CHAP. 16.]

VOLUNTARY PAYMENT OF MINISTERS.

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VOLUNTARY PAYMENT.

That this system possesses many advantages over a legal provision we have already seen. But this does not imply that even voluntary payment is conformable with the dignity of the Christian ministry, with its usefulness, or with the requisitions of the Christian law.

And here I am disposed, in the outset, to acknowledge that the question of payment is involved in an antecedent question, the necessary qualifications of a Christian minister. If one of these necessary qualifications be, that he should devote his youth and early manhood to theological studies, or to studies or exercises of any kind, I do not perceive how the propriety of voluntary payment can be disputed: for, when a man who might otherwise have fitted himself, in a counting-house or an office, for procuring his after support, employs his time necessarily in qualifying himself for a Christian instructer, it is indispensable that he should be paid for his instructions. Or if, after he has assumed the ministerial function, it be his indispensable business to devote all or the greater portion of his time to studies or other preparations for the pulpit, the same necessity remains. He must be paid for his ministry, because, in order to be a minister he is prevented from maintaining himself.

But the necessary qualifications of a minister of the gospel cannot here be discussed. We pass on therefore with the simple expression of the sentiment, that how beneficial soever a theological education and theological inquiries may be in the exercise of the office, yet that they form no necessary qualifications; that men may be, and that some are, true and sound ministers of that gospel without them.

Now, in inquiring into the Christian character and tendency of payment for preaching Christianity, one position will perhaps be recognised as universally true,-that if the same ability and zeal in the exercise of the ministry could be attained without payment as with it, the payment might reasonably and rightly be forborne. Nor will it perhaps be disputed, that if Christian teachers of the present day were possessed of some good portion of the qualifications, and were actuated by the motives of the first teachers of our religion,-stated remuneration would not be needed. If love for mankind, and " the ability which God giveth," were strong enough to induce and to enable men to preach the gospel without payment, the employment of money as a motive would be without use or propriety. Remuneration is a contrivance adapted to an imperfect state of the Christian church: nothing but imperfection can make it needful; and when that imperfection shall be removed, it will cease to be needful again.

These considerations would lead us to expect, even antecedently to inquiry, that some ill effects are attendant upon the system of remuneration. Respecting these effects, one of the advocates of a legal provision holds language which, though it be much too strong, nevertheless contains much truth."Upon the voluntary plan," says Dr. Paley, "preaching, in time, would become a mode of begging. With what sincerity or with what dignity can a preacher dispense the truths of Christianity, whose thoughts are perpetually solicited to the reflection how he may increase

"Thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous."-Exodus xxiii. 8. Mem. in the MS.

380

ILL EFFECTS OF

[ESSAY IIL his subscription? His eloquence, if he possess any, resembles rather the exhibition of a player who is computing the profits of his theatre, than the simplicity of a man who, feeling himself the awful expectations of religion, is seeking to bring others to such a sense and understanding of their duty as may save their souls.-He, not only whose success but whose subsistence depends upon collecting and pleasing a crowd, must resort to other arts than the acquirement and communication of sober and profitable instruction. For a preacher to be thus at the mercy of his audience, to be obliged to adapt his doctrines to the pleasure of a capricious multitude, to be continually affecting a style and manner neither natural to him nor agreeable to his judgment, to live in constant bondage to tyrannical and insolent directors, are circumstances so mortifying, not only to the pride of the human heart, but to the virtuous love of independency, that they are rarely submitted to without a sacrifice of principle and a depravation of character: at least it may be pronounced that a ministry so degraded would soon fall into the lowest hands; for it would be found impossible to engage men of worth and ability in so precarious and humiliating a profession."*

To much of this it is a sufficient answer that the predictions are contradicted by the fact. Of those teachers who are supported by voluntary subscriptions, it is not true that their eloquence resembles the exhibition of a player who is computing the profits of his theatre; for the fact is that a very large proportion of them assiduously devote themselves from better motives to the religious benefit of their flocks :—it is not true that the office is rarely undertaken without what can be called a depravation of character; for the character, both religious and moral, of those teachers who are voluntarily paid, is at least as exemplary as that of those who are paid by provision of the state:-it is not true that the office falls into the lowest hands, and that it is impossible to engage men of worth and ability in the profession, because very many of such men are actually engaged in it.

