Chapter II: On the General Importance of the Office of Deacon

The fact that there is such an office as that of deacon in the Christian Church is a sufficient proof of its necessity. God does not act without reason; but when we can discover the grounds of the appointment, the result is more satisfactory and convincing. Even though we could not have discovered these, our duty would not have been affected in the least degree.

It might have been thought that, as true religion quickens industry and frugality, by converting them into sacred virtues, as well as by improving the mind—as it saves men from many expensive vanities and vices to which others are exposed—so it would have led to large accumulations of wealth. It certainly operates in this way. The countries where true religion is most prevalent, are also the countries where proportionally there is the largest amount of national resources. Indeed, some outlet is needful, such as in the propagation of the Gospel, for the accumulations which Christianity, by the improvement of the spirit and habits of its adherents, naturally creates. But with all this, it is part of the arrangement of the Great Head of the Church, that in every age, down to the last, there shall be poor. We are to have the poor with us always, to try the liberality of the rich, to exercise the patience of the indigent—at once to teach gratitude, and humility, and dependence—the sovereignty of God—and that there is no social perfectibility upon earth by an equality of rank and fortune, as infidel philosophers have vainly dreamed. These, and other important ends, are answered by the presence of the poor in the Christian Church. They are also to be regarded as the representatives of Christ upon earth, who chose the deepest poverty, and who wished His people to understand that, in doing a kindness to His poor members, they are conferring a favour upon himself—such is the intimacy of their union. Nor are there only to be the poor in the Christian Church, as there are poor in the world at large. There is to be more than a usual share of poverty. The pride of wealth naturally estranges from true religion, while Christ has ever drawn the largest number of His followers from the humbler walks of life. That persecution too, to which all faithful Christians are exposed, tends to impoverish; hence the necessity of some permanent provision for the poor in the Christian Church. And as the circumstances of so large a body of Christians call for this, so Christianity itself supplies the provision. It is one of the grand points of distinction between true religion and false, or what is substantially the same thing, corruption of the true religion—that the one is essentially liberal—carries us out of ourselves toward others; whereas the other centres all the regards of the mind and heart upon one’s self; in other words, is intensely selfish; and, with the exception of some cases, which admit of explanation, makes the unhappy man more and more selfish the longer he lives. Besides this general tendency of true religion, whether under the Old or New Testament form, to liberalise the heart, there are other considerations in connexion with Christianity which tend to the same result. Our blessed Lord does not, like some of His professed followers, make light of temporal wants. He does not, in the magnitude of spiritual necessities, and the urgent duty of providing for them, overlook the ills of poverty. On the contrary, he tenderly cares for and expressly provides for man’s temporal necessities. He himself knew, from experience, what poverty is. He calls upon His people continually to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” before presenting any petition for blessing directly personal or spiritual. And instead of absolving His people from any contributions except to moral and religious objects, such as the propagation of the Gospel, he calls upon them to be as liberal, and more liberal than we can suppose the most humane men of the world, from instinctive impulse, ever to become. He knows that the wealth which true Christianity is the means of creating, well directed, is sufficient to meet all legitimate wants, whether temporal or spiritual.

It is not necessary to say any thing of the tenderness with which the Word of God speaks of the poor—its imperative commands to care for and befriend them—the blessing which is promised to those who consider their case—the curse which is denounced against those who neglect or oppress them; let it only be remembered that Christ calls upon His followers to regard the pious poor as brethren and sisters, by a stronger tie than that of a common nature and common liability to suffering, as children of the same Father, objects of the same eternal and electing love, and that the awards of the great day of judgment are to turn upon the mode in which men treat the poor members of His body. What can be more fitted to draw forth in a Christian heart the most intense and unwearied sympathy to a poor man, than the thought that, all indigent as he is, and outwardly wretched, he has been chosen of God from eternity to salvation, and that he may be in heaven, at the right hand of the Lamb, before his benefactor? What, at once, more solemnising and more fitted to open the heart in the warmest benevolence, than to think of the words of the Judge, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me?” It is plain, then, there is a call for such an office as that of deacon, inasmuch as we are assured, on the highest authority, that there shall be poor needing its kind office in all ages, and inasmuch as Christianity provides, in its spirit and principles, for liberality to the poor.

I have, now, further to remark, that such an office is required, that the liberality which true religion creates may be directed aright, and guarded against becoming a source of evil. This applies not only to the management of the funds for the poor, but to the general pecuniary revenues of the Church. I do not here refer to the dangers of wealth in the hands of superstition—to the mendicancy which the Church of Rome, in a variety of ways, creates—spreading hosts of beggars, clerical and lay, over the richest countries of the earth; and to the means which she then takes to supply the indigence which she has called into existence—ways which ever tend to aggrandise the priesthood, and to add to the power of the Church. Nor do I refer to her prodigious accumulations of property for the support and extension of her system of superstition, adolatry, and despotism, to the ends of the world. Men may doubt whether she deserves the name of Christian, and whether, in writing of the officers of the Christian Church, her character and history should not be thrown out of the reckoning. But it is well to remember that, before the days of the Church of Rome, at least before she had risen to dangerous supremacy, in the pure and peaceful times, as they are accounted, of primitive Christianity, the most serious evils arose in the Christian Church, from the ill-regulated accumulation of wealth. Milton somewhere justly remarks, that the Church was corrupted by money before she was corrupted by power. Where it is necessary that wealth, whether for the support of the poor, or the maintenance of the ministry, or the general extension of the Church, shall be collected and employed by Christians, it is almost essential that there be a body of men, whose distinct office and care it shall be to administer the funds, and who shall be responsible to the Church. If there be no regulation of so important a matter—if large and ever-growing sums be committed to individuals, or to the pastor burdened with other duties, or to volunteer and almost irresponsible managers, or to ill-defined associations, it is evident, let the Church be as Christian as it may, sound in doctrine and public ordinances, it will not long remain so,—that, constituted as human nature is, corruption in a variety of forms, some of them, at the outset, quite innocent, will certainly and speedily enter; and that a mercenary spirit and corrupt administration will, ere long, vitiate doctrine, and mould it to their own likeness.

