To My Younger Brethren Part 10

"_I would not leave His service, It is so sweet and blest, And in the weariest moments He gives the truest rest._"

MISS F.R. HAVERGAL.

CHAPTER IX.

_THE CLERGYMAN AND THE PRAYER BOOK._

_Dear pages of ancestral prayer, Illumined all with Scripture gold, In you we seem the faith to share Of saints and seers of old.

Whene'er in wors.h.i.+p's blissful hour The Pastor lends your heart a voice, Let his own spirit feel your power, And answer, and rejoice._

In the present chapter I deal a little with the spirit and work of the Clergyman in his ministration of the ordered Services of the Church, reserving the work of the Pulpit for later treatment.

THE PRAYER BOOK NOT PERFECT BUT INESTIMABLE.

Let me begin by a brief reminder of the greatness of the spiritual treasure which we possess in the Book by which we minister. How shall I speak of it as I would? "The Prayer Book isn't inspired, I know," said an old coast-guardsman some years ago to a friend of mine, "but, sure and certain, _'tis as bad as inspired_!" "I find the Liturgy," said another veteran, Charles Simeon, "as superior to all modern compositions as the work of a philosopher on any deep subject is to that of a schoolboy who understands scarcely anything about it." "All that the Church of England needs to make her the glory of all Churches," said Simeon's friend, the late Rev. William Marsh, "is the spirit of her own services."

I am not so blind as to maintain that our Book is ideally perfect, and that its every sentence is infallible. It is not quite literally "as bad as inspired." After using it in ministration for nearly five-and-twenty years I own to the wish that here and there the wording, or the arrangement, or the rubrical direction, had been otherwise in some detail, perhaps in some important detail. I do certainly wish very earnestly indeed that the Revisers of 1661-2 had expressed themselves more happily in that Rubric about "Ornaments" which within recent years has proved--little as they expected it, or intended it, to do so--such a fertile field of discord. But for all this, my five-and-twenty years'

ministerial use of the Prayer Book has only deepened my sense of its inestimable general value and greatness.

If a temperate and equitable revision were possible at the present time I should welcome the prospect on most accounts. But it seems to me plain that it is _not_ at present possible. And meanwhile I thank G.o.d from my inmost heart for the actual Prayer Book as a whole.

Let me point out a very few of the claims of the Book on our love and grat.i.tude; and now specially in view of what we may sometimes hear said about it by Christians not of our own Church.

i. Observe its profound and searching _spirituality_. It is quite true that in a certain sense the Book takes all who use it for granted; it a.s.sumes them to be wors.h.i.+ppers in spirit and in truth; it does not pray for them, or lead them in public wors.h.i.+p to pray for themselves, as for those who do not know and love G.o.d, who have not come to Christ. But then what form of public, common prayer can well do this? And meantime the Book does, especially in the service of the Communion, and particularly in that too often omitted part of it, the "longer Exhortation," beginning _Dearly beloved in the Lord_, throw the wors.h.i.+pper back upon himself for self-examination. This is just the method of St Paul in his addresses to the Christian community. He writes to all as "saints," "faithful," "elect," "sanctified." What does he mean? Does he mean that those glorious terms are satisfied by the fact that all have been baptized, or even that all are communicants at the sacred Table? Not at all. He takes all for granted as being what they profess to be, when he greets the community. [Rom. viii. 9; 1 Cor.

xvi. 22; 2 Cor. xiii. 5; Gal. v. 6.] But he says also, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His"; "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema"; "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you--except ye be [Greek: adokimoi], counterfeits?" "In Jesus Christ neither circ.u.mcision availeth anything, nor uncirc.u.mcision, but faith which worketh by love." Such sentences throw a flood of holy and searching light on the sense in which St Paul "took them all for granted." And the Prayer Book is in true harmony with both parts of the Apostle's method.

WHAT IT TAKES FOR GRANTED IN THE WORs.h.i.+PPER.

And then, think what the Book _does_ thus searchingly and helpfully "take for granted." It a.s.sumes a deep sense of sin, such a sense as is indeed "grievous unto us." It takes for granted our deep desire both for pardon and for spiritual victory. It a.s.sumes our desire to be "kept this day without sin"; to "follow the only G.o.d with pure hearts and minds"; to "be continually given to all good works"; to "be enabled by the Lord to live according to His will"; to have "all our doings ordered by His governance"; to have "such love to Him poured into our hearts that we may love Him above all things." It a.s.sumes our desire to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest all the Holy Scriptures." It a.s.sumes our readiness to "suffer on earth for the testimony of the truth, looking up steadfastly to heaven, and by faith beholding the glory that shall be revealed." It a.s.sumes our adoring devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ, and that we present "ourselves, our souls and bodies, a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice," to our G.o.d.

