The Pecuniary Support of Ministers

It falls in with the legitimate design of our remarks, to call the reader’s attention to another topic that is somewhat delicate in its nature, and still more so to be enlarged upon by a minister of the Gospel. It is a topic which it were more befitting and decent for .some one to urge, who is not himself a party interested ill such a discussion. I have not known it seriously undertaken and urged, save by a single layman. The late Jeremiah Evarts, a name that will not soon be forgotten by the American churches, the friend of missions and the able and fearless advocate of the red men of our 0A n v.ilderness, once presented this subject in a strong light to the churches of New England. The to{)ic is the claims of the inilpit for a competent and honorable pecuniary maintenance.

The writer has some advantages for presenting a subject like this to the consideration of the churches, above the great mass of his ministerial friends. For the most part, the maintenance of settled pastors in our large cities is liiglily creditable to the congregations whom they serve. Not only our wants, but our comforts are cared for: it becomes us to be grateful to God and to the generosity of our congregations that we are allowed to employ our time in the appropriate duties of our high calling, “free from worldly cares and avocations.” Since, in this particular, we have nothing to ask for ourselves, we are the more bold to urge the claims of those who are less favored, though equally deserving. But while we ask this indulgence, our best apology for presenting the subject is, that it falls within the range of our instructions as contained in the word of God.

If the importance of the subject does not at once strike the mind of the reader, he has but to give it a few moments’ thought, and to recur to the distinguished men whose pen has been employed in discussing it. Selden, in his treatise “On Tithes;” Bingham, in his “Antiquities of the Christian Church;” Prideaux, “On Tithes;” Hooker, in his “Ecclesiastical Polity;” Comber, in his “Vindication of the Divine Right of Tithes,” against Selden; together with several more modern anonymous writers of great ability, in the Quarterly, and Edinburgh Review, in the Monthly Magazine

PECUNIARY SUPPORT OF mNISTERS. 395

and in Blackwood’s Edinhurgli Magazine, have given the subject prominence, not only in the religious, but the literary and political world.

For the origin of tithes we must go farther back than the Mosaic Law. When Abraham returned from his victory over Chedorlaom’er and his confederate kings, he “gave tithes of all” to Melchizedec, the Priest of the Most High God. There is no reason to believe that he paid the tenth part of his annual income, but a tenth part of the spoil which he took from Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him. The Apostle, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, speaks of this tithe as “a tenth part of the spoils There are some commentators, and among the rest. Bishop Patrick, who argue from this payment of a tenth of the spoil taken in war, that it must have been the custom to pay to the priests the tenth of all other things. When Jacob was at Bethel, “he vowed a vow, saying. If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God’s house; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” We are not able to discover that the lights of reason and nature would have suggested this payment of tithes for reli^ious purposes; and are stronj2:ly disposed to believe that it was of divine original, and formed a part of the patriarchal dispensation.

However this may be, it was expressly commanded by God under the law of Moses. When the land of Canaan was divided among the tribes of Israel, no portion was allotted as an inheritance to the tribe of Levi. They were to be dispersed among all the other tribes; forty-eight cities were appointed for their residence; the family of Aaron, to which the priesthood belonged, was of this tribe; and instead of the portion of country, such as was allotted to each of the other tribes, each tribe was required to furnish provision for the priests and Levites who should dwell among them, and who constituted the settled ministry of Israel. This provision consisted of one-tenth part of the gross produce of the soil; the first born of the cattle to the priests, and one-tenth of the increase to the Levites.* Besides this, the Levites had a large quantity of land in the suburbs of the forty-eight cities allotted for their residence.

Not a few writers of high distinction have maintained, from these premises, that tithes,

* From this example, the clergy of Christendom gave one-tenth of their tithes to the Pope, which, at the Reformation in England, was transferred to the crown, by 26 H. 8, c. 3.