But although the statements of the archdeacon are not wholly true, they are true in part. Preaching will become a mode of begging. When a congregation wants a preacher, and we see a man get into the pulpit expressly and confessedly to show how he can preach, in order that the hearers may consider how they like him, and when one object to his thus doing is confessedly to obtain an income, there is reason,-not certainly for speaking of him as a beggar, but for believing that the dignity and freedom of the gospel are sacrificed.-Thoughts perpetually solicited to the reflection how he may increase his subscription. Supposing this to be the language of exaggeration, supposing the increase of his subscription to be his subordinate concern, yet still it is his concern; and, being his concern, it is his temptation. It is to be feared, that by the influence of this temptation his sincerity and his independence may be impaired, that the consideration of what his hearers wish rather than of what he thinks they need, may prompt him to sacrifice his conscience to his profit, and to add or to deduct something from the counsel of God. Such temptation necessarily exists; and it were only to exhibit ignorance of the motives of human conduct to deny that it will sometimes prevail. To live in constant bondage to insolent and tyrannical directors. It is not necessary to suppose that directors will be tyrannical or inso

Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 10.

CHAP. 16.]

THE SYSTEM OF REMUNERATION.

381

lent, nor by consequence to suppose that the preacher is in a state of constant bondage. But if they be not tyrants and he a slave, they may be masters and he a servant: a servant in a sense far different from that in which the Christian minister is required to be a servant of the church, in a sense which implies an undue subserviency of his ministrations to the will of men, and which is incompatible with the obligation to have no master but Christ.

Other modes of voluntary payment may be and perhaps they are adopted, but the effect will not be essentially different. Subscriptions may be collected from a number of congregations and thrown into a common fund, which fund may be appropriated by a directory or conference: but the objections still apply; for he who wishes to obtain an income as a preacher has then to try to propitiate the directory instead of a congregation, and the temptation to sacrifice his independence and his conscience remains.

There is no way of obtaining emancipation from this subjection, no way of avoiding this temptation, but by a system in which the Christian ministry is absolutely free.

But the ill effects of thus paying preachers are not confined to those who preach. The habitual consciousness that the preacher is paid, and the notion which some men take no pains to separate from this consciousness, that he preaches because he is paid, have a powerful tendency to diminish the influence of his exhortations and the general efect of his labours. The vulgarly irreligious think, or pretend to think, that it is a sufficient excuse for disregarding these labours to say, They are a matter of course, preachers must say something, because it is their trade. And it is more than to be feared that notions, the same in kind however different in extent, operate upon a large proportion of the community. It is not probable that it should be otherwise; and thus it is that a continual deduction is made by the hearer from the preacher's disinterestedness or sincerity, and a continual deduction therefore from the effect of his labours.

How seldom can such a pastor say, with full demonstration of sincerity, "I seek not yours, but you." The flock may indeed be, and happily it often is, his first and greatest motive to exertion; but the demonstrative evidence that it is so can only be afforded by those whose ministrations are absolutely free. The deduction which is thus made from the practical influence of the labours of stipended preachers is the same in kind (though differing in amount) as that which is made from a pleader's addresses in court. He pleads because he is paid for pleading. Who does not perceive that if an able man came forward and pleaded in a cause without a retainer, and simply from the desire that justice should be awarded, he would be listened to with much more of confidence, and that his arguments would have much more weight, than if the same words were uttered by a barrister who was feed? A similar deduction is made from the writings of paid ministers, especially if they advocate their own particular faith. "He is interested evidence," says the reader, he has got a retainer, and of course argues for his client; and thus arguments that may be invincible, and facts that may be incontrovertibly true, lose some portion of their effect, even upon virtuous men, and a large portion upon the bad, because the preacher is paid. If, as is sometimes the case, "the amount of the salary given is regulated very precisely by the frequency of the ministry required," so that a hearer

382

QUALIFICATIONS OF A MINISTER.

[ESSAY III. may possibly allow the reflection, The preacher will get half a guinea for the sermon he is going to preach, it is almost impossible that the dignity of the Christian ministry should not be reduced, as well as that the influence of his exhortations should not be diminished. "It is however more desirable," says Milton, " for example to be, and for the preventing of offence or suspicion, as well as more noble and honourable in itself, and conducive to our more complete glorying in God, to render an unpaid service to the church, in this as well as in all other instances; and after the example of our Lord, to minister and serve gratuitously." Some ministers expend all the income which they derive from their office in acts of beneficence. To these we may safely appeal for confirmation of these remarks. Do you not find that the consciousness, in the minds of your hearers, that you gain nothing by your labour, greatly increases its influence upon them? Do you not find that they listen to you with more confidence and regard, and more willingly admit the truths which you inculcate and conform to the advices which you impart? If these things be so, and who will dispute it?--how great must be the aggregate obstruction which pecuniary remuneration opposes to the influence of religion in the world!

