"How much owest Thou to thy Lord?"

      Lecture 1

      Pauls, and Augustines, and Luthers, and Wesleys, and Finneys are rare. There is only one Niagara on this great Western Continent, but many rivers, brooks and cooling, sparkling rivulets that bless mankind, and fructify the earth. All are not called to great stations, but all can be faithful and obedient here. Faithfulness in the place God has assigned us means victory for the individual and for the Church of God. All that can be done for us God has done, and He has a right to expect fruit, but alas! when He comes looking for "grapes," in too many places He finds "wild grapes." (Isa. 5:2-4.)

      We are living this side of Calvary, and Pentecost, and Olivet; we have the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, but we fail to "command the skies." "Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, ask Me of things to come concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands COMMAND YE ME." God places His power at the disposal of His children. The Old Testament and the New unite in emphasizing this great truth, this wonderful privilege. "All power, is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth." "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." "Ye shall have power above all the power of the enemy." God means it, He does not trifle with our needs, nor taunt us with our weakness, but would have us yoke up with Him, would clothe Himself with us as He did with Gideon. The great majority in this present day are worse than the people of whom it was said, "The children of Ephraim being armed and having bows, turned back in the day of battle." The arming is neglected, the equipment is despised, and defeat is the common experience.

      The promises of God are ALL conditional, even the most liberal of them is conditioned upon the asking. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ASK HIM?" "If ANY OF YOU lack wisdom, let him ASK of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." "BRING YE all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now HEREWITH, saith THE LORD OF HOSTS, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith THE LORD OF HOSTS. And all nations shall call you blessed for ye shall be a delightsome land, SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS."

      "It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful," and faithfulness in stewards in the present day is as much a prerequisite to opening Heaven, and to uncontainable blessings, and individual victory, and needs supplied, as ever in the past. We are "stewards of the manifold grace of God," and the tithe is a practical recognition of our stewardship and God's ownership.

      It will not do for the objector to say that the tithe was a Mosaic law only, for Abraham paid tithes hundreds of years before Moses was born, and so did Jacob. The first mention of the tithe in the law as given to Moses is the plain statement, "The tithe is the Lord's," not shall be, but is. The very fact that the tithe was known and acknowledged among different nations leads us to believe that it came down to them from their ancestors, who had Divine direction for it, that it came from Adam to Noah, and from Noah to his posterity.

      Grotius, the learned historian, writes: "From the most ancient ages a tenth has been regarded as the portion due to God," and the evidences of this fact are to be found in both Greek and Latin histories. Selden in his history of tithes, states that the Arabians by law required every merchant to offer a tenth of his frankincense to the priests for their gods; that the Phoenicians, following, quite likely, the example of Abraham, devoted a tenth of the spoils of war to holy uses; that it was a custom in Italy to vow and pay tithes to their deities; that the German Saxons sacrificed a tenth of all their captives to Neptune.

      The Carthaginians brought this custom from Tyre, to which city they sent tithes regularly, by one clothed in purple and priestly robes, but becoming rich they neglected for a time to send a tithe of their profits, until their misfortunes led them to repent, and then they sent them as before.

      Xenephon with his captives, after their expedition into Asia, consecrated the tithe of their gains to Apollo and Diana, built a temple to the goddess and supported the worship with tithes, and it was a Grecian custom to consecrate the tenth of their increase to the gods.

      Pliny says, "The Ethiopians paid tithes of cinnamon to their gods, and it was unlawful for the merchants to buy or sell any of their goods until the priests had taken out a tenth for their gods."

      Montacutius declares: "Instances are mentioned in history of some nations who did not offer sacrifices, but in the annals of all times none are found who did not pay tithes. It does appear to us that the fact of the proportion of one in ten is so universal there must have been some Divine direction for it, this unity could only have come from such a source."

      The early Church insisted upon tithing as a Scriptural command, and therefore a duty. One of their saintliest bishops of the fourth century, Ambrose, said, "The Lord commands our tithes to be paid every year. He has given you nine parts and reserved the tenth for Himself, and if you do not give the tenth part to Him, He will take the nine parts from you. Whosoever is not willing to give those tithes to God which he has kept back, fears not God, and knows not what true repentance and confession mean.

      Augustine, the great theologian of the Church, whose views of Scripture are largely accepted by nearly three-fourths of the Church, says: "God, who has given us the whole, has thought it meet to ask the tenth from us, not for His benefit, but for our own." The Councils of the early Church proclaimed to Christians the duty of paying tithes, resting it not on the authority of ecclesiastical law, but on the sure basis of the Word of God:-- Ancyra in 314 -- Gangra in 324 -Orleans in 511 -- Tours, in 567 -- Toledo in 633 -- Rouen in 650 -- Fimili in 791 -- London in 1425.

      John Knox, in an epistle to the ministers of Scotland, writes: "Our Lord, in the Gospel, speaking of the payment of tithes, said to the Pharisees, 'These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone.' "

      Dr. Chalmers, the eminent Scotch preacher and reformer in the Church, says, "There might be drawn important lessons from the largeness of the proportion which God here commands. (Ex. 13:1-7.) The firstborn bear a ratio to the whole, approaching to the tithe, which He also claimed of the fruits, of the earth, or even to the seventh, which He specified as His share of your time -- not a large proportion, certainly, when measured by His absolute right, but large when measured by the natural inclination* of man to consecrate what he has to God."

      Dr. Owen, one of the best authorities among the Presbyterians, says, "The payment of tithes

      (1) Before the law with, (2) the like usage among all nations living according to nature, (3) their establishment under the law, (4) their express relation in Gospel appointment unto that establishment (1 Cor. 9:13-14), do make that kind of payment, tithing, so far plausible, that no man can with any pretense consent to their taking, away."

      These references all tend to prove that the law of the tithe is binding upon the Christian Church, according to the judgment of the Fathers and the voice of the Church, uncontradicted for more than a thousand years. It is an occasion of sadness that the faith of the Jews and of the heathen should exceed ours. It was a proverb among the Jews, "Pay tithes and be rich." The heathen had the same observation that he who paid most to the gods received most from them. They say God's judgments being upon them for not paying the tithes that belong to Him, they repented, restored the tithe, and were delivered. But how strange that so many Christians remain the only incurable infidels, and refuse to pay God that which, by universal decree, He has from the beginning reserved to Himself.

      I want here to call attention to the very impressive words of Professor Muller, of Oxford, one of the greatest scholars of his day. In writing to ministers on this subject, he says: "It is surprising that when there is so much profession of religious sincerity, a special society should be organized to impress upon the people the duty of giving to benevolence a tenth part of their income. Can there be a lower and a simpler test of that sincerity? And yet when one thinks what this world of ours would be, if at least this minimum of Christianity were a reality, one feels that you are right in preaching this simple duty, in season and out of season, until people see that without fulfilling it every other profession of religion is a mere sham. I can hardly trust myself to think what the result would be if it were considered not respectable to give less than one-tenth. This proportion of the total income would amount in England alone, to $180,000,000.00 a year."*

      "You will not rest until people begin to see that to give openly is less selfish than to give secretly; nay, till the giving of one-tenth of one's income becomes the general fashion, so that a young man at Oxford would as soon think of walking down High Street without his hat on, as profess to be a Christian and yet not fulfill so humble a part of his duty."

      The Methodist Episcopal Church, at its last General Conference, inserted in its Discipline: "Biblical and extra-biblical history point to the setting aside of the tenth of the income as a minimum, and indicate a Divine sanction of the practice and amount."