under the Christian dispensation, are due to the ministers of the Gospel by divine right. The argument is summarily this: that all those positive institutions under the Mosaic economy which are not expressly abolished, and for the continuance of which there are the same reasons under the Christian dispensation, ought to be regarded as permanent. Bingham, in his “Antiquities of the Christian Church,” shows this to have been the doctrine of Origen, Jet’ome, and Augustine. Augustine uses an argument of his own, of how much weight the reader must judge. “The Pharisees paid tithes. Our Lord says, ‘Excejyt your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the hingdom of heaven.’ But if he whose righteousness ye are to exceed gave tithes, and you give not a thousandth part, how can you be said to exceed him whom you do not so much as equal?” Binghcwi, indeed, asserts that “it is generally agreed by learned men, that the uncients accounted tithes to be due of divine right.” Spotsioood, in his “History of the Church of Scotland,” states the divine right of tithes to be indisputable; and says, “He that will not wilfully shut his eyes against the truth, cannot but know it.” We certainly are no believers in this doctrine. The conclusion of Hooker is the sound conclusion, and he supports it by irrefragable argument: — “We arc now free from tlic Law of Moses, and consequently not thereby bound to the payment of tithes.”

Evils of a most serious kind have been the result of the jure divino doctrine of tithes. “The first converts to the Christian religion,” says the Quarterly Review,*” gave a tenth part of the produce of their land, as a reasonable standard of a voluntary compensation to its ministers. When this religion acquired a surer footing, and converts became more numerous, the provision which had been previously received as the spontaneous liberality of its professors, began to be regarded as a right established by custom. In the course of the eighth century, the growing force of custom, aided by the operation and influence of the Canon Law, rendered the payment of tithes an imperative ohligation.^’ The Emperor Constantine was the first prince who settled upon the clergy a standing allowance out of the public treasury. This allowance was taken away by his nephew, Julian; a third part of it was restored by his successor, Jovian; and was afterwards confirmed by the code of Justinian, in the year 533. But the clergy were not satislied with this. Synods and Councils at length came in to enforce the obligation o{ tithes; the spiritual sword was wielded; and the anath-

* No. LXVm. p. 633.

emas of a terrific excommunication were thundered against all who refused to obey.* Leiden allows that “nothing was more common than decrees of councils, concerning this matter, all over Christendom.” In progress of time, these anathemas were disregarded; those there were who refused to pay their tithes; and the result was recourse to the civil authority to enforce the law of the Church. A law to this effect was enacted by Pepin, the King of France, in the year 764: the same year, a similar law was introduced into Bavaria; in 779, Charlemagne, the son of Pepin, confirmed the law of his father; and in 789, having conquered the Saxons, and compelled them to adopt the Christian religion, he imposed the same law upon them, including the tithe of labor. In 794, at Frankfort, and in 804, at Saltzburg, he made a similar law for Germany. Having extended his dominions into Italy, a.d. 800, his laws extended thither also; and shortly afterwards, laws enforcing the payment of tithes were passed in Spain.

In all this, there was little else than the desire to conciliate the formidable power of

* A canon to this effect was made in the second Council of Mascon, in the diocese of Lyons, in 585.

A similar canon was made at a Council at Seville, in Spain, in 590.

[n the Council of Friuli also, a canon to the same purpose was made for Italy in 791.

the Cliurcli ol’ Koine.* The State defended the Church, takins: “^ood care that the Chiircli in return slioukl defend the State. Pepin had usurped the crown o Childeric, and was willing to purchase at any price, the sanction of the Popes. Charlemagne, the great establisher of tithes in Christendom, was influenced by no purer motives than his father. He was a bad man; shamefully licentious, and if possible, more cruel. The Pope and he swore everlasting friendship to each other over the tomb of St. Peter; and while he conferred upon the Pope immense estates and dukedoms, the Pope crowned him Emperor of the West, and thus placed him on the pinnacle of his ambition.

Tithes were introduced into England just as they were on the Continent, and not far from the same time. Long before the union of the seven kingdoms under Egbert, the Christian religion was established all over England; and, though not without difficulty, w as brojight to acknowledge the authority of the Roman Pontiif. A single Council had urged the payment of tithes from the authority of the Law of Moses; tithes were paid in the province of

* This assertion is justified by facts. Sep Daniel’s History of Fnince; Gifford’s ditto: Sisinondi’s Hi’Jtoiredos Francois; Br-larins’s IJves of the Popes: Card’s Life of Charlematrne; Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; ]Iosiieim’s Ecclesiastical History.