But indeed it is not practicable to the writer to illustrate the whole of what he conceives to be the truth upon this subject, without a brief advertence to the qualifications of the minister of the gospel: because, if his view of these qualifications be just, the stipulation for such and such exercise of the ministry, and such and such payment, is impossible. If it is "admitted that the ministry of the gospel is the work of the Lord, that it can be rightly exercised only in virtue of his appointment," and only when "a necessity is laid upon the minister to preach the gospel," -it is manifest, that he cannot engage beforehand to preach when others desire it. It is manifest, that "the compact which binds the minister to preach on the condition that his hearers shall pay him for his preaching, assumes the character of absolute inconsistency with the spirituality of the Christian religion."†

Freely ye have received, freely give. When we contemplate a Christian minister who illustrates both in his commission and in his practice, this language of his Lord; who teaches, advises, reproves, with the authority and affection of a commissioned teacher; who fears not to displease his hearers, and desires not to receive their reward; who is under no temptation to withhold, and does not withhold, any portion of that counsel which he thinks God designs for his church; when we contemplate

* Christian Doctrine, p. 484.

† I would venture to suggest to some of those to whom these considerations are offered, whether the notion that a preacher is a sine qua non of the exercise of public worship, is not taken up without sufficient consideration of the principles which it involves. If, "where two or three are gathered together in the name" of Christ, there he, the minister of the sanctuary, is "in the midst of them," it surely cannot be necessary to the exercise of such worship, that another preacher should be there. Surely too, it derogates something from the excellence, something from the glory of the Christian dispensation, to assume that if a number of Christians should be so situated as to be without a preacher, there the public worship of God cannot be performed. This may often happen in remote places, in voyages, or the like: and I have sometimes been impressed with the importance of these considerations when I have heard a person say is absent, and therefore there will be no divine

Bervice this morning."

CHAP. 17.]

PATRIOTISM.

383

such a man, we may feel somewhat of thankfulness and of joy; of thankfulness and joy that the Universal Parent thus enables his creatures to labour for the good of one another, in that same spirit în which he cares for them and blesses them himself.

I censure not, either in word or in thought, him who, in sincerity of mind, accepts remuneration for his labours in the church. It may not be inconsistent with the dispensations of Providence, that in the present imperfect condition of the Christian family, imperfect principles respecting the ministry should be permitted to prevail: nor is it to be questioned that some of those who do receive remuneration are fulfilling their proper allotments in the universal church. But this does not evince that we should not anticipate the arrival, and promote the extension, of a more perfect state. It does not evince that a higher allotment may not await their successors,-that days of greater purity and brightness may not arrive of purity, when every motive of the Christian minister shall be simply Christian; and of brightness, when the light of truth shall be displayed with greater effulgence. When the Great Parent of all shall thus turn his favour towards his people; when He shall supply them with teachers exclusively of his own appointment, it will be perceived that the ordinary present state of the Christian ministry is adapted only to the twilight of the Christian day; and some of those who now faithfully labour in this hour of twilight will be among the first to rejoice in the greater glory of the noon.

CHAPTER XVII.

PATRIOTISM.

WE are presented with a beautiful subject of contemplation, when we discover that the principles which Christianity advances upon its own authority are recommended and enforced by their practical adaptation to the condition and the wants of man. With such a subject I think we are presented in the case of patriotism.

66

Christianity does not encourage particular patriotism in opposition to general benignity."* If it did, it would not be adapted for the world. The duties of the subject of one state would often be in opposition to those of the subject of another, and men might inflict evil or misery upon neighbour nations in conforming to the Christian law. Christianity is designed to benefit, not a community, but the world. The promotion of the interests of one community by injuring another, that is, "patriotism in opposition to general benignity," it utterly rejects as wrong; and in doing this, it does that which in a system of such wisdom and benevolence we should expect.-"The love of our country," says Adam Smith, "seems not to be derived from the love of mankind."t

I do not mean to say that the word patriotism is to be found in the New Testament, or that it contains any disquisitions respecting the proper

Bishop Watson.

Theo. Mor. Sent. The limitation with which this opinion should be regarded we shall presently propose.