OF HER PARISH MINISTERS
'The Highest Himself shall establish her.'--_David_.
The princes of this world establish churches sometimes out of piety and
sometimes out of policy. Sometimes their motive is the good of their
people and the glory of God, and sometimes their sole motive is to
buttress up their own Royal House, and to have a clergy around them on
whom they can count. Prince Emmanuel had His motive, too, in setting up
an establishment in Mansoul. As thus: When this was over, the Prince
sent again for the elders of the town and communed with them about the
ministry that He intended to establish in Mansoul. Such a ministry as
might open to them and might instruct them in the things that did concern
their present and their future state. For, said He to them, of
yourselves, unless you have teachers and guides, you will not be able to
know, and if you do not know, then you cannot do the will of My Father.
At this news, when the elders of Mansoul brought it to the people, the
whole town came running together, and all with one consent implored His
Majesty that He would forthwith establish such a ministry among them as
might teach them both law and judgment, statute and commandment, so that
they might be documented in all good and wholesome things. So He told
them that He would graciously grant their requests and would straightway
establish such a ministry among them.
Now, I will not enter to-night on the abstract benefits of such an
Establishment. I will rather take one of the ministers who was presented
to one of the parishes of Mansoul, and shall thus let you see how that
State Church worked out practically in one of its ministers at any rate.
And the preacher and pastor I shall so take up was neither the best
minister in the town nor the worst; but, while a long way subordinate to
the best, he was also by no means the least. The Reverend Mr. Conscience
was our parish minister's name; his people sometimes called him The
Recorder.
1. Well, then, to begin with, the Rev. Mr. Conscience was a native of
the same town in which his parish church now stood. I am not going to
challenge the wisdom of the patron who appointed his protege to this
particular living; only, I have known very good ministers who never got
over the misfortune of having been settled in the same town in which they
had been born and brought up. Or, rather, their people never got over
it. One excellent minister, especially, I once knew, whose father had
been a working man in the town, and his son had sometimes assisted his
father before he went to college, and even between his college sessions,
and the people he afterwards came to teach could never get over that. It
was not wise in my friend to accept that presentation in the
circumstances, as the event abundantly proved. For, whenever he had to
take his stand in his pulpit or in his pastorate against any of their
evil ways, his people defended themselves and retaliated on him by
reminding him that they knew his father and his mother, and had not
forgotten his own early days. No doubt, in the case of Emmanuel and
Mansoul and its minister, there were counterbalancing considerations and
advantages both to minister and people; but it is not always so; and it
was not so in the case of my unfortunate friend.
Forasmuch, so ran the Prince's presentation paper, as he is a native of
the town of Mansoul, and thus has personal knowledge of all the laws and
customs of the corporation, therefore he, the Prince, presented Mr.
Conscience. That is to say, every man who is to be the minister of a
parish should make his own heart and his own life his first parish. His
own vineyard should be his first knowledge and his first care. And then
out of that and after that he will be able to speak to his people, and to
correct, and counsel, and take care of them. In Thomas Boston's
_Memoirs_ we continually come on entries like this: 'Preached on Ps.
xlii. 5, and mostly on my own account.' And, again, we read in the same
invaluable book for parish ministers, that its author did not wonder to
hear that good had been done by last Sabbath's sermon, because he had
preached it to himself and had got good to himself out of it before he
took it to the pulpit. Boston kept his eye on himself in a way that the
minister of Mansoul himself could not have excelled. Till, not in his
pulpit work only, but in such conventional, commonplace, and monotonous
exercises as his family worship, he so read the Scriptures and so sang
the psalms that his family worship was continually yielding him fruit as
well as his public ministry. As our family worship and our public
ministry will do, too, when we have the eye and the heart and the
conscience that Thomas Boston had. 'I went to hear a preacher,' said
Pascal, 'and I found a man in the pulpit.' Well, the parish minister of
Mansoul was a man, and so was the parish minister of Ettrick. And that
was the reason that the people of Simprin and Ettrick so often thought
that Boston had them in his eye. Good pastor as he was, he could not
have everybody in his eye. But he had himself in his eye, and that let
him into the hearts and the homes of all his people. He was a true man,
and thus a true minister.
2. Both Boston and the minister of Mansoul were well-read men also; so,
indeed, in as many words, their fine biographies assure us. But that is
just another way of saying what has been said about those two ministers
over and over again already. William Law never was a parish minister.
The English Crown of that day would not trust him with a parish. But
what was the everlasting loss of some parish in England has become the
everlasting gain of the whole Church of Christ. Law's enforced seclusion
from outward ministerial activity only set him the more free to that
inward activity which has been such a blessing to so many, and to so many
ministers especially. And as to this of every minister being well read,
that master in Israel says: 'Above all, let me tell you that the book of
books to you is your own heart, in which are written and engraven the
deepest lessons of divine instruction. Learn, therefore, to be deeply
attentive to the presence of God in your own hearts, who is always
speaking, always instructing, always illuminating the heart that is
attentive to Him.' Jonathan Edwards called the poor parish minister of
Ettrick 'a truly great divine.' But Law goes on to say, 'A great divine
is but a cant expression unless it signifies a man greatly advanced in
the divine life. A great divine is one whose own experience and example
are a demonstration of the reality of all the graces and virtues of the
gospel. No divine has any more of the gospel in him than that which
proves itself by the spirit, the actions, and the form of his life: the
rest is but hypocrisy, not divinity.' Let all our parish ministers,
then, give themselves to this kind of reading. Let them all aim at a
doctor's degree in the divinity of their own hearts.