Canterbury as early as the middle of the eighth century; but they had not yet been enforced by the laws of the kingdom. In the latter part of this century, Offa, the most powerful of the Saxon kings, for his treacherous murder of Ethelhert, made a pilgrimage to Rome in order to obtain a pardon from the Pope. Adrian granted him a pardon on condition of bounty to the Church; and on his return, he passed a law giving her the tithes of all his kingdom. This law was confirmed by Ethelwolf, in a Parliament at Winchester, and a grant of tithes made to all the clergy of England. About thirty years after passing the grant of Ethelwolf, Alfred his son, published a body of laws for the better government of the kingdom, in which he strictly enjoins the payment of tithes to the clergy. This law was afterwards renewed by Edward, the elder; by Athehtan, the son of Edward; by Edmund the brother of Athelstan; by Edgar the son of Edmund; by Ethelred, by Canute, by Edward the Confessor; by William the Conqueror; by Henry I.; by Stephen; by Charles I., Charles II., and James II. This law has been in existence for a period of nearly a thousand years; the lands of the kingdom are sold subject to this condition; and no present possessor of tithable land can say that his ancestors ever possessed it exempt from this ecclesiastical law.*

Having their origin from the churches in Great Britain, the churches in this country,

* The doctrine of pluralities has been the bane of the Church of England. It is no uncommon thing for one clergyman to possess several benefices, or ecclesiastical livings, and to supply them by proxy, thus farming out the livings, and “making gain of godliness.” Burnet, in his Life of Bedell, informs us that Bishop Bedell, in a letter to Archbishop Usher, expresses himself in the following language: “Plainly I do thus think, that of all the diseases of the Church in these times, next to that of the corruption of our courts, this of pluralities is the most deadly and pestilent.” Bishop Burnet uses still stronger language. “These are things,” says he, “of so crying a nature, that no wonder if the wrath of God is ready to break out upon us. These are abuses that even the Church of Rome is ashamed of.” His conduct proved his sincerity; for when he was out of favor at court, and without preferment, excepting the chapluinship at the Rolls, and the lectureship at St. Clements, a large living was offered to him by the Earl of Essex, on condition that he would reside in London. But he refused, and said that “in case he was presented to the cure of souls, he must think himself under such an obligation to residence, as no other consideration could dispense with.” Prideaux, in his “Reasons for the Bill to restrain Pluralities,” a draft of which he himself made in 1691, discusses this subject with great ability. It is in this document that he makes the remark, that “the late Earl of Rochester acknowledged on his death, as we have it publicly attested, that this evil practice was one of the main causes that made him an atheist.” This subject is also ably discussed in the “Quarterly Review” for Dec, 1823, and for Jan., 1830. The Rev. Augustus Campbell, formerly Rector of Battersey, in Cheshire, has some valuable thoughts on this question, in his “Appeal to the Gentlemen of England,” and in his Reply to the Edinburgh Review. One of the obvious evils of the whole system of pluralities and non-residence is not simply the concentration of the funds of the Church in the hands of sinecures, but the exclusion of others from their sacred work. As late as the year 1831, a very sensible and caustic writer remarks: “There are now in this kingdom thousands of clergymen without while they were far from believing that tithes were the original maintenance of ministers under the Gospel, were slow in adopting the doctrince that the ministry were not entitled to a support by the laws of the land. They regarded the Jewish law on this subject rather as something in the form of a ‘precedent, than as an authoritative law. It was not the letter they cared for, but the spirit. The thought was often repeated in their public assemblies, “Take heed that thou forsake not the Levite, as long as thou livest upon the earth.” They eschewed the doctrine of tithes, as they abhorred Prelacy and Rome; but they adhered to the doctrine of a legal support for the ministers of the Gospel. In the New England States this legal provision existed until quite a late period in their history. Within the recollection of many persons now living, no man in the community was there exempted from an annual assessment for the support of the Gospel in that particular denomination of Christians to which he belonged. If he belonged to no denomination, or was a professed infidel, he was still constrained to bear his

benefices, who are perfectly qualified by learning to undertake the charge of them.” Yet the Bishop of London, in his Charge, delivered July, 1830, says, “I would not be understood to declare against all pluralities; on the contrary, I am convinced that under the present circumstances of our Church, they are in many cases necessary, and in some highly useful.”

proportion of the biirdon in suslniiiing” an institution from wliicli lie received so many indirect benefits, and wliicli was so intimately inwoven with the best interests of the State.

