On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
having been adopted with a view to the * ' support of ministers , " are I , tithes , which the preacher abandons , in words at least , for he says that " it is unworthy of the Christian minister to go
or to send for his tenth pig , or swarm of bees , his basket of eggs , or dish of milk" ( p . 19 ); 2 , taxes , which also he renounces and reprobates , not sparing the Church of England , where " souls
are bought and sold like cattle in the market" ( p . 22 ); and 3 , voluntary subscriptions , of which he declares his approbation , protesting at the same time " against the mode of supporting ministers by a seat-rent * ' ( p . 24 ) .
In describuig the " extent to which this duty should be carried , " he appeals , 1 , to the claims of justice , remarking , with censurable levity of allusion , that a minister cannot " work
miracles to multiply the loaves and fishes" ( p . 27 ) ; 2 , to Scripture , and here , after the popular fashion of commenting upon Scripture , he observes , that " the Lord has ordained
that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel , not starve of the gospel , " , somewhat inconsistently with the foregoing argument , claims for the Christian ministry " such a remuneration as the tribe of Levi
enjoyed , under the ancient dispensation , " which was for cc a twelfth part of the population ' " a tenth of the produce of the land" ( p . 28 ); 3 , to the
interests of the church , which are promoted by the preacher ' s being freed from the difficulties of \ " keeping the wolf from his door" ( p . 30 ) , and from secular employment which he himself " fears will eat out the heart of the
minister" ( ib . ) , " and relieved from the necessity of nursing his wife when she is sick" ( ib . ) " and attending upon his children with the horn-book , the grammar and the slate" ( ib . ) ; 4 , to the conversion of the world , in order to which " a minister should be enabled
to gain admittance into every rank of society" ( p . 34 ) , " should be rich enough to give a shilling , or , if needful , a guinea to a case of distress " ( ib . ) , and , in short , " should be enabjed to shew a generous spirit by having- a liberal income" ( p . 35 ) .
The " agents" in " the affair of finance , in the church of Christ , " ( p . 35 , ) are , the " Deacons" and " the people / ' Deacons " have to attend
Untitled Article
to three tables , that of the Lord , that of the poor , and th ^ minister ' s table " ( ib . ) - A good deacon , says the preacher , spurns at the thought of clogging the wings of an angel , or pressing down to earth one who would bear
others with him in his flight to heaven " ( p . 36 ) . He then relates an instance of goodness in this church-officer : " A deacon , in one of our churches , brought to the minister a hundred pounds , as the quarter ' s salary , with expressions
of most affectionate regret that it was so little" ( ib . )« In answer to the allegation of the laity , that they give to the Missionary Society , &c , it is replied , < p . 37 , ) that God " must blow upon their charities taken from their pastor ' just recompence" ( ib . ) . i €
The people" too have no unimportant part assigned them in the work , and they are exhorted by the preacher not to be satisfied " with paying a mere seat-rent , " for " Satan himself could not devise a more
effectual way to introduce injustice , and expel from our churches generosity to ministers and faithfulness to God" ( p . 39 ) . Mr . Bennett more than hints the duty of the people , by telling that he tc
has known more than one person in the same congregation , living in humble style , who were in the habit of giving between twenty and thirty pounds a-year" ( pp . 39 , 40 ) , also , << some splendid exceptions who *
con-* Mr . Bennett dates his Dedication from Rotherham College , " of which he is , we believe , the Principal , it might have been expected , therefore , that he should have been more tender of the rules of grammar than he is in the above sentence and in those that follow : " A
tithe , or tenth , as the word imports , has been anciently devoted to God , as a just proportion of that which we first received from him , and a suitable acknowledgment of our obligations to the F ountain of all good . Thus Abraham , " &c . ( pp . 16 , 17 ) . " But I have unhappily known a fine mind , athirst for information , who
would have poured forth the trea sures he might have acquired from reading , into the hearts of his hearers , stunted in its growth , for want of the resources which a library would have furnished , ana which a generous people would have afforded , and doomed to chastise their covetousness by the repetition of old things ( p . 32 ) . .
Untitled Article
684 Review . ' " —^ Bennetts Support of the Christian Ministry . "
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1821, page 684, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2506/page/52/
-