_PASTOR IN PARISH_ (ii.).
_Work on in hope; the plough, the sickle wield;
Thy Master is the harvest's Master too;
He gives the golden seed, He owns the field,
And does Himself what His true servants do._
I take up again the all-important subject of Pastoral Visitation, for
the same sort of informal and fragmentary treatment as that attempted in
the last chapter, and with the same feeling that the subject is
practically inexhaustible.
LET THE VISITOR BE A TEACHER, WATCHING FOR OPPORTUNITIES.
One object which the visitor will do well to keep steadily before him
is, to be a _teacher_ as he goes. I have said something of this already,
in recommending my Brethren to seize every good occasion for bringing in
the Bible, and words about the Bible. But the whole work of instruction
needs remembrance in our private intercourse with parishioners. Of
course we shall avoid with watchful and willing care the magisterial
manner, the too didactic tone. And only when obvious occasions present
themselves shall we even seem to _set ourselves_ to teach; as when we
are distinctly asked what is the meaning of this doctrine, or that
passage of Scripture, or that phrase of the Prayer Book, or how to meet
that difficulty of belief. Such moments do come; in some pastoral lives
they come frequently; and whether the inquiry is made in a friendly
spirit, with a real wish for information, or whether, as sometimes, it
is the question of a critic or a caviller, it is an opportunity for
which, in the Lord's grace, we should stand quite ready. To be sure we
may have sometimes to remember that sensible precept of the Rabbis,
"_Teach thy tongue to say, I do not know_"; the answer, often, of the
truest and deepest-sighted wisdom. But even when answering so,
instruction may be given, as we state the reasons for the answer. And we
shall at least have the opportunity while so doing to bring in that
other maxim, which we owe, I think, to the late Archbishop Whately,
"_Never allow what you do know to be disturbed by what you do not
know_"; a principle of very wide application.
But I am thinking now rather of the every-day sort of pastoral call and
conversation, in which perhaps the parishioner visited may be anything
but a caviller, and anything but even a questioner; much too ready,
perhaps, to take everything about Christian truths for granted, which,
alas, means too often to take them as understood, to take them as
believed, when there is little understanding of the matter, or even
thought about it. Now it is a great thing when a pastoral visitor has
the art (which needs to be considered, and to be acquired) of putting
here and there into a quiet and friendly talk, best of all towards the
close, some sentence which sets out a great truth clearly, strongly, and
in a shape which may wake attention and help remembrance. That is the
kind of didactic work which I earnestly recommend.
*THE PASTORAL TEACHER'S TOPICS.
If possible, let no visit close without some such utterance, if only
one. It may be about the very foundations of all Christian truth; about
the certainty of Christian facts, the Resurrection above all; about the
Person of the Lord Jesus; about His finished work of Atonement; about
faith, and our acceptance as believers in Him, and our victory and
deliverance in temptation by the power of the Holy Ghost through faith;
about sin, its true nature, its guilt, its end. Or it may be about the
holy practicalities of Christian conduct; about the Lord's call to us to
break with everything that is against His will; about that deep,
far-reaching truth of the Gospel that, while the sinner is saved by
faith only, he is saved on purpose that he may serve, on purpose that he
may "walk and please God," [1 Thess. iv. 1.] and that he may do this
above all in "the duty that lies near," in the plain things of the home,
the business, the handicraft, the social circle. Or it may be about the
mighty claims of the Missionary cause, about the strangely forgotten
fact that the Christian Church exists mainly in order to evangelize the
non-Christian world. Or it may be about the principles and duties of
Church membership and Christian ordinances; the true nature of worship;
the sacred duty of united worship; the call to hallow the Lord's Day;
the precious benefits of the Sacraments of Christ, explained with the
holy reverence and equally holy simplicity and moderation of the
Catechism and the Articles.
NEED FOR SUCH WORK.
I need not fill my pages with numberless details. For my plea is that we
should rather hold ourselves ready for the natural rise of such or such
topics, and for a clear instructive word in season upon them, than that
we should propose a theme and deliver a discourse. But I cannot too
earnestly remind my Brethren how great _the need_ of instruction is
among many of our kindly neighbours, even among our neighbours who go
regularly to Church and are constantly to be seen at the Table of the
Lord.