Yet have we no hesitation in saying’, that the voluntary principle is the true principle; not only is it more in keepinn with the spirit of our free institutions, but with the spirit and genius of Christianity. The great Head of the Church has thrown the support of his ministers upon the unconstrained liberality of those who attend on their ministrations; or rather upon their rectitude and justice; thus putting to the test their loyalty to him, and their own views of the value of a preached Gospel. It is the revealed law of his kingdom, that “they who serve at the altar shall live by the altar.” This is indeed but a republication of that great law of nature, that “the laborer is worthy of his hire;” yet is such a law, distinctly published, no unnecessary statute. If God did not see fit to leave the question of the temporal support of his ministers to the discretion of the people; by that very decision he expressed his own judgment of the dependence of his ministers, and of the duty of the people to furnish them a competent and generous supply. This is the spirit of the Jewish law. And nothing is more obvious, than that the great principle of this statute is embodied in the teacliiiigs of the New Testament. When the Saviour sent forth the early teachers of Christianity, he directed them to “provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in their purses; nor scrip, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves.” Theij were not to provide them, because they were to be provided by others. If they possessed them, they were not to provide them; they were to be provided by the people among whom they labored. The expressive reason which he assigns for this injunction is the law to which we have referred, “the workman is worthy of his hire.” The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, devotes a paragraph to this subject. “Who goeth a warfare at any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sokes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that plougheth should plough in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal lhi7igs? If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this power: but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the Gospel of Christ. Do ye not know that the?/ which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple, and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel.”

It is no unnatural exposition to regard this passage as indicating the duty of the Church in respect of her temporal maintenance of the ministry. It is the ordaining of her great Head, that “they w liicli preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel.” It is certainly a fair question, too. What are we to understand by the phrase, “shall live of the Gospel?” The answer to this question must be found in the kind and liberal spirit of Christianity, and in the bosoms of those in whom that spirit dwells. The amount of support to which every faithful minister is entitled, is one of those relative duties which falls within the comprehensive precept, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye so to them.’” It is no extravagance to say, that it is the duty of the people to elevate their ministers above want; to enable them to be honest men, respectable men, charitable and public-spirited men. They ought to have the opportunity, not only of being- employed in the appropriate duties of their office, but of discharging its functions advantageously. And is it too much to say, that they ought to be enabled to educate their children, and make some provision for old age; or, should they be cut off in the midst of their days, some provision for the widow and the fatherless when they themselves sleep in the dust? From the divine appointment in reference to the support of the Levitical Priesthood, and from the nature of the case, it is quite obvious that the Christian law on this subject cannot be interpreted to mean any thing less than a Gomfortahle support for the situation in which the party is jjlaced hij the Divine Providence. As great diversity exists in the location of the ministry, so this circumstance must give rise to diversity in the amount of their support. It is only some general rules that can be adopted in regard to it. And the general law, beyond controversy is, that it should be sufficient to enable those who preach the Gospel to live “of the Gospel.”

This is the law of God’s house. It is a revealed precept which men have no more right to transgress than any other precept in the Bible. It has no specified penalty; it is one of those laws which the Great Lawgiver will enforce in his own way, and by penalties that are executed in the dispensations of his observing and searching providence. He has put in his claim for such a portion of the property of his people, as shall furnish a comfortable support to his ministers; he claims this portion of their property, just as he does the Lord’s Day, as his portion of their time. It does not belong- to men; it is God’s, just as truly as were the tithes under the Levitical Law. Ministers are his ambassadors; and the terms on which he employs them are, that they shall receive a competent support from the people to whom he sends them. They hold his draft upon them for this indefinite amount; and it is for them to honor, or dishonor, the draft of their redeeming King.

To what extent he is honored in this claim, is an inquiry which will not endure the most rigid scrutiny. It is no uncommon thing for ministers to receive no stated and stipulated support whatever; but to depend exclusively upon the annual, or periodical subscriptions of those to whom they minister. This is too uncertain a dependence; it is fickle as the heart of man; nor ought any minister to be thus ensnared and tempted to shape his ministrations so as to please men, rather than save them, or to please any one part of his people, rather than another. The permanence of the pastoral relation has been not a little affected by such arrangements as these; nor were it any marvel, if where they prevail, no such permanent relation should ever he recognized.

It is no uncommon thing, too, for congregations who stipulate to furnish their minister a stated salary, to put his own delicacy to the test, by imposing the duty on him of begging it from the pulpit. Such arrangements are degrading to the ministry, and cannot fail to be injurious to the influence of the ministry.

