A Selection of Post-Tithe Quotes: Spurgeon and Tithing

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892)

Charles Spurgeon is one of the most confusing preachers when trying to decipher his beliefs on tithing. Some quotes seem to lead to the conclusion that he believed it was required for Christians. The following quotes are those that cast doubt on that conclusion.

“It is also noteworthy that, with regard to Christian liberality, there are no rules laid down in the Word of God. I remember hearing somebody say, ‘I should like to know exactly what I ought to give.’ Yes, dear Friend, no doubt you would; but you are not under a system similar to that by which the Jews were obliged to pay tithes to the priests. If there were any such rule laid down in the gospel, it would destroy the beauty of spontaneous giving, and take away all the bloom from the fruit of your liberality!”

Charles H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 68 vols. (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim, 1974), 47:97.

“I have read some amazing statements upon the divine right of tithes. It seems to be established in the minds of some that if God gave the tithes to Levi he must, therefore, have given them to Episcopalian ministers: an inference which I fail to see! I should just as soon draw the inference that he had given them to Baptist ministers; certainly it would be no more illogical. The idea of our being priests, or Levites, in order to get compulsory tithes, would be too abhorrent to be entertained for a moment!”

Charles H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 68 vols. (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim, 1974), 28:694.

“Much has been said about giving a tenth of one’s income to the Lord. Methinks that is a Christian duty which none should for a moment question. If it were a duty under the Jewish law, much more is it so, now under the Christian dispensation. But it is a great mistake to suppose that the Jew only gave a tenth. He gave very, very, very much more than that. The tenth was the payment which he must make, but after that came all the free-will offerings, all the various gifts at divers seasons of the year, so that, perhaps, he gave a third, much more near that, certainly, than a tenth!”

Charles H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 68 vols. (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim, 1974), 14:567–68.

Again, if one were to stop reading right there, then his view seems obvious. But he continued:

“I do not, however, like to lay down any rules for God’s people, for the Lord’s New Testament is not a great book of rules; it is not a book of the letter, for that killeth, but it is the book of the Spirit, which teacheth us rather the soul of liberality than the body of it, and instead of writing laws upon stones or paper, it writes laws upon the heart. Give, dear friends, as you have purposed in your heart, and give proportionately, as the Lord hath prospered you, and do not make your estimate of what you ought to give by what will appear respectable from you, or by what is expected from you by other people, but as in the sight of the Lord, as He loveth a cheerful giver; and as a cheerful giver is a proportionate giver, take care that you, like a good steward, keep just accounts towards the great King.”

Charles H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 68 vols. (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim, 1974), 14:568.

A Selection of Post-Tithe Quotes: Early 1800s

Adam Clarke (ca. 1762–1832)

“I say again, let there be a national religion, and a national clergy supported by the state; but let them be supported by a tax, not by tithes, or rather let them be paid out of the general taxation; or, if the tithe system must be continued, let the poor-rates be abolished, and the clergy, out of the tithes, support the poor in their respective parishes, as was the original custom.”

Adam Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary: A New Edition, with the Author’s Final Corrections,

6 vols. (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1846), 1:179-80.

Charles Buck (English; 1833)

His article on tithing stated that nothing in the New Testament commanded tithing since “the divine right by which they were raised necessarily ceased.”

Charles Buck, “Tithes,” in A Theological Dictionary, new ed.,

edited by E. Henderson (London: James Duncan, 1833), 905-06.

J. Newton Brown (Baptist; 1836)

John Newton Brown (1803–1868), who wrote the draft of the New Hampshire Confession of Faith (1833), edited an encyclopedia. The article on tithes in this encyclopedia (published in 1836) explicitly said they ceased. The New Hampshire Confession of Faith was a precursor to the Baptist Faith and Message.

J. Newton Brown, ed., “Tithes,” in Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge,

2 vols. (Brattleboro: Fessenden, 1836), 2:1124.

G. Campbell Morgan (English Congregationalist; 1898)

“I hear a great deal about the tithing of incomes. I have no sympathy with the movement at all. A tenth in the case of one man is meanness, and in the case of another man is dishonesty. I know

men today who are Christian men in city churches and village chapels, who have no business to give a tenth of their income to the work of God. They cannot afford it. I know other men who

are giving one-tenth, and the nine-tenths they keep is doing harm to their souls.

G. Campbell Morgan, The Westminster Pulpit, 10 vols.,

1906–1916, reprint (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 4:40.

A Selection of Post-Tithe Quotes: Baptists and the English Government

Roger Williams (1603–1683)

Roger Williams has been credited with founding the first or second Baptist church in America. In 1652, Williams concluded that ministers of the gospel are to serve freely and be supported freely, “and that not in stinted Wages, Tithes, Stipends, Sallaries, &c. but with larger or lesser supplies, as the Hand of the Lord was more or lesse extended in his weekly blessings on them.”

Roger Williams, The Complete Writings of Roger Williams, 7 vols. (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963), 7:165.

John Milton (1659)

Milton wrote forcibly against tithes, which he considered ceremonial and abolished.

John Milton, Con_iderations Touching The likelie_t means to remove Hirelings out of the

Church: Wherein is al_o di_courc’d of Tithes, Church-fees, Church-revenues; And whether any

maintenance of mini_ters can be _ettl’d by law (London: L. Chapman, 1659), A9–A10, 15–18, 32–35, 37.

John Bunyan (Baptist; 1628–1688)

John Bunyan (1628–1688), author of Pilgrim’s Progress, commented on Luke 18:10–13, “This paying of tithes was ceremonial, such as came in and went out with the typical priesthood.”

John Bunyan, Bunyan’s Searching Works: The Strait Gate, The Heavenly Footman,

The Barren Fig-Tree, The Pharisee and Publican, and Divine Emblems

(Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 24.

The Little Parliament (1653)

The Little Parliament (1653), under Cromwell and the Independent Churches, was moving toward voluntarism, that is, “that the maintenance of Churches by means of tithes ought to be done away.”

Henry William Clarke, History of English Nonconformity, 2 vols.

(London: Chapman and Hall, 1911-1913), 1:374.