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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Letter , by a Popular Writer , on th& Discipline of the Quakers . 477
Untitled Article
There is in my opinion , but one question with which the Society is concerned on this subject ; and this is , — " how are tho . se tithes which they are called upon to pay , applied ? " If it be answered , * the supporting of a ministry who preach for hire , " friends may , I apprehend , on the foundation of scripture , refuse to pay them . They will have also the example of Jesus Christ , and of his apostles , and the practice of Christians for the three first centuries of the church in their favour- And the
conduct of the apostles is the more remarkable in this case , because being bred up as Jews , and accustomed from their infancy to pay tithes for the service of religion , they gave them up contrary to all the prejudices of their education , arid preached freely * which it may be conceived they would not have done , if they had not considered them to belong exclusively to the temple , or if they had not believed it to be more agreeable to Christianity , that such a system shouidbe abolished . The application then of the monpy arising from tithes is , I apprehend the only question , with which Friends are
concerned on the subject ; or in other words , they appear to me to have nothing to do in the way of testimony , but with those which are called ecclesiastical . They can bring I should suppose , no proof either out of the letter or out of the spirit of Chri tianity , against the payment of those which are called impropriate . If they can , I confess I have overlooked it . The only argument , on which I have always considered them to rely , is , that impropriate are of the same nature and root as ecclesiastical tithes .
l rear that in looking into this argument , I shall find nothing that will convince me , that Friends are right in the case before us . That imprupriate tithes arc of the same naiure and root as ecclesiastical , I readily allow . And what then ? Does it not follow from hence , that the argument turns directly against those who adopt it ? For few facts can be better ascertained in history , than that tkhes in Christianity were framed and constituted (\ vhich implies their root and nature ) exclusively for the benefit of the Door .
But to show that the root is an argument by no means sufficiently firm to be relied upon , A will suppose the following use .
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Let us suppose then that government were to pay the clergy out of the common taxes belonging to the state , and were to take the tithes , I mean even the ecclesiastical , into their own hands , and were to appropriate them exclusively to the support of hospitals , and to all the other objects -of national
benevolence ; would Friends refuse to pay them ? I believethey would not . I feel assured that the duty " of rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar ' s" ( but more particularly in a case , where their consciences could not be injured by the application of these tithes , and where their own benevolent feelings would
coincide with it } would of itself triumph over all considerations of the root from whence they came . For surely if friends feel themselves obliged to pay a tenth of their incomes where the root is war , because Cassar commands them , they would feel themselves equally obliged to pay it , where the joot was charity to the poor , the sick , and the afHicted , if commanded by the same authority .
The root then cannot be a stable foundation for argument , when this foundation may be removed by a variety of supposed cases . But let us suppose another casf . Let us suppose now , that men every where thought as Friends do upon the subject before us ; that in short , the church establishment was dissolved ; and that from this time no minister of the gospel of any denomination whatever , was to be paid for his spiritual kbours . Let us suppose also that the government of
the country , availing itself of this circumstance , took the tithes into their own hands , as taxes towards the exigencies of the state ; wouId Friends in this case also refuse to pay them ? 1 expect they would not . But if they would not , what becomes of the nature or root of them as an argument ? But if on the other hand , they should refuse to pay
them , and this on account of their ioot what an extraordinary circumstance it would be ? We should then have the extraordinary spectacle of a conscientious people suffering on account of a professed religious scruple , when ita original object , , " tne payment of a
mini try , '* had ceased to exist . And this would inevitably be the c ase in the supposed instance , if Friends were to act consistently with their present rules . But I will orler yet another case to your consideration . Suppose a person
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1808, page 477, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2396/page/21/
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