3. We are done at last, and we are done for ever, in Scotland, with
patrons and with presenters; but I daresay our most Free Church people
would be quite willing to surrender their dear-bought franchise if the
old plan could even yet be made to work in all their parishes as it
worked in Mansoul. For not only was the presented minister in this case
a well-read man; he was also, what the best of the Scottish people have
always loved and honoured, a man, as this history testifies, with a
tongue as bravely hung as he had a head filled with judgment. In
Scotland we like our minister to have a tongue bravely hung, even when
that is proved to our own despite. When any minister, parish minister or
other, is seen to tune his pulpit, our respect for him is gone. The
Presbyterian pulpit has been proverbially hard to tune, and it will be an
ill day when it becomes easy. 'Here lies a man who had a brow for every
good cause.' So it was engraven over one of Boston's elders. And so is
it always: like priest, like people in the matter of the hang of the
minister's tongue and in the boldness of the elder's brow.
'Bravely hung' is an ancient and excellent expression which has several
shades of meaning in Bunyan. But in the present instance its meaning is
modified and fixed by judgment. A bravely hung tongue; at the same time
the parish minister of Mansoul's tongue was not a loosely-hung tongue. It
was not a blustering, headlong, scolding, untamed tongue. The pulpit of
Mansoul was tuned with judgment. He who filled that pulpit had a head
filled with judgment. The ground of judgment is knowledge, and the
minister of Mansoul was a man of knowledge. It was his early and ever-
increasing knowledge of himself, and thus of other men; and then it was
his excellent judgment as to the use he was to make of that knowledge; it
was his sound knowledge what to say, when to say it, and how to say
it,--it was all this that decided his Prince to make him the minister of
Mansoul. How excellent and how rare a gift is judgment--judgment in
counsel, judgment in speech, and judgment in action! 'I am very little
serviceable with reference to public management,' writes the parish
minister of Ettrick, 'being exceedingly defective in ecclesiastical
prudence; but the Lord has given me a pulpit gift, not unacceptable: and
who knows what He may do with me in that way?' Who knows, indeed! Now,
there are many parish ministers who have a not unacceptable pulpit gift,
and yet who are not content with that, but are always burying that gift
in the earth and running away from it to attempt a public management in
which they are exceedingly and conspicuously defective. Now, why do they
do that? Is their pulpit and their parish not sphere and opportunity
enough for them? Mine is a small parish, said Boston, but then it is
mine. And a small parish may both rear and occupy a truly great divine.
Let those ministers, then, who are defective in ecclesiastical prudence
not be too much cast down. Ecclesiastical prudence is not in every case
the highest kind of prudence. The presbytery, the synod, and the
assembly are not any minister's first or best sphere. Every minister's
first and best sphere is his parish. And the presbytery is not the end
of the parish. The parish, the pastorate, and the pulpit are the end of
both presbytery and synod and assembly. As for the minister of Mansoul,
he was a well-read man, and also a man of courage to speak out the truth
at every occasion, and he had a tongue as bravely hung as he had a head
filled with judgment.
4. But there was one thing about the parish pulpit of Mansoul that
always overpowered the people. They could not always explain it even to
themselves what it was that sometimes so terrified them, and, sometimes,
again, so enthralled them. They would say sometimes that their minister
was more than a mere man; that he was a prophet and a seer, and that his
Master seemed sometimes to stand and speak again in His servant. And
'seer' was not at all an inappropriate name for their minister, so far as
I can collect out of some remains of his that I have seen and some
testimonies that I have heard. There was something awful and overawing,
something seer-like and supernatural, in the pulpit of Mansoul. Sometimes
the iron chains in which the preacher climbed up into the pulpit, and in
which he both prayed and preached, struck a chill to every heart; and
sometimes the garment of salvation in which he shone carried all their
hearts captive. Some Sabbath mornings they saw it in his face and heard
it in his voice that he had been on his bed in hell all last night; and
then, next Sabbath, those who came back saw him descending into his
pulpit from his throne in heaven.
'Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-page
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thine errand.'
