1 Corinthians 9:9

9. Doth God take care for oxen This passage we have lately seen quoted in a beautiful sermon on tenderness to brutes (by a “liberal” Christian preacher) as inhuman language. He understands the apostle as affirming, contrary to many beautiful texts of sympathy for the lower creatures, that God has no care for brutes! Darwinism, while it confessedly degrades man, claims to elevate the lower animals and to prompt to mercy toward them a happy result of error, if real. Sad, if Paul’s Christianity were in this below its level!

Alford thus interprets it: “We must not, as ordinarily, supply μονον , only, for oxen, and thus rationalize the sentence. The question imports: ‘In giving this command, are the oxen, or those for whom the law was given, its objects?’ And to such a question there can be but one answer. Every duty of humanity has its ultimate ground, not the mere welfare of the animal concerned, but its welfare in that system of which man is the head, and, therefore man’s welfare. The good done to man’s immortal spirit by acts of humanity and justice infinitely outweighs the mere physical comfort of a brute which perishes.” Our own view is, however, that the question is an argument a fortiori: Cares God for oxen in this law? Much more cares he for men, and for ministers who work like oxen. If the law of compensation includes even the honest labouring cattle, it surely includes us apostles.