CHRIST "A BLESSED ANGEL."
Let me take one pre-eminent subject as my illustration: the
foundation-truth of the Godhead of our Blessed Redeemer. Are you at all
aware how widely spread is ignorance and error on that subject, far
beyond the limits of the "Unitarian"[17] community? I remember a
pastoral visit long ago to a slowly dying parishioner, a labouring man
somewhat stricken in years, who had been a church-goer, though not a
communicant. I soon fell into a conversation with my friend which took a
sort of catechetical shape; my aim was to see where the soul's hopes for
eternity really rested. Who and What was JESUS, whose name I know he
humbly reverenced? Was He a good Man? Yes. But anything more? There was
a long hesitation, and then the dear man expressed a faltering
persuasion that the Lord could not be less than "a blessed angel." That
case, I am well convinced, is very much more representative than some of
us may think. At a recent Church Congress I heard some remarks in just
this direction from Bishop Walsham How, who speaks from a large pastoral
experience; his anxiety about the immense extent of popular ignorance or
misbelief about the Saviour's Person was at least as great as mine.
[17] A term which I use under protest. If a Unitarian means a believer
in the Unity of the Godhead, every orthodox Christian is a true
Unitarian. Only, he is a Trinitarian also, from another side. I may
venture to refer on this subject to a small book of my own, _Outlines of
Christian Doctrine_, p. 20.
"ALL MY SUFFERMENT HERE."
And so too is ignorance and misbelief about the work of His Cross, and
of His Holy Spirit. "I hope I shall have all my sufferment here," said
one poor invalid to me in old days, speaking indeed from a very
comfortless bed, in the slow pains of a dire disease. She had been long
within sound of clear, bright Christian teaching. But deep in the soul,
unmoved and ah, so difficult to dislodge, lay that notion of an atoning
value in our own pains which is a radical contradiction to the glorious
paradox of the perfect and unique work of Calvary:--
"Thy pains, not mine, O Christ,
Upon the shameful tree
Have paid the law's full price,
And purchased peace for me.
"Thy Cross, not mine, O Christ,
Has borne the awful load
Of sins that none in heaven
Or earth could bear but God."[18]
[18] Bonar, _Hymns of Faith and Hope_ (First Series).
THE TRUTH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
As regards the Person and the Work of the blessed Spirit, great and
general is the oblivion, and manifold are the mistakes. I fear that even
in the best instructed congregations, under the clearest public
teaching, there are all too many who, practically, "have not so much as
heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." [Acts xix. 2.] The belief in His
glorious Personality is faint and vague. The confusion of His Presence
and Power with our "better feelings" is very, very common. The solemn
questions which the Scripture bids us put to ourselves, [Rom. viii.
9.] whether _or not_ we "have the Spirit of Christ"--not merely "a
Christian spirit" in the sense of tone and temper, but the Holy Ghost,
proceeding from the Son, and uniting the true believer to Him--are
little understood, and rarely used upon the man by himself. And the very
thought of such a presence and such a power of the Lord the Life-Giver
as shall "_fill us with_ the Spirit" [Eph. v. 18.] is not yet existent,
I fear, in the minds of many even earnest Christians.
Here are fields, large and fruitful, for the teaching visitor's
cultivation. And so are the other possible subjects indicated above;
such as the claims of the Lord upon our personal consistency in little
things; His solemn call to all His people to be, directly or indirectly,
the evangelists of the world; and the nature of His blessed sacramental
Institutions.
THE TRUTH OF THE SACRAMENTS.
