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قراءة كتاب To My Younger Brethren Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work
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To My Younger Brethren Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work
TO MY YOUNGER
BRETHREN
CHAPTERS ON PASTORAL LIFE AND WORK
BY THE RIGHT REV.
HANDLEY C.G. MOULE, D.D.
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM
FOURTH EDITION
LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
1902
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
TO
MY DEAR BROTHER AND VICAR,
THE REV. JOHN BARTON, M.A.,
INCUMBENT OF TRINITY CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE,
AND RURAL DEAN,
AND TO MY DEAR BROTHERS AND FRIENDS,
THE PRESENT AND PAST STUDENTS
OF RIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE,
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
H.C.G.M.
"Give those who teach pure hearts and wise,
Faith, hope, and love, all warm'd by prayer;
Themselves first training for the skies
They best will raise their people there."
Armstrong.
PREFACE.
The following pages do not appear to need any extended preface; their topic is set forth in the first lines of the first chapter. With what success it has been handled is another matter.
But as a writer reviews his own words, it is inevitable that some sort of envoi should present itself to his mind. In this case the envoi seems to me to be the vital necessity of personal holiness in the Christian Minister, in order to the right working of the Christian Ministry; a personal holiness which shall be no mere form moulded from without but a life developed into manifestation and action from within.
Never did the Church of Christ more need to remember this than at the present day. The strongest surface currents of the age are against it; alike that of unregulated, hurrying, indiscriminate enterprize, and that of an exaggerated ecclesiasticism. In the one case the worker's communion with God tends to be sacrificed to the work, the fountain choked for the sake of the stream. In the other case there is a serious risk that "the Church" may come to be regarded as an almost substitute for the Lord in matters affecting the life and growth of the Christian man, and of course of the Christian Minister. Sacred are the claims of order and cohesion, but more sacred and more vital still is the call to the individual constituent of the community to come to the living Personal Christ, "nothing between," and to abide in innermost intercourse with Him, and to draw every hour by faith on His great grace.
If these simple pages may at all, in His most merciful hands, promote the holy cause of such a hidden life and its fruitful issues, it will indeed be happiness to the writer. In these days of stifling materialism in philosophy, and withering naturalism in theology, but in which also the Holy Spirit, far and wide, is breathing upon us in special mercy from above, there is no duty more pressing on the Christian than to seek, in the world of work, after that life which is "lived in the flesh by faith in the Son of God," and which is manifested in the strong and patient "meekness of wisdom."
Ridley Hall, Cambridge,
April 22nd, 1892.
Servant of God, be fill'd
With Jesu's love alone;
Upon a sure foundation build,
On Christ the corner-stone;
By faith in Him abide,
Rejoicing with His saints;
To Him with confidence, when tried,
Make known all thy complaints."
Moravian Hymn-book.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER I. | |||
| THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD | |||
| page | |||
| Need of watching and prayer over three departments of a Minister's life—The secret department—Temptations in it from work—From solitude—Secret Devotion—The Morning Watch—Physical precautions—Evening hours—A Minister's prayers must sometimes forget the Ministry—This will be to the advantage of the Ministry—"Tell Him all" | 1 | ||
| CHAPTER II. | |||
| THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD (ii.). | |||
| Secret intercourse with God the life of a Minister's life—The Example of Jesus Christ—Testimony of von Machtholf—Special need of divine communion at the present day—The cry for effort and enterprize—Secularizing theories of religion and the Ministry—A call to young English Clergymen—A caution from Laodicea—Study of the Holy Scriptures—"The New Testament about twice a week"—What says the Ordinal?—M. Henri Lasserre on Devotional Literature and the Gospels—Study the Bible unprofessionally—Bridges' quotation from Witsius—Ridley in the Orchard | 21 | ||
| CHAPTER III. | |||
| SECRET STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. | |||
| A fragmentary chapter—Higher Criticism—A technical and innocent term—Actual assertions of certain critics—"Do not follow this Book; follow Christ"—Weigh facts before theories—Testimony of Nature and History to Scripture—The Duke of Argyll in the Nineteenth Century—Prediction—Problem of the Human Knowledge of Jesus Christ—Current fulfilments of Prophecy—Methods of Bible Study—The plough—The spade—Specimen of spade-husbandry, in a Church Congress Study of the Epistle to the Philippians | 45 | ||
| CHAPTER IV. | |||
| THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS (i.). | |||
| Secret Communion with God must accompany everything else—We are watched—Self-respect—Consistency largely means Considerateness—"A consistent gentleman"—The Tongue—St Augustine's couplet for the dinner-table—The Clergy-House, its opportunities and risks—The duty of Example—Is it remembered as it used to be?—"For their sakes I sanctify Myself"—"Others" and | |||