may conduce for food and raiment, of divine right, Matt 10:16; 1 Cor. 9:8-9, tithes formally as tithes are not necessary, so [as long as] the ministers be provided and a stipend be allowed to them, not as an alms but as a debt, Luke 10:7.

But the stinting [frugal restricting] of maintenance for ministers the author [Rutherford’s opponent] condemns, because when Constantine gave large rents to the Church, it proved the bane of the Church.  But I answer, stinting makes not this, but excess, for mountains of rents may be stinted no less than mole-hills.”

Thomas Hooker

Sarreg., pr. 2, pp. 31-32  New England, congregationalist puritan  as quoted in Increase Mather, A Discourse Concerning the Maintenance, pp. 51-52

“I conclude:

1. That this way of raising maintenance appointed in the Gospel is far differing from that way of tithing in the Law; nay, to be tied precisely to follow the one cannot stand with the other: for this is raised out of all good things [Gal. 6:6], the person that is taught has, but the tithes in the Old Testament were out of the seed of the land, the fruit of the trees, or of the herd of the flock (Lev. 27.30-32; Deut. 14:22-23).

2.  This maintenance is to be paid by all that are taught.  But the Levites were to receive the first tenth, and to pay the tenth of the tenth to the priest (Neh. 10:38).  So that if the patrons of tithing look at the command given to the Jew as a moral law, they must conform themselves precisely to the prescript[ed] form thereof.  Therefore, the ministers must have a tenth of a tenth, and from them happily who were never taught by them as the Levites who taught in the particular synagogues paid to the priests who administered at Jerusalem.

And hence it follows that the way of tithing in the Old Testament was not a natural or moral law.  For no law appointed in the Gospel is inconsistent with any natural or moral law of God, which this is.”

On John Cotton

[John] Winthrop’s Journal: “History of New England,” 1630-1649, vol. 1, p. 299  Cotton (d. 1652) was a New England, congregationalist puritan

“Mr. Cotton, preaching out of the 8 of Kings, 8, taught, that when magistrates are forced to provide for the maintenance of ministers, etc., then the churches are in a declining condition. There he showed, that the ministers’ maintenance should be by voluntary contribution, not by lands, or revenues, or tithes, etc.; for these have always been accompanied with pride, contention, and sloth, etc.”

William Gouge

Commentary Upon the Whole Epistle to the Hebrews, vol. 2, p. 108, section 40, ‘Of the law of paying tithes,’ on Heb. 7:5-7  Gouge (d. 1653) was an English puritan.

“This was it, which is here said to be according to the law: and that the judicial, ceremonial and moral law:

1. By the judicial law the Levites had not their portion in Canaan for their inheritance, as other tribes had: therefore in lieu thereof, by the said law they had the tenth of the rest of the people.

2. The holy services which they performed to the Lord for the people were ceremonial. Therefore the recompence given was by a like law.

3. The general equity that they who communicate unto us spiritual matters should partake of our temporals, and that they who are set apart wholly to attend God’s service should live upon that service, is moral.”

David Dickson

An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles…  (London, 1659), p. 69 on 1 Cor. 16:1

“…he speaks of this contribution, commanding that on the Lord’s Day (whereupon all Christians ceased from their labours, and met publicly to the Worship of God) that every one according to his ability, without vain-glory, should cast something into the treasury.”

John Bunyan

Bunyan’s Searching Works: The Strait Gate, The Heavenly Footman, The Barren Fig-Tree, The Pharisee & Publican, & Divine Emblems (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), p. 24, on Luke 18:10-13:

“This paying of tithes was ceremonial, such as came in and went out with the typical priesthood.”

Richard Baxter

Christian Directory, Part 3, Christian Ecclesiastics, or Church Duties, p. 275, 432, 459

Baxter places all temporal/physical ‘accidents’ of the Church under the authority of the civil magistrate, and hence relegates him the full power respecting tithes as well.

Francis Turretin

Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 3, 18th Topic, Q. XXVIII, ‘The Salaries of Ministers & Ecclesiastical Goods – Is any salary due ministers of the church?  We affirm against the Anabaptists’

“V. (3) From the salaries of the sacred ministers under the Old Testament (Num. 18:8-12), to whom were given ordinarily sacrifices, tithes, firstfruits, and other similar things, besides certain cities and suburban fields (Num. 35:1-8). Now although in the New Testament, we are not bound by those laws as to the special material from which and the manner in which the pay was given, still they remain as to kind and analogy, as is evident from the passage already quoted (1 Cor. 9:13).”

Matthew Poole

Annotations

On Mt. 23:23, “these ought ye to have done”

“That He doth not blame the Pharisees’ exactness in tithing mint, anise, rue, cummin, and all manner of herbs…  The Levites having no inheritance: God ordained tithes for their maintenance; of which also the poor were to have a share, Lev. 27:30; Num. 18:24.”

