Moule On Pastoral Life and Work

Moule On Pastoral Life and Work

Moule On Pastoral Life and Work is an Anglican help on the ministry and life of the minister.

Moule On Pastoral Life and Work is an Anglican help on the ministry and life of the minister.





Moule 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
[Pg iv]
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
[Pg v]
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.

[Pg vi]
“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.
[Pg vii]

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.[Pgviii] 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[Pgix] 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.

[Pg x]
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.
[Pg xi]

CONTENTS of Moule On Pastoral Life and Work

CHAPTER I. THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD

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[Pg xii]

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 their claims on us—Manner—Temper—Simeon’s patience—The Secret of the Presence
79

CHAPTER V. THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS (ii.).

“Take heed unto thyself”—Relations with Woman—Christian chivalry—And Christian caution—Special[Pgxiii] difficulties—”Know thyself”—Celibacy—The Clergyman’s Wife—The problem of means—The Clergyman and money—Pecuniary intemperance—Accurate accounts—Investment circulars—”Lay not up for yourselves”
101

CHAPTER VI. THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS (iii.).

Curate and Incumbent—A Chancellor on Curates—The ideal Incumbent—No Incumbent perfect—And no parish perfectly content—Loyal watchfulness needed accordingly—The Curate’s Party—”The lost grace, humility”—Subordination—Take sides against yourself—A letter to The Record on Curates’ grievances.
123

CHAPTER VII. PASTOR IN PARISH (i.).

A boundless subject—Visiting—All-important—Prepare for the round with prayer—Method—Brevity but not hurry—An example—Courtesy—It must be impartial—Visitation of the sick—Its special demands—Punctuality always a duty—Use of the Bible—The advantage of coming as “the Clergyman”—Mistaken for the undertaker—Come to the point—Lying in wait for the occasion—Happy rebukes to timid reticence
147

CHAPTER VIII. PASTOR IN PARISH (ii.).

Teach as you go—Urgent need of teaching—About Christ—And the Holy Spirit—And Sacraments—Common mistakes about the teaching of the Church—Sin—Evidences—Recollections[Pgxiv] of a visiting round—The retired tradesman—The sceptical blacksmith—The invalid artizan—The civil-servant—The consumptive—The dying printer—The cripple—Aged poor saints—Saddening visits—Humbling memories—A bright conversion at eighty-two
173



CHAPTER IX. THE CLERGYMAN AND THE PRAYER BOOK.

“As bad as inspired”—Imperfections in the Book—Yet it is priceless—Spirituality of the Prayer Book—What it takes for granted in the worshipper—A remarkable reason for secession—The Prayer Book as a weapon—Its Scripturality—Its compilers jealous for the Word of God—Ministerial use of the Prayer Book—Put yourself into it—We are not to preach the prayers—Yet we are to pray them—Reading of the Lessons—Baptism—Marriage—Burial—The Holy Communion—Reverence—Of what sort—Instruction-addresses on the Prayer Book—”Less worship”
201

CHAPTER X.  PREACHING (i.).

The Pulpit a central point in the Ministry—Mutual influence of “parish-work” and preaching—”Truth through personality”—Let us “labour in the Word”—”Litho Sermons”—Addison’s village-parson and his sermons—Attractive preaching—Is a duty—Audibility—Of the right sort—Good English—Why to be cultivated—Mr Spurgeon’s style—French hearers of an English preacher—Good effects on his style—”Written or extempore?”—Length—Action
225[Pg xv]

CHAPTER XI. PREACHING (ii.). Further remarks on Attractiveness—And, in passing, on Ministerial Considerateness—This is to be practised in preaching—As well as in other functions—Attractiveness to be guarded by Faithfulness—Requisites to attractiveness—”Preach the Gospel earnestly, interestingly, fully”—Jesus Christ is the Gospel—Personal conviction the essence of Earnestness—”Matter-of-Fact”—Interest sustained by anecdote and illustration—But still more by intelligibility and practicality—Expository sermons—Fulness in the message—Jesus Christ for us—And in us—The Holy Spirit must work with the Word
249

CHAPTER XII.  PREACHING (iii.).

Notes from a Sermon-Lecture—On diction, arrangement, fidelity to the text, proportion of parts, accuracy—On statements about revelation, justification, faith, grace—A paper in The Churchman on Old Sermons—Be a preacher indeed, whatever be the fashion of the time—The Directory of 1645—Its instructions on “the Preaching of the Word”—Spiritual Power in Preaching—How sought and received—Farewell
273

Fordington Pulpit
301[Pg xvi]

“What contradictions meet
In Ministers’ employ!
It is a bitter sweet,
A sorrow full of joy;
No other post affords a place
For equal honour or disgrace”
Olney Hymns.
“The Interpreter had Christian into a private Room, and bid his Man open a Door; the which when he had done, Christian saw a Picture of a very grave Person hang up against the Wall, and this was the fashion of it: It had eyes lift up to Heaven, the best of Books was in its hand, the Law of Truth was written upon its lips, the World was behind his back; it stood as if it Pleaded with Men, and a Crown of gold did hang over its head.”
Pilgrim’s Progress.

Transcriber’s Note:
1. Obvious misspellings and printing errors have been corrected.
2. Archaic word spellings have been retained.
3. List of books by the same author has been moved from the beginning to the end of the book.
4. Footnotes have been placed immediately following the paragraphs in which they are noted.
5. Notation for Footnote 4, which is missing in the original, has been supplied.
6. A word that is missing at the beginning of Footnote 8 has been supplied as (I).
7. Capitalized headings within chapters are running page headers.
8. Running page headers which are designated by * reflect subject matter that occurs within paragraphs in the original and are broken into paragraphs for the purpose of better readability in this document.
9. Scripture references (e.g., Mal. 2.1; Acts xx. 19; 2 Tim. 1.12; etc.) which appear as sidenotes in the original are placed within [ ] and immediately follow the quoted scripture or statement pertaining to scripture to which they refer.
10. Redundant book heading and redundant chapter headings have been omitted.
[Pg iii]

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