On that last subject it is not my intention to enter at any length. But
a few words I may take this occasion to say, and I will assume that I
am speaking to a younger Brother who in the main agrees with me in what
are commonly called Evangelical Church principles. Let me first then
counsel you to take care that no one shall be able, lawfully, to charge
you with making light of the Sacraments,[19] or with leaving uncertain
your belief as to their divine purpose and function. A ministry which is
silent about them, and indistinct in its teaching on them, cannot in
this respect be fully true to either the Prayer Book or the Bible. Let
your instructions on this great subject, in public and in private, be
definite, reverent, and full of thankfulness and praise for those great
gifts of God. Then on the other hand, do not, if I may speak freely,
while with all respect, think to honour the Sacraments by exaggeration,
by speaking more of them than of that far greater thing, the blessed
Grace of God in Christ, of which they are the "sure _witnesses_ and
effectual _signs_."[20] If I do not mistake, one of the most prevalent
tendencies of current thought in the Church now is the tendency to
invert, in a certain way, the relations between Sacrament and Grace; to
develop a doctrine of the Sacrament such that the doctrine of Grace can
be seen only, as it were, through it. And the result is, very often, so
at least it seems to me to be, a very poor and attenuated presentation
of the glorious things said in Scripture about "the grace of God which
bringeth salvation," [Tit. ii. 11.] and about the work of pure and
simple, but mysteriously mighty, faith in our appropriation of Christ's
merits and our reception of Christ's living power by the Holy Ghost. Let
no such inversion mark your teaching. And if I may give one further
suggestion, I would say, remind yourself frequently of the very words of
the Prayer Book (including the Catechism) and the Articles on these
great subjects. And inform yourself to some extent, at first hand, of
the views of the men who cast our Services and our Articles into their
practically present shape; the views of Cranmer, of Ridley, of Jewell,
and, just after them, of Hooker; not forgetting one great foreign
theologian, Henry Bullinger, who exercised a special influence on the
English divines of Edward and Elizabeth's time in the matter of
sacramental doctrine.[21] You will find in him a full measure of holy
reverence, and at the same time a luminous clearness and definiteness of
exposition. The central idea of his teaching is the idea of the Covenant
Seal, the "instrument" of solemn, valid, legal "conveyance."
[19] I mean of course Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, which _alone_
the Church of England recognizes as Christian Sacraments, _Sacramenta
Evangelica_, "Sacraments of the Gospel" (see Art. xxv., par. 2).
[20] _Certa testimonia, efficacia signa_ (Art. xxv.). It is worth the
while to point out that a "_sign_" is "_effectual_" when it _effectually
does the work of a sign_, not some quite different work. A seal is an
effectual seal, not because, conceivably, its matter could be used as a
powerful medicine, but because, _attached to its document_, it
effectually seals the document's validity. A seal is in this respect a
special sort of "effectual sign." And so are the Sacraments.
[21] See the Parker Society's collection of authors for Bullinger's
_Decades_, or Doctrinal Sermons; officially recognized as a body of
divinity by the Church of England in Elizabeth's reign.
MISTAKES ABOUT CHURCH DOCTRINE.
While on the subject of Church Doctrine, I may go a little further, and
remind you how very likely you are to discover in your rounds many
mistakes about both the doctrine and the government of the Church of
England. I have had considerable experience of such questions in the way
of private pastoral ministry; I have found pious dissenters, or
church-people whom they had influenced, fully persuaded that the Church
of England teaches unconditional regeneration in the hour of Baptism,
that she teaches at least a near approach to Transubstantiation, that
she entrusts to her priests the power of conferring or withholding the
divine forgiveness, and that, officially and in set terms, she
"unchurches" all communities not episcopally organized.[22] It is well
to be quite sure that these beliefs about the Church are mistakes,
provably such, in the light of the Prayer Book and Articles, and of
history. It has been my happiness to bring some such questioners as I
have described to "sincere and conscientious communion with" the Church
of England, in a loyalty which leaves ample room for loving sympathy
with all true Christians. And the chief means has been the production of
proof that the Church herself, as distinguished from particular teachers
and leaders in the Church, does not teach the tenets alleged.
[22] As regards the Scottish and Continental Protestant Churches it is
not too much to say that, with the very rarest exceptions, English
Church writers _of all schools_ regarded them as "Sister Churches of the
Reformation"--_till about 1830_.
DEFECTIVE VIEWS OF SIN.
