'The Highest Himself shall establish her.' - David.
than that? The Heavenly Court itself, out of which Governor God's-
peace had come down, was not better governed than that. Harmony,
quietness, joy, and health. No; the New Jerusalem itself will not
surpass that.
'And this lasted all that summer.'
Chapter 23 - THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH OF MANSOUL, AND MR.
CONSCIENCE ONE 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.
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. 42:5, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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