On Heb. 7:8, “And here men that die receive tithes”:

“The particle wde, ‘here’, if referred to time, notes during Moses’s economy, while the Levitical law lasted; if it refer to place, it notes Jerusalem in the land of Canaan, where the temple was: in that habitation of the Israelitish church the Levitical priests were not only as to their nature and persons withering and decaying, ceasing to be on earth, though they had the honor to decimate their brethren, but as to their order and office, mortal, they were no better than the tithed and blessed by them, in prospect of death.  Aaron himself, the first of the order, died, and so did all his successors, as well as Israel.”

Christopher Ness

A Complete History & Mystery of the Old & New Testament, Logically Discussed & Theologically Improved  (1696), p. 457  Ness was an English, Independent puritan.

“That he [Paul] did not propose this his practice [of not receiving money from the Christians in Ephesus in Acts 20:33-35] as a precept or precedent law or rule to all ministers, for he had not power to deprive them of what God had given them (Lev. 27:32; Mt. 10:10; Lk. 11:42; Prov. 3:9,10; Mal. 3:9,10).  Tithes were paid by Abraham to Melchisedeck long before the Levitical Law: So that there must be a moral equity in this reciprocal duty both before the Law, under the Law, and after the Law under the Gospel.

And though Paul did thus in a juncture and case of necessity because of their present poverty (had they been able, more shame would it have been to them to let him labor) and because false teachers were watching all advantages against him, yet does he himself often assert his own privilege (1 Cor. 9:14; Gal. 6:6) and Christ’s words (he urges) might be collected out of Lk. 6:38 and 16:9, etc. yea, the very terms might be spoken by Christ, for all He spake is not writ (Jn. 20:30).”

Increase Mather

A Discourse Concerning the Maintenance due to those that Preach the Gospel  (1706)  Mather was a New England, congregationalist puritan minister.

pp. 48-50

“The learned [John] Selden [an Erastian] in his discourse of the Civil Right of Tithes, has endeavoured to prove this [that tithes are not by any Divine Law due to the ministers of the Gospel].  There has been a war in the Romish Church about this question, between the canonists and the scholastics; the former hotly maintaining that tithes are due to the Church jure divino [by divine right]; the latter, that they are due only by ecclesiastical constitution: so says [Robert] Bellarmine, and other of their learned men.  Yet some of their theologues, agree with the canonists: So does Baronius (Annals, tome 1, anno. 57, s. 74)…

Among Protestant writers, prelates, and prelatical men plead hard for the divine right of tithes as the ministers’ due.  Bishop [Lancelot] Andrews and Bishop [George] Carleton have said as much for it as any that I have seen.  But most of our reformed divines maintain the negative.  So Peter Martyr (Common Places, pt. 4, ch. 13), Zanchy (Of Redemption, book 1, ch. 16), Daneus (Ethic., book 2, ch. 10 [also in 4th Precept, p. 810]), Rivet (in Genesis, exercitation 80), Voetius (Eccle. 1, book 4, p. 824): And to this we adhere.”

p. 58

“In Holland their ministers are maintained out of a public treasury, which the political magistrate takes care of.  The first reforming ministers in that province, and in Zeland desired that it might be so; in which Voetius (Eccle. 1, book, 4, p. 804 & 823) says they had Calvin’s advice.”

Herman Witsius  d. 1708

„But let us take a more particular view of what was hard and unpleasant in this bondage. 1. There was, in that vast multitude of rites, which were enjoined upon Israel under such a severe threatening, a grievous burden, and a yoke hard to be borne, Acts xv. 10. which the apostle calls the yoke of bondage, Gal. v. 1. Circumcision, which was, as it were, the first undertaking of the yoke, caused such pain, that even adults were heavily afflicted with it, Gen. Xxxiv. 25. The number of the other ceremonies exceedingly fatigue the people, and involved them in difficulties. They were not allowed to light a fire on the Sabbath, nor to sow on the seventh year. All their males were obliged thrice a year to go up to Jerusalem. The paying the first fruits and tithes was to be scrupulously observed.”

ch. 13, ‘Of the Real Defects of the Old Testament’, section XI  in Economy of the Covenants, bk. 4, ch. 4, p. 303

Johannes Vanderkemp  d. 1718

p. 134 (middle)  of ‘The 6th Lord’s Day: Christ Revealed in the Gospel’  in The Christian Entirely the Property of Christ in Life and Death, Exhibited in 53 Sermons on the Heidelberg Catechism

„God published this gosple of promise not only verbally, but also really: he prefigured it »by the sacrifices and other ceremonies, or ecclesiastical observances of the law. The ceremonies of the law were either (1) the holy things, as all the different offerings, meats, drinks, washings, sprinklings, incense, anointing oil, first fruits and tithes or (2) the holy persons, who celebrated the publick worship as the high priest, the common priests, and the Levites; or (3) the holy places, as the land of Canaan, Jerusalem, the tabernacle and temple with their apartments, as the holy of holies with the ark of the covenant, the holy place with the golden altar, the table and candlestick, also the porch with the brazen altar, the laver, and all the instruments, which were used in the holy service in the porch; or (4) the holy seasons, as all the festivals.”

Forrás

Tithes & Offerings – Reformed Books Online