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where only it can be placed, on a political footing. This question of patronage is a thorny one at present. It is at this time convulsing both church and state in Scotland; and bids fair to end either in a separation of the two, or in a second and extensive secession. It is a remarkable fact, and has all the aspect of a signal intimation of Divine Providence, that no sooner had Mr. M'Neile's predecessor in the lectures on Establishments returned to his own country, than he found himself engaged (and is still engaged) in a course of action which practically unsays every word that he had uttered.

All the evils enumerated by Mr. M'Neile in his sixth lecture, (p. 106,) as arising from an inefficient ministry, and many more, may be deplored, and deplored in vain, under the existing system of patronage; which, were there no practical and tangible evils belonging to it, must have the curse of heaven appended to it, involving as it does the merchandize of souls in the buying and selling of advowsons, presentations, &c. PHILALETHES.

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE INQUIRY, WHETHER IT IS THE DUTY OF MINISTERS TO VISIT THEIR PEOPLE FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE.

TO THE EDITOR.

DEAR SIR, AS you have inserted in your magazine for December, remarks from two correspondents, in answer to the essay on Pastoral Visiting, which appeared in your number for October, you will not refuse to admit a few observations in reply.

I. My first observation will relate to the design with which that essay was prepared. As your correspondent, who signs himself "One of the Flock," has indulged in some suppositions on this point, it may not be deemed improper just to state the circumstances under which the paper was composed and printed. A small number of ministers who reside a few miles from each other in a certain district of the country, are in the habit of meeting once in two months, with a view to their wutual improvement. At these meetings an essay is read by one of the number on a subject previously appointed; and a free and friendly discussion takes place.

The subject of "Pastoral Visiting" had for a long time appeared to them to require some investigation. On a recent occasion, the writer engaged to furnish some remarks on the question, Whether it was the duty of ministers to visit their people from house to house? When he undertook it he knew not exactly to what result the examination might lead. When his remarks were read, those who heard them joined in an unanimous request that they might be sent for insertion to the Congre

gational Magazine. They were not written with any intention that they should go beyond the small circle to which they were first presented; but deference to the opinions of his brethren induced the writer to comply with their request. And on his own behalf, and on behalf of those to whose request he yielded, he thinks that he can most fully state, that it was not designed "to lower the standard of duty," "to loosen the bonds of obligation," or merely "to relieve the minds of those who do not practically attend to this as a duty, from some considerable uneasiness about the matter." We trust that we have at least so deep a sense of the responsibility attached to our office, as to prevent us from making light of any of its claims, or treating with indifference any part of the will of our Great Master. We are anxious not to be misunderstood; we do not wish to bring down the standard of ministerial attainment, or to lessen the weight of ministerial duty; we wish them to be kept up to the full requirements of heavenly truth. But it was considered by us to be a legitimate subject of inquiry, whether the expectations of our churches, as to pastoral visiting, are well founded? and whether our practice as ministers, might not be brought nearer to the inspired records on this matter? Either to pursue it with the attention that it demands, if it is a duty, or to let other engagements take the place which this has occupied, if it is not found to be binding upon With all seriousness we endeavoured to investigate this point. II. The next observation will relate to the scriptural grounds on which the subject was examined.

us.

Previously to any question as to whether it should appear to us practicable or impracticable, necessary or unnecessary, attended with advantages or disadvantages, it was felt to be important to go at once to the fountain of truth, the great standard of faith and practice, and to ask, "What saith the Scriptures ?"

Especially did this appear to be requisite, in reference to the duties of an office, about which we could know nothing as to its institution, qualifications, or requirements, but from the sacred records. If it could be found to be really presented as a duty essentially connected with the ministerial office by the will of Him who gave pastors and teachers to His church for the work of the ministry, then it must be binding on the consciences of all who are invested with this office; and that, whether this was clearly made manifest by express precept, or by fair implication, or by plain analogy. And if it is not made known there, no other considerations can make it really imperative.

"To the law, and to the testimony," is our motto.

In pursuing the examination, no express precept could be found on the subject. Though the language of your correspondent, J. C. G., conveys a doubt as to the truth of this statement, yet as he has not produced a single express precept on the subject, we must conclude that he failed to find one.

We then considered whether it could be sustained as a duty by implication or analogy. Here, I must confess, that it was with great surprise that I read the following inquiries by your respected correspondent :"Is nothing," he asks, "clearly obligatory, but what is distinctly enjoined in the Word of God? Was it absolutely necessary for the Divine Spirit to specify, in minute detail, every separate exercise of the ministry?" I supposed that he must have entirely overlooked that part of the essay on which he animadverts, where it is expressly stated, "that some duties are plainly implied which are not clearly enjoined; that some things are sustained by analogy which are not expressly commanded;" and that part of it where we professed carefully to examine whether the duty of pastoral visiting from house to house could be sustained on this ground. We pointed out some duties that we considered might be maintained in that way, to some of which J. C. G. refers, and wishes to know how they can be proved to be duties "by explicit statements of Scripture, which clearly and unequivocally enjoin them?" When we had stated that they were to be drawn from the principles of Scripture, in relation to the ministerial office, were clearly implied, or could be fairly sustained by analogy; while that implication and analogy failed to conduct us to the extent of a regular pastoral visitation of all the members of the flock, or requiring us to visit from house to house.