If you think that I am exaggerating and magnifying the parish pulpit of
Mansoul, take this out of the parish records for yourselves. 'And now,'
you will read in one place, 'it was a day gloomy and dark, a day of
clouds and thick darkness with Mansoul. Well, when the Sabbath-day was
come he took for his text that in the prophet Jonah, "They that observe
lying vanities forsake their own mercy." And then there was such power
and authority in that sermon, and such dejection seen in the countenances
of the people that day that the like had seldom been heard or seen. The
people, when the sermon was done, were scarce able to go to their homes,
or to betake themselves to their employments the whole week after. They
were so sermon-smitten that they knew not what to do. For not only did
their preacher show to Mansoul its sin, but he did tremble before them
under the sense of his own, still crying out as he preached, Unhappy man
that I am! that I, a preacher, should have lived so senselessly and so
sottishly in my parish, and be one of the foremost in its transgressions!
With these things he also charged all the lords and gentry of Mansoul to
the almost distracting of them.' It was Sabbaths like that that made the
people of Mansoul call their minister a seer.
5. And, then, there was another thing that I do not know how better to
describe than by calling it the true catholicity, the true humility, and
the true hospitality of the man. It is true he had no choice in the
matter, for in setting up a standing ministry in Mansoul Emmanuel had
done so with this reservation and addition. We have His very words. 'Not
that you are to have your ministers alone,' He said. 'For my four
captains, they can, if need be, and if they be required, not only
privately inform, but publicly preach both good and wholesome doctrine,
that, if heeded, will do thee good in the end.' Which, again, reminds me
of what Oliver Cromwell wrote to the Honourable Colonel Hacker at
Peebles. 'These: I was not satisfied with your last speech to me about
Empson, that he was a better preacher than fighter--or words to that
effect. Truly, I think that he that prays and preaches best will fight
best. I know nothing that will give like courage and confidence as the
knowledge of God in Christ will. I pray you to receive Captain Empson
lovingly.'
6. The standing ministry in Mansoul was endowed also; but I cannot
imagine what the court of teinds would make of the instrument of
endowment. As it has been handed down to us, that old ecclesiastical
instrument reads more like a lesson in the parish minister's class for
the study of Mysticism than a writing for a learned lord to adjudicate
upon. Here is the Order of Council: 'Therefore I, thy Prince, give thee,
My servant, leave and licence to go when thou wilt to My fountain, My
conduit, and there to drink freely of the blood of My grape, for My
conduit doth always run wine. Thus doing, thou shalt drive from thine
heart all foul, gross, and hurtful humours. It will also lighten thine
eyes, and it will strengthen thy memory for the reception and the keeping
of all that My Father's noble secretary will teach thee.' Thus the
Prince did put Mr. Conscience into the place and office of a minister to
Mansoul, and the chosen and presented man did thankfully accept thereof.
(1) Now, there are at least three lessons taught us here. There is, to
begin with, a lesson to all those congregations who are about to choose a
minister. Let all those congregations, then, who have had devolved on
them the powers of the old patrons,--let them make their election on the
same principles that the Prince of Mansoul patronised. Let them choose a
probationer who, young though he must be, has the making of a seer in
him. Let them listen for the future seer in his most stammering prayers.
Somewhere, even in one service, his conscience will make itself heard, if
he has a conscience. Rather remain ten years vacant than call a minister
who has no conscience. The parish minister of Mansoul sometimes seemed
to be all conscience, and it was this that made his head so full of
judgment, his tongue so full of a brave boldness, and his heart so full
of holy love. Your minister may be an anointed bishop, he may be a
gowned and hooded doctor, he may be a king's chaplain, he may be the
minister of the largest and the richest and the most learned parish in
the city, but, unless he strikes terror and pain into your conscience
every Sabbath, unless he makes you tremble every Sabbath under the eye
and the hand of God, he is no true minister to you. As Goodwin says, he
is a wooden cannon. As Leighton says, he is a mountebank for a minister.
(2) The second lesson is to all those who are politically enfranchised,
and who hold a vote for a member of Parliament. Now, crowds of
candidates and their canvassers will before long be at your door
besieging it and begging you for your vote for or against an Established
church. Well, before Parliament is dissolved, and the canvass commences,
look you well into your own heart and ask yourself whether or no the
Church of Christ has yet been established there. Ask if Jesus Christ,
the Head of the Church, has yet set up His throne there, in your heart.
Ask your conscience if His laws are recognised and obeyed there. Ask
also if His blood has been sprinkled there, and since when. And, if not,
then it needs no seer to tell you what sacrilege, what profanity it is
for you to touch the ark of God: to speak, or to vote, or to lift a
finger either for or against any church whatsoever. Intrude your wilful
ignorance and your wicked passions anywhere else. March up boldly and
vote defiantly on questions of State that you never read a sober line
about, and are as ignorant about as you are of Hebrew; but beware of
touching by a thousand miles the things for which the Son of God laid
down His life. Thrust yourself in, if you must, anywhere else, but do
not thrust yourself and your brutish stupidity and your fiendish tempers
into the things of the house of God. Let all parish ministers take for
their text that day 2 Samuel vi. 6, 7:--And when they came to Nachon's
threshing-floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took
hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled
against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died
by the ark of God.
(3) There is a third lesson here, but it is a lesson for ministers, and
I shall take it home to myself.