Now, the great point of inquiry here is, are these inferences fairly drawn? Do the exhortations quoted really include so much by fair interpretation, or by clear implication? Does the analogy between the office of a christian minister, and that of an overseer, a shepherd, or a watchman, hold to such an extent as this? Does it fairly lead to this conclusion, that the duties of the office cannot be fulfilled without this personal inspection, visiting every house, and inquiring into the state of every individual under our care?

That these exhortations do require most evidently, and that these titles do imply most clearly, that the ministers of Christ are diligently, constantly, faithfully, and closely to attend to the state of the people over whom they are placed, that they are to observe and to understand their condition, so as to make a suitable provision for their wants; to feed the church of God; that they are to watch over them so as to be awake to every danger to which they may stand exposed; to give suitable, solemn, faithful warning; and habitually to watch for the promotion of their spiritual welfare; all this we think must be fully admitted. Ministerial duty is evidently something more than studying a sermon or two weekly, preaching them before the people, and then having no further intercourse with them, and paying no further attention to their state. But while it goes much further than this, we are apprehensive that it does not go so far as this system of pastoral visitation would require.

If a minister is generally resident amongst his charge; if he is ever ready to attend to all cases that seem to require his aid; if the inquiring, the anxious, the distressed, engage his particular attention; if, at all suitable seasons, he will meet such, to administer to their state, or if he is ever accessible to them when they need his help; if he is studying habitually for the benefit of his flock; if he is endeavouring to present the rich, the ample, the various truths of divine revelation before them in their mutual connection and relative importance, that he may be as a workman needing not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, giving to every one a portion of meat in due season; if he meet them for social exercises of prayer and christian intercourse at appointed periods, and is ever watchful for their good, then, we appreliend, it may be justly considered that he is attending to all that is demanded in the precepts given, and to all that by analogy is fairly drawn from the terms by which his office is designated in the word of God. Then he is taking heed to all the flock, directing an observant eye over the whole, and is in an especial manner attending to any case that demands his particular regard; then he is feeding the flock of God with the food of heavenly truth; then he is watching for souls as one that must give an account, without visiting his people from house to house. Then, as a shepherd, he collects his flock together at certain times, he observes their general state, and any particular cases of wandering, disease, or danger, he selects and attends to. Then, as a bishop or overseer, he looks over the whole; and whatever requires his special attention, he is there ready to render his aid. And we think that more solid, real, permanent good will be the result of his labours in this way, than if he spent a large portion of

his time in going from house to house by a system of pastoral visitation; because this practice must deprive him of much of that time which is necessary for the improvement of his own mind, that he may be increasingly fitted for the discharge of the duties to which he is called, to enter into the word of truth, and to bring forth from that sacred treasury things new and old, so as to continue to interest and improve the people amongst whom he labours by his public ministrations. If what has been stated is considered to go to the extent of what the word of God contains on the subject, then we are brought to the conclusion, that it is not a necessary part of a minister's duty to visit his people from house to house.

But there is one passage that we would not pass over; viz. a passage contained in Paul's address to the elders of the church at Ephesus, referring to his own conduct while he was with them, which has been brought forward as presenting an example for the imitation of ministers in general, as if it was obligatory on them to conform in this point to the conduct of the apostle. His language is: "I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and taught you publicly, and from house to house." It appears from this that it was the practice of the apostle, while he resided at Ephesus, not only to preach in public assemblies, but also to visit them at their own houses; further, to instruct them in things of God; and by the adoption of this means the interests of religion would, no doubt, prosper to a much greater degree under such a minister as Paul, so remarkably endowed with gifts and graces.

But then the difference between the circumstances of Paul and those of the ordinary ministers of the gospel, must be taken into the account before we decide how far his practice, in this respect, is to be imitated by us. He was divinely inspired, and miraculously qualified for his work, and therefore did not require those aids which the ordinary ministers of the gospel need to fit them for public engagements. He might give up the largest portion of his time to such visits and such efforts, and yet never be unfitted for dispensing the truths of the gospel in an interesting and useful manner to those to whom he ministered in public; while, if an uninspired minister was to do the same, if his powers of mind were not of an extraordinary kind, his public discourses must soon be of the most meagre and miserably uninteresting character. If a person has a mind capable of doing this, and yet at the same time of keeping up the interest of his public discourses, then it may be suitable for him, in some measure, to imitate the conduct of the apostle; but as this cannot be supposed to be generally the case, the practice of the apostle here cannot be a model for general imitation.

There are some individuals occasionally appear in the church of Christ, who are able to do a great deal in the way of personal inspection and pastoral visitation, and yet maintain the usefulness of their public labours. Such an instance was Baxter himself, whose mind never seemed to tire, whose spirituality and devotedness appeared to suffer no decline, and who had powers of thought and a fulness of information ever ready to promote the improvement of

others, both in public and in private. But, then, this is not the rule, but the exception; and, consequently, what he did is not a rule to apply to all the servants of Christ. The multitude of books which he wrote might almost as well be made a rule for the authorship of others, as the multitude of visits that he paid be made a rule for the visitations of others. There can be no doubt but that great good would result from the pastoral visits of such a man, conducted in such a manner as he himself describes; but it appears to us questionable whether he does not ascribe too large an amount of that good, which he was the instrument of effecting in Kiddermin ster, to his pastoral visiting; and whether it was not far more to be ascribed to his peculiarly powerful and impressive preaching. Ac cording to his plan of going round to all the families in the parish, he could only visit the same house once in the year, while most of the members of those families were probably hearing his public discoures every Sabbath in the year; so that the far greater degree of good, we conceive, is to be ascribed to his public labours, and the divine blessing attending his faithful ministry.

This appears to us to correspond with the divine appointment. that the public preaching of the gospel should be the great means, above every other, for the conversion of sinners unto God, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. It is the "preaching of the cross that is the power of God unto salvation." "By the foolishness of preaching God saves them that believe."

Though every other pious, well-meant endeavour to promote the salvation of men by any other private means, may be attended with a divine blessing, and may prove extensively useful as auxiliaries in advancing the cause of Christ, yet the great means appears to be the public preaching of the word of God. Consequently, if this is correct, the first object with the ministers of Christ should be, that their public preaching may be conducted in the most useful manner; and whatever plan would tend to impair the efficiency of their public labours, must be considered as improper, as neither their duty to pursue, nor the interest of the church to require. And we believe that where one, such as Baxter, has pursued the plan of pastoral visitation without injury to his public labours, hundreds have been injured, and have been rendered comparatively, if not altogether, inefficient as ministers of the gospel of Christ in their great duty of preaching the word. Where this plan is attempted. unless there is an eminent degree of devotedness on the part of the minister, so that he never loses sight of the great end at which he is to aim; and unless there is a considerable degree of readiness on the part of the people to fall in with his aim, to promote their spiritual improvement, by conversing with them on their state and prospects godward; unless this is the case, pastoral visiting is likely to degenerate into mere idle chit-chat, or to be nothing better than a system of religious gossipping.

In a paper, written by the late Mr. Fuller of Kettering, when he had been engaged nearly forty years in the work, there is an observa tion of this kind: "That from a disposition to live a life of ease and indolence, (if life it may be called,) many ministers have got

into the habit of spending a large part of every week in gossipping from house to house, not promoting the spiritual good of the people, but merely indulging themselves in idle talk. I might add (he observes) that it is from this disposition and practice that a large portion of the scandals amongst ministers have arisen." It is evident that visits conducted by a minister of the gospel, in such a manner, if carried on to any great extent, must have such a pernicious influence, as rather to counteract than to aid the design of his public labours.

Unless pastoral visits can be really of a pastoral character, for the promotion of the spiritual welfare of the people, and agreeable to the spiritual nature of the ministerial office; if they are only to be calls of common friendship and civility, trifling ceremony, idle gossip, or foolish jocularity; the less they become general the better, for instead of this kind of pastoral visiting being the duty of a minister of Christ, we may conclude, without hesitation, that carried to any extent it would be a sin. The waste of time that it occasions, which might be employed in the improvement of the mind and in preparation for more public usefulness, is not the least of the evils connected with such a system. And yet this is the kind of visiting which many of the hearers of the gospel wish for from their pastors!

Those hearers who complain the most of their ministers not visiting them, would wish for it the least in many cases; if they expected their minister would come to inquire into their spiritual state and prospects, to point out their deficiencies, to administer reproof for their sins, faithfully to press their duty home upon their consciences, to see how their families are trained, and to examine them on the things of God-many would rather be excused from their minister visiting them in this manner in his character as a pastor, to attend to their spiritual condition. There are some indeed in most congregations who desire the assistance of their minister amidst the perplexities they feel and the dangers to which they are exposed, and would like to open their mind in private conversation with him, that they may obtain his help in the things of God. But such But such persons are generally willing for such a purpose to wait on the minister upon whose instructions they attend; or they will find that he is ready to wait on them, as soon as he knows that they want him for such an object.

Visits to the afflicted, and to those under any peculiar trial, are clearly incumbent upon the minister of Christ; for as it is a part of pure and undefiled religion to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, as well as to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, those who are employed in teaching this religion to others must exemplify this as well as other duties of it in their own practice. And as the afflicted are directed to send for the elders of the church that they may pray over them, so those elders or pastors must ever stand ready to obey such a call, and to attend without delay to such

cases.

In a large congregation there may be many afflicted persons, visits to whom will occupy some considerable portion of a minister's time.

But there he has his errand with him, and his work before him; the circumstances at once call him to that kind of conversation, and to those exercises which correspond with his character and work as a minister of Christ; and at such seasons pastoral visits may be the means, suitably conducted, of conferring the greatest benefits on those that are favoured with them.

From the whole we appear to be conducted to the conclusion, that visiting a people from house to house is not a ministerial duty;— that it is not enjoined upon ministers in the word of God;-that it is not clearly implied in the representations given of their character and office in the scriptures;-that it is not incumbent on them from the example of inspired ministers of the gospel ;-that were it attended to extensively by ordinary pastors, it would impair the efficiency of their public ministrations; that consequently the former should give way to the latter ;-and where it is pursued in a trifling manner, more harm than good is the necessary result. May He who has given pastors and teachers to his church, afford his special guidance and blessing, so that they may be increasingly useful in the great work of turning sinners to the Saviour, and leading on his saints in faith and holiness, that He in all may be glorified in all his churches, and by all his ministering servants.

T. C. A.

E

ESSAYS ON THE BOOK OF JOB.

No. VI.

BY THE REV. RALPH WARDLAW, D.D., GLASGOW.

We have formerly considered two of the four things enumerated as contained in the first chapter of this Book,-namely, 1. The character, property, and domestic circumstances of Job:-2. The charge brought against him by Satan, and the permission granted by Jehovah to put that charge to the proof.

In our present paper we shall offer some observations on the other two-the first series of the patriarch's trials—and his behaviour under them.

III. The brief narrative of the first series of his trials is contained in verses 13-19, to which the reader is referred.-The facts themselves are familiar to every reader of the Bible, and in themselves stand in need of but little explanation. They include the destruction, by successive calamities, of all his property, and all his family.

On one of those days of social festivity, when he was experiencing the solicitude of a pious father respecting the behaviour of his sons, as before noticed on verse 5, there comes to him a messenger, breathless with the eagerness of haste, as the bearer of important, and, from his look and manner, evidently of no pleasant intelligence: The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them; and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I