But to come back to matters more primary than even these; I must remind
my younger Brother that there is, all around him, in the average circles
of even church-going people, a sorrowfully faint insight into the
sinfulness of SIN; into the terrible realities of its _guilt_ before God
(a point too often absent from even earnest modern teaching), and of its
_power_; yes, and into its true _nature_, as it comes out, not in
outbursts of word or deed, or in practices which public opinion
condemns, but in imagination, in desire, in tone. It may surprise us
(when we think how very elementary are the spiritual principles
involved), but I fear it is a fact, that sin is regarded by vast numbers
of church-people (I am not thinking at all of "the lapsed masses" now)
as a matter of little importance if it does not come out in some very
positive form. Multitudes among us are quite insensible to the spiritual
penetration of the law of God, and have never given a thought to the
question of a heart-surrender to His will in everything, and the sin of
merely withholding that surrender.
Then, to take another primary subject of a different class; there is a
wide and general ignorance of the great lines of Christian Evidence, and
a large open door accordingly for the active attacks of shallow, or
subtle, unbelief. Few have ever been taught in any definite way the
supreme significance in this respect of the fact of the Lord's
Resurrection, and its mighty walls of proof; and the reasons for our
belief that the Bible is indeed not of man but of God; the witness of
history to prophecy; and so on.
LET US DROP SEEDS OF TEACHING.
I owe an almost apology for this long talk about subjects of doctrine,
and practice, and evidence. But I have kept all along the purpose of
this chapter in view. I wish to remind my Brethren how very much they
may do, in the course of visitation, to _drop seeds_ of fact, of truth,
of principle, in careful, thoughtful words, the product of private
reading and reflection, called out by some natural occasion.
Undoubtedly, the subjects I have outlined are themes for the pulpit, and
for the Bible class, as well as for the visit. But my feeling is that
the visit gives opportunities quite of its own for didactic work. We
ought to be "natural" everywhere; but we are sometimes suspected, or
imagined, to be less so in public than in private; and besides, in
private we give and take; we are open to question and answer; and this
may give quite special advantage to the word spoken, quietly and
pleasantly, but pointedly, in the pastoral interview.
"PURCHASE THE OPPORTUNITY."
"The priest's lips should keep knowledge." [Mal. ii. 7.] The Clergyman
should be ready everywhere to be the teacher on the great subjects which
he is supposed to make his own. He will never intrude instruction, or
parade it; but he will everywhere be on the watch for the occasion for
it, [Greek: exagorazomenos ton kairon], "purchasing the opportunity,"
[Eph. v. 10.] at the cost of care.
VISITATION OF THE SICK.
And here I may come again to that important branch of visitation, the
visitation of the sick. The Church, as we well know, provides a Form of
Visitation; most helpful and suggestive in its principles and outline
for all. But it is, as you are aware, _imposed_ by the Canon (lxvii.)
only on such Clergymen (very scarce personages) as have no licence to
preach. As a fact, we Presbyters are left to our own discretion in this
sacred part of our work; and that discretion we should seek prayerfully
to cultivate. How different are the circumstances in each one of an
average series of sick-visits! As I write the words, such a series from
my own past days rises up before me; and I transcribe a few
recollections from the book of memory.
A SERIES OF VISITS.
W.S. is a retired tradesman, a thoughtful and rather reticent man;
brought up a Socinian, and professedly such still. I am trying to lay
siege to him, not without merciful tokens of hope from the Lord. And the
simple plan is, not to open the controversy between Socinus and
Scripture, but to arrange that each visit shall have its short Scripture
reading, its friendly talk, and its prayer, all bearing mainly on the
deadliness of sin and the wonder and glory of salvation. I happen to
know that the married daughter of W.S., a very intelligent woman, was
brought from heresy to a divine Saviour's feet by means of a sermon, not
on Christ's Godhead, but on the sinfulness of sin.
T.H. is a sturdy old blacksmith, old enough to have been bred in the
infidel school of Carlile (quite another person than Carlyle), and
steeped in old-fashioned Chartism. He always has the newspaper on his
now helpless knees, never the Bible; but he almost always has some Bible
difficulty ready for me. It is pleasant to be able this afternoon to
show him, holding the page up before his eyes, that his last
stumbling-block is one of his own (or his friends') bold invention. He
meets civility always civilly, and never resents a natural transition
from the last bit of politics to the Gospel. But it is a hard, sad case.