What the nature of things, even among Christians, would thus lead us to expect, the history of the Christian Church amply establishes. Without meaning to anticipate, it may be mentioned that, in the second century, not a great many years after the apostle John had closed his eyes upon the world, the Christian Church at Rome, the metropolis of the world, was so overflowing in wealth, that she not only supported her own clergy and poor, but largely aided other Churches, subsisted multitudes of Christian captives in several provinces, and even the Christian prisoners condemned to labour and perish in the mines. The impression which then prevailed, and which many Fathers afterwards diligently propagated, that the end of the world was at hand, conduced to this excessive liberality. When men, who were persecuted for their faith, believed that, at all events, the present state of things will not survive two or three years, it is not wonderful they willingly, nay lavishly, parted with their worldly treasures. Indeed, in the third century, such were the pecuniary resources of the Christian Church, that they tempted the avarice or necessities of the imperial power. Now, though there were peculiarities in the case referred to, yet it plainly shews the absolute necessity of regulating the wealth of the Church, and that by a court of officers forming a constitutional part of the Church itself. There may, indeed there were, scriptural deacons in the second century, but ere long, in the third, their office was seriously changed. They were distracted in their appropriate duties, by having part of the ministry of the Word and Sacraments devolved on them, while the office of ruling elder—unpopular because a restraint upon corruption, and which, as held by a large body of intelligent men, would have operated as an indirect check upon mismanagement on the part of the deacon—began to disappear. As time rolled on, and the wealth of the Church accumulated, the traces of the scriptural deacon, though sufficiently clear to mark the original office, became more and more indistinct, till, absorbed into an order of priesthood, its wealth and power at last centred in the bishop, or the bishop of bishops—the Pope.

It appears, then that the very liberality which Christianity recommends and creates, needs to be well regulated by suitable church-officers; that, apart from this, it is liable to, and soon degenerates into serious corruption. Surely this is a strong reason for maintaining the order of deacons in its exclusively scriptural functions. Doubtless the Great Head of the Church foresaw and meant to provide against the dangers of unregulated wealth by the creation of such class of office-bearers. Were it necessary to say any thing more in behalf, it would be found in the circumstance, that the special care of the poor, in an official form, is conducive to the credit of Christianity. It is well known how much the men of the world pride themselves upon their charities, and how often they charge religious men, very falsely it is true, but still charge them with being indifferent to the temporal wants of the poor. That men of the world sometimes do very generous things, and occasionally leave considerable sums, by the testamentary bequest, to charitable objects, is true. When one expects the salvation of his soul in consequence of alms-deeds, it is not wonderful that he should be generous. The Mohammedan, who is taught by the Koran that charity opens the gates of heaven, is frequently eminent for his donations to men of the same faith and nation with himself; so is the unbelieving Jew. But whatever may be the influence of instinctive feeling or self-righteous hope, it is unquestionable that the Christian, notwithstanding the large demands which are made upon him for religious objects—objects with which the men of the word do not intermeddle, yet proportionally contributes far more liberally to the temporal necessities of his fellow-men and fellow-Christian, than others. The very habit of giving encourages it, and the constraining love of Christ is not inconsistent with instinctive sympathy, but acts strongly in the same direction. Though these things may be known by all who take the pains to consider them, the world still professes itself to be the friend of the poor man, to the disparagement of the Christian. It holds that it deals in substantial kindness, while the other contents himself with faith, as distinguished from morality. To meet this common charge it is most desirable, for the honour of Christianity and the Christian Church, that they be seen in their true character as the patrons of the poor, especially the pious poor; and how can this be better done than when it appears that a court of officers, to watch over the interests of the poor, in the spirit of Christianity, is an essential part of the constitution of the Christian Church? So long as the Church cannot point to these officers in living operation under her authority, she misses the full answer which she may and ought to have it in her power to return to the charges and insinuations, whether of worldliness, or superstition, or infidelity. It is not enough to say that Christians are charitable—far more charitable than others, unless it can be shown that the poor are so important in their eyes, and dear to their hearts, that they have a regular official provision in the very structure of the Christian Church for attending to their wants, and that men fail in Christian duty where this, in one form or another, is wanting. Let, however, the Christian Church be fully equipped with a large staff of laborious tender-hearted deacons, watching over the poor from week to week and year to year, ministering to their wants out of the donations of the Church, and treating them with the kindness of brethren and sisters; and what is there in any occasional charitable bequest, any regular and extraordinary deed of benevolence, on the part of the men of the world, which could bear any comparison with such friendship? Tried by this test, Christianity would not only be acquitted of indifference, its genuine liberality would be established and rendered conspicuous. We can conceive few things more dishonourable to Protestant Christianity, or more fitted to impair its progress, than to be able to say, with apparent truth, that it is careless of the interests of the poor—more careless than the men who make less pretension. And, on the other hand, we can conceive few things more fitted to propitiate the good-will of the world, which, at all events, admires benevolence, than to be able, in a way which does not admit of cavil, to shew that the same religious system which alone can provide for the welfare of eternity, is the most active and unwearied guardian of the poor man’s interest in time. This is an argument which must always be powerful, but particularly in such a day as the present, when it is to be feared irreligion and infidelity prevail to considerable extent among the humbler classes of society—classes which were once happily strangers to the poison, and which are naturally led, from their very circumstances, to make comparisons of men and systems in connexion with care for the poor, and to consider this as almost the exclusive standard of character.