There is also a most dishonorable failure on the part of many congregations to meet their engagements with their minister; they meet them as suits their convenience, or do not meet them at all. They treat their minister as they dare not treat a hired servant, and deny him his rights, because they know that he would be slow to enforce them by legal process.

Ministers, not a few, also there are, not in new and poor districts merely, but in those that are well cultivated and rich, who have not a decent maintenance; and who, without some unlooked for interposition of Providence, must in their advanced years become the beneficiaries of the public bounty. The consequence is, that although their hearts may be set upon their work, their time and their hands are employed in secular concerns. It is in vain to think of their being diligent and devoted ministers: the thing is impossible; they must have bread. All this is wrong. It is “robbing God.” It is refusing him his “tithes and olTerings,” and taking the bread from his own house. Many a pastor who has loved his flock as his own soul, and would rejoice to serve them with unwearied diligence, is constrained to accuse them before God, for withholding w hat he gives to the fowls of the air.

We are not pleading for a wealthy ministry; we should be sorry to see ministers wealthy, unless they happen to become so by inheritance, or by unlooked-for domestic alliances, And even then, it requires more self-denial than the most of ministers possess, under such circumstances, to make full proof of their ministry. There is little doubt that the overgrown wealth of very many of the ministers, and more of the bishops of the Church of England, is a curse both to the ministers and the people. Wealthy ministers are not the men wdio are most useful in the Church. The evangelical Dissenters of England have accomplished far more for the interests of vital piety, than all its ecclesiastical aristocracy.

The ministers of the Gospel in this land are riot much exposed to enter into the service of the Church from the “love of filthy lucre.” We do not solicit for them wealth; but we do solicit competence. We do not desire them to be independent of their people; but we do desire to see them raised above the dependence of paupers. They are a divinely appointed instrumentality for accomplishing the most important and glorious work which God is accomplishing in this apostate world; and their qualifications and their circumstances ought not to be a matter of indiflerence either to themselves, or to others. Taking human nature as it is, the extremes of wealth and poverty are alike unfriendly to their influence. Anxious cares and bitter temptations are the growth of both, and they agitate the heart. Wealth perplexes; poverty discourages, and by it the spirit of a minister is depressed and broken. A minister may be pitied as a yoor man; but so long as he is the object of compassion, he is not respected as a servant of the Most High God.

I cannot help regarding this subject as one of great importance to the Church of God. It is not easy to account for this reluctance to support the Gospel. If it were nothing more than a sense of justice, one would think this alone sufficient to rescue the ministry from this depression. Men are slow to admit that they are indebted to their religious teachers. They acknowledge other claims: they do not hesitate to allow a fair and full recompense to their legal, or medical advisers; yet feel little compunction in withholding a suitable recompense from their spiritual <;uides. There are narrow views on this subject. Men there are who live in the enjoyment of every convenience, who grudge their minister what they do not refuse to the operatives in their manufactories, or the laborers in their fields.

The radical difficulty would seem to be, that there are so many in the community who regard the Gospel as of little value, and the instructions of the pulpit of little importance, either to themselves, to their children, or to their fellow-men. Yet if the Bible, and universal experience, may be relied on, there is nothing which can be less safely dispensed with than the stated ministrations of God’s sanctuary. As “godliness is j!;rq/z/«^/e, having the promise of the life that now is, as well as that which is to come;” so is a preached Gospel. Without it a well-governed community becomes lawless; a peaceful community is involved in broils; an intelligent community becomes ignorant; a rich community is vicious and ruined; a community that is poor becomes more impoverished. The vices which the Sabbath and the sanctuary would restrain and suppress, cost tenfold more than a preached Gospel. Upon the mere principles of a wise and rigid economy, no people, be they ever so poor, can afford to live without a Christian minister. If cities, and towns, and villages would not bring down upon themselves a burden of pauperism which is too heavy to be borne, and multiply their almshouses and their prisons to an extent that shall hll them with alarm; they must do more to check the evil at the fountain head, by supplying the poor with a laborious and faithful ministry. No philanthropy can augment the physical resources of a people that is regardless of its moral resources. It is but for a community to outgrow the means for its religious instruction, and it has outgrown the means for its prosperity. There is nothing’ that tells so effectively on the well-being of the great mass of society, as the instructions of the Christian pulpit.