The Lord only knows how the apparently motionless conscience fares.
T.G. is a fine, manly artizan, a coach-painter, scarcely yet in middle
life; lately the somewhat bitter and very self-satisfied critic of his
good and devoted wife's simple faith. I have had rather discouraging
talks with T.G. before to-day; but now he is very ill, and a few Sunday
afternoons ago he sent across the road for the Curate, who to his own
solemn joy found him broken down in unmistakable conviction of sin,
asking what he must do to be saved. It is a blessed thing to visit him
now, for already the rays of the eternal sun are shining between the
clouds of a deeply genuine repentance; and the visitor's task is
plain,--
"To teach him all the mercy, while he shows him all the sin."
Soon it will be my happiness, I hope, to administer to him, as a
penitent believer, with his now happy wife and a faithful friend, the
precious Communion; and I look forward to see him depart in due time in
the peace of God, to be with Christ, for whom already he has learnt to
testify.
Then comes another visit, to one of our "bettermost" neighbours; this
door bears, or ought to bear, the proverbial brass knocker. But be the
door what it may be, there is great need and great mercy inside it. The
dear man, W.T., lately in active professional life in the home
civil-service, is sinking under the most agonizing of human maladies,
and it is very near the close; this is the second visit to-day, in his
urgent need. But, blessed be God, grace, once absent, has found its way
through the terrible obstacle of pain, and his scarcely articulate
utterance--intelligible to his visitor only because now so
familiar--speaks of the joy and rest of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of
the sufferer's longing for the salvation of another soul, a soul very
dear to him.[23]
[23] Wonderful to say (it is to me very wonderful), I have known more
than one bright conversion take place amidst the untold pangs of such an
illness.
Such visits tell upon the heart, and upon the head, and perhaps the
round among the suffering has been long enough to-day. To-morrow we will
try to get a quiet half-hour with W.R., a shopkeeper, sinking in
consumption; a man of no common natural refinement and thoughtfulness,
but long troubled with that sort of scepticism which is generated (who
knows in how many cases?) by the mysteries, not of God's revelation, but
of His providence. For him, too, the visitor's business is to lay a
gentle siege, "here a little, and there a little," trying never to lose
patience with objections and difficulties, but rather to sympathize with
them _as to their pains_, and then to suggest the answer in Jesus
Christ. And oh joy, the Lord is finding the way in, through His Word,
and the clouds are passing away from the man's mind, and soul, and
forehead, as he is getting to "know WHOM he believes."[24]
[24] I possess a beautiful little Bible given me by dear W.R., who has
now been many years with Christ. Such a gift is a very sacred treasure
to a Pastor.
Then we can walk round the corner--how the beloved streets and lanes
rise up in memory before me as I write!--to see J.F., a young printer,
dying in the brightest joy and peace, won from carelessness to a solid
faith by the work and witness of earnest dissenting Christians, but glad
and thankful to receive the Communion of the Lord from his dear Vicar,
or his Vicar's son. And then five minutes' walk takes us to a tiny alley
in the denser part of the widespread parish, where a poor life-long
cripple, W.G., lies day and year upon his _little_ bed--little, because
though the head is full-sized, and the brain within it is an adult
brain, the body has never grown since childhood. Here is a case for
steady sympathy, and also for gentle and steady aiming at instruction as
well as comfort. And then, not far off, we will take the privilege of a
quiet visit to an aged Christian woman, J.N. In long past years loving
saints found her pining in extreme poverty, and sunk in a dull,
despairing indifference. Now it is a great spiritual help to sit in her
little attic beside her, and draw her on to speak (she is no loquacious
person by nature, and needs drawing on) about the needs of the soul, and
the glorious fulness of the Son of God. She is no common Christian; not
only in life but in thought this appears. At the time of her conversion,
she could not read a letter. Since then, she has repeatedly read with
great spiritual insight and enjoyment Archbishop Leighton's Commentary
on St Peter. Here is a room in which the visitor learns quite as much as
he teaches. And so he does in a still smaller and much darker room,
three minutes' distant from J.N.'s. There lies blind R.W., in his strong
days the head-servant of an old farmer of our village, and to all
appearance as little capable of spiritual interests as the animals he
fed. But on his sick-bed, the comfortless couch of many declining years,
a loving visitor, a devoted lady-worker, has found him out, and the Lord
has found him out through her. He never knew A from B in his life, and
never will. But do you want proof of the power of grace to quicken mind,
as well as to convert soul? Come with me up the stairs into dear old
R.W.'s darksome room, and in the course of our talk you shall hear his
quavering voice saying things, quite humbly and naturally, about the
glory of his Saviour, and the way of salvation, and the joy and peace of
his heart in God, which are not only loving ascriptions but clear and
sound divinity. It is good to be with him.