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J. C. G. observes, "that as it is members of Christian churches generally whom the apostle exhorts to edify one another;' 'to admonish one another;' to warn the unruly;' comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all;' we must regard them as involving an obligation upon Christians, as such, to visit from house to house. It is," he states, "as clearly the duty of members to pay such visits, as it is that of the pastor." On this statement we make two remarks: first, in this paragraph your correspondent has given it up at once as a pastoral duty, or as any thing belonging peculiarly and distinctly to the pastoral office; and secondly, we think that it is evident, that Christians in their appointed seasons for social prayer and religious communion, and in their occasional intercourse with each other, may edify and admonish one another, without having all the members of a Christian community engaged in a regular system of visiting one another from house to house.

But our inquiry relates to this one point :-Is it particularly incumbent on ministers, as such? Does it belong more especially to their office, as Christian pastors, to visit their people from house to house?

With this point in view, we will here present some of the precepts of the word addressed to them, and some of its principal statements in relation to their office and their duties. The minister is spoken of by Christ himself as a scribe who is to be well instructed in the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, that he may be like unto a householder who bringeth forth out of his treasures things new and old." He is to be as

"a faithful and wise steward, whom his lord should make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season." In the language of his inspired servants, ministers are exhorted "to take heed unto themselves, and all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood." " To be examples to the believers in word, in conversation, charity, spirit, faith, purity." "To give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine." "To neglect not the gift that is in them." "To meditate on those things, to give themselves wholly to them, that their profiting may appear unto all." "To take heed unto themselves, and unto the doctrine, that in so doing they may both save themselves and those that hear them." "To study to show themselves approved unto God; workmen needing not to be ashamed; rightly dividing the word of truth." "To preach the word; being instant in season, out of season; reproving, rebuking, exhorting, with all longsuffering, and doctrine." "To watch in all things, to endure afflictions, to do the work of an evangelist, to make full proof of his ministry." We are told that "a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, nor given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men; sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." That as elders, they are "to feed the flock of God, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but as being ensamples to the flock."

Here we request the reader to take a careful review of these instructions from the word of God: and we ask, Is it not worthy of particular observation, that amidst all the full, minute, and plain directions here given, where all that relates to the character, qualifications, and duties of ministers, seems to have been designedly specified, there is no injunction, and no clear intimation that it belongs to their office, or is a necessary part of their work, as ministers, to visit their people from house to house?

We ask, whether there is any statement here, which, when taken in its fair import, according to the evident meaning of language, and the connexion in which it appears, that does present this as an essential duty of ministers, as such? We ask, whether there is any analogy here instituted, as when ministers are compared to "stewards,"

* Matt. xiii. 52; Luke xii. 42; Acts xx. 28; 1 Tim. iv. 12-16; 2 Tim. ii. 15, iv. 2, 3, 5; Titus i. 7-9; 1 Peter, v. 2, 3.

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"scribes,' pastors," &c., which does teach us that they are to visit all their flock?

Your correspondents both state that it appears to them to be required in some passages, but they do not particularise any, nor show their bearing upon the point. Now, if the duties which the Scripture enjoins upon us, or which may be fairly drawn from its statements, can be as well discharged without going from house to house, as with that plan, while many of them may be more efficiently performed without it, then it will follow that it is not amongst the duties essential to the ministerial office, according to the revealed will of Him by whom it was instituted.

The one Scripture precedent which is mentioned in the case of the apostle Paul at Ephesus, where he says, "he taught them publicly, and from house to house," both your correspondents have referred to. In addition to the remarks made in the former paper, we shall only quote here a few sentences from the late Dr. Mason, of New York, on this passage. He says, "that to prove that apostolic example establishes a precedent for imitation, we must be sure that the circumstances to which it is applied are similar. There are two things in which the state of the churches now differs materially from their state in primitive times. In the first place, they had inspired teachers, who could spend the whole week in exhorting, confirming, and consoling their converts, without infringing on their preparation for the Lord's day. Our situation is quite different; close and habitual study are necessary for us; and if we cannot get time to attend to it, our ministrations grow uninteresting, and our congregations lean.

"In the next place, the primitive churches never permitted themselves to suffer for want of labourers: our economical plan is, to make one pastor do the work which was anciently done by three or four; and the very natural consequence follows-the work is badly done, or the workman is sacrificed. If we were to visit as much as our people are good enough to wish, and unreasonable enough to expect, we should not have an hour left for our proper business; we could make no progress in the knowledge of the Scriptures; and not one would be able to preach a sermon worthy of a sensible man's hearing."

Having failed to find any thing in the word of God to bind it upon us as a ministerial duty, we shall now briefly notice two or three other considerations which are brought forward on this subject.

III. Our next observation will relate to what your correspondent calls, its practicability. This, J. C. G. endeavours to prove, stating the time that might be occupied, and the numbers that might be visited. That it is possible to go to as many houses, and to spend just so much time in each house, as to pay nine hundred visits in the year, may be all true.

But that this can be done so as to answer any valuable pur

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