If from this glance at “the life that now is,” we turn to “that which is to come,” what shall we say? I make no apology here for using the language of the great Dr. Owen, from a discourse preached before the English Parliament in the year 1646. Among all the modern appeals for the extension of the Gospel, I find nothing so earnest, or so stimulating. “No men in the world,” says this eminent writer,” want help like them who want the Gospel. Of all distresses, want of the Gospel cries loudest for relief. A man may want liberty, and yet be happy, as Joseph was; a man may want peace, and yet be happy, as David was; a man may want plenty, and yet be full of comfort as Micabah was; but he that wants the Gospel, wants every thing that should do liini good. A throne without the Gospel, is but the Devil’s dungeon; wealth without the Gospel, is fuel for hell; advancement without the Gospel, is but going high to have the greater fall. What do men need that want the Gospel? They want Jesus Christ, for he is revealed only by the Gospel. He is all and in all, and where he is wanting, there can be no good. Hunger cannot truly be satisfied without manna, the bread of life which is Jesus Christ; and what shall hungry man do that hath no bread? Thirst cannot be quenched without a living spring, which is Jesus Christ; and what shall a thirsty soul do without water? A captive, as we all are, cannot be delivered without redemption, which is Jesus Christ; and what shall the prisoner do without his ransom? Fools, as we all are, cannot be instructed without wisdom, which is Jesus Christ; without him we perish in our folly. All building without him is on the sand, and will surely fall. All working without him is in the fire, where it will be consumed. All riches without him have wings, and will fly away. A dungeon with Christ is a throne, and a throne without Christ is a hell. Nothing so ill, but Christ will compensate. 7VII mercies without Christ are bitter, and every cup is sweet that is seasoned with but a drop of his blood: he is truly the love and delight of the sons of men. He is the Way; men without him are Cains, murderers, and vagabonds. He is the Truth; men without him are liars, like the devil who was so of old. He is the Life; men without him are dead, dead in trespasses and sins. He is the Light; men without him are in darkness, and go they know not whither. He is the Vine; those that are not grafted in him are withered branches, prepared for the fire. He is the Rock; men not built on him are carried away with a flood. He is Alpha

and Omega, the First and the Last, the Author and the Ender, the founder and the finisher of our salvation; he that hath not him, hath nei-

! ther beginning of good, nor shall have an end of misery. O blessed Jesus, how much better were it not to be, than to be without thee; never to be born, than not to die in thee. A thousand hells come short of this,^ — eternally to want Jesus, as men do who want the Gospel. They want all holy communion with God, wherein the only happiness of the soul doth consist. Without him, the soul in the body is a dead soul in a living sepulchre. They want all the ordinances of God, the joy of our hearts, and the comfort of our souls. O the sweetness of a Sabbath! the heavenly raptures of prayer! O the glorious communion of saints, which such men are deprived of! If they knew the value of the hidden pearl, and these things were to be purchased, what would such poor souls not part with for them? They will at last want heaven and salvation; they shall never come into the presence of God in glory; never inhabit a glorious mansion. They shall never behpld Jesus Christ, but when they shall call for rocks and mountains to fall on them, and to hide them from his presence. They shall want light in utter darkness; they shall want life under the second death; want refreshment in the midst of flames; want healing under the gnawing of conscience; want grace, continuing to blaspheme; want glory, in full misery; and which is the sum of all, they shall want an end of all this: — for ’ their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.’”

Such thoughts as these have not often been addressed to the English Parliament. It is a tremendous inquiry, WJiat do men need, that want the Gospel? “If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.” Men who are destitute of it, are destitute of the only appointed means of salvation; for there is salvation in no other. There are no other means of fitting men for heaven; no other instrument of turning them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; nor is it possible that it should have a saving effect upon those who do not enjoy it. A community without the preached Gospel! There is nothing worth living for in such a community. It may be rich in rivers, in ore, and luxuriant in soil; it may be well watered as the plains of Sodom, and as accursed as they. I would not educate a familv of children in such a community, for all the prairies between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains. Of what value are lands, and rivers, and forests, if the pearl of great price is not there?

We are driven to the conclusion, that the deficiency in the support of ministers is to be attributed to a defective estimate of this hidden pearl.