I have spoken mainly, though not only, of cases of warm interest and
encouragement. Of course there are sorrowful and heart-trying visits to
the sick. One such, to poor old T.H., I have described. And we might see
the much older A.C., a woman of near ninety years, who seems
impenetrable to the true light, though grateful and kindly towards the
visitor; and B.F., older still, ninety-six, so vain of her age that it
is difficult to get her off the beloved theme; and J.G., a steady,
self-righteous man; and C.W., clever, and disposed to scoff; and T.B.,
known to be leading a very evil life, civil, but immovable.
RESOLVE TO BE A VISITOR.
The work is very various, very interesting, and full of the call for
"long patience," while full, too, of blessed encouragements and
surprises. But "the time would fail me." Ah, let me not close without
saying to my younger Brother how deeply humbling to me are the memories
of those pastoral days, and humbling above all as I look back and wish
now, in vain for ever, that I had _visited more_, among both the sick
and the whole. "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord"; "To
Thee only it appertaineth to forgive sins."
My dear younger Brother, resolve that by the grace of God you will be a
visitor, whatever else you are, or are not. And be a visitor who
respects his neighbours, who feels with them, whose heart lives with
them, and who on the other hand watches over his call to instruct them,
to clear up and deepen their thoughts of self, and God, and life, and
death, and salvation, and duty, and eternity.
A CONVERSION AT EIGHTY-SIX.
"Go, labour on; spend and be spent." There is a sure reward, seen or not
seen as yet; and often the most unlikely quarter shall prove the quarter
of blessing, and the last shall be first. One recollection, drawn out
of my earliest childhood, shall close this wandering talk. It is of dear
old Mrs E., then aged quite eighty-six. She must have been born under
the rule of King George the Second. A farmer's widow, she had been
absolutely and perfectly respectable all her life, and was entirely
satisfied with her state and her prospects for the next world. My dear
Father, and his devoted Curate of those days, the Rev. W.D., not seldom
saw her, but without leaving any apparent impression on her conscience.
At last that conscience woke. The Curate read a chapter, in her hearing,
to her pious invalid daughter, who had sought her mother's conversion
for years in prayer, and had _lived_ true Christianity all the while in
her mother's home. And on a sudden, something in that chapter (it was
the third of Romans) said to the old lady, "You have lived eighty years
in the world, and never done a single thing for the love of God." The
conviction was tremendous in its depth and quality, and it lasted long.
But a very bright light followed, and shone with holy fulness through
what proved to be several remaining years of beautiful old age. She
rejoiced in her adorable Saviour with joy unspeakable, a joy meanwhile
perfectly sober and full of the good fruits of loving righteousness. She
died at last, singing, or rather musically murmuring, _Rock of
Ages_.[25] And my recollection, across seven-and-forty years, is of that
dear old lady of the past, sitting upright in her parlour, as my Mother
led me in to see her, and wearing a look upon her face which I can only
now describe as a remembered ray of light.
[25] My dear Father, many years ago, published a full narrative of Mrs
E.'s last days, in a little volume of pastoral recollections, _Pardon
and Peace_.
"_I love, I love my Master;
I will not go out free;
For He is my Redeemer,
He paid the price for me._
"_I would not leave His service,
It is so sweet and blest,
And in the weariest moments
He gives the truest rest._"
MISS F.R. HAVERGAL.