I heard a few years ago of a remarkable case of secession from the Church of England. A thoughtful and conscientious man left us because, as he said, he could no longer seem to concur in such words of intense spiritual reality and surrender _while he did not fully mean them_. On his principles, I fear there ought to be a large exodus from our Church.

But that is not the fault of the Church, or of the Church's Book. It is the fault of the wors.h.i.+ppers, and it is a solemn call to us not so much to criticize the Liturgy as to "examine _ourselves_."

THE PRAYER BOOK AS A WEAPON.

In this connexion I am reminded of a characteristic saying of an honoured friend of mine, now at rest with the Lord after a long and faithful ministry. He was one of those men who instinctively speak strongly, perhaps sometimes roughly; but such roughness is often useful.

"The Prayer Book," said he, "is always handy to throw at people's heads"; figuratively, of course, not literally. He slung it out in vigorous quotations from his pulpit, point blank at the unreality, and formalism, and pharisaism, and love of this present evil world, which too often underlies the most precise "churchmans.h.i.+p" and the most punctual church-going.

My old friend's strong word may carry a suggestion to some of my younger Brethren; though I would advise their deferring a _projectile_ use of the Book till they are seniors in the Church. But the youngest Minister of Christ, in all loving modesty, may reach many a conscience (beginning with his own) by well-timed words from the Prayer Book, showing what the Book takes for granted in the wors.h.i.+pper.

SCRIPTURALITY OF THE BOOK.

ii. Next I point to the abundant and loyal _Scripturality_ of the Prayer Book. I venture to say that no Service Book in the world is quite like ours in this. This characteristic lies on the surface; in the wealth of Scripture poured out in every service before the people; Psalms, Lessons, Canticles, Epistle, Gospel, Introductory Sentences, Decalogue, Comfortable Words. At the Font, in the Marriage Ordinance, at the Grave, it is still the same; Scripture, in our mother tongue, full and free, runs everywhere. And below the surface it is the same. Take almost any set of responses, or any single prayer, and see the strong warp of the Bible in it all.

*"THE PREFACE" ON THE BIBLE.

And then go for a moment from the Services to the Preface of the Book, and see what the Fathers of our English Liturgy thought and intended about the place of the Holy Scriptures in wors.h.i.+p. I hope my Brethren have all read that "Preface" with care; I mean, of course, the whole length of introductory matter which precedes the Tables of Lessons; nothing of it later than 1662, most of it (indeed all but the first section, written by Sanderson) dating in substance from 1549.[26] I hope it has all been read by you; but I am not quite certain of it, so little attention is at present called to those important and authoritative statements of principle. But however well you may already know them, they will repay another reading; and so you will be reminded again that the really first thought in the minds of the men who gave us our Prayer Book in English was to let "_the Word of G.o.d_ have free course and be glorified" in all the wors.h.i.+p of the people. [2 Thess. iii. 1.] Those men were learned in the past, and they reverenced history and continuity. But they reverenced still more the heavenly Word, and where they found the ample reading and hearing of it impeded by even immemorial usage, the usage had to give way, without reserve, to the Bible.

[26] I do not forget that some modifications in detail, as to the Lectionary, are quite recent.

Yes, the Prayer Book is, whatever else it is, searchingly, overflowingly Scriptural; full of the Bible, full of Christ. Let us drink its principles and its manner in, that they may come out in our life and our preaching.

And now for a few simple practical suggestions on our ministerial use of the Book.

USE THE BOOK WITH DILIGENCE.

i. First, I would entreat my younger Brother to resolve in the Lord's name that his own use of the Prayer Book in his ministration be to him a thing of sacred importance and personal reality. We _need_ to form such a resolve deliberately, and to watch and pray over it. Do we not know what strong temptations lie in the other direction? We have to use these forms over and over again; before many years are over perhaps we could "take" a whole service, except the appointed Scriptures, without looking at the book: is it not too easy under such conditions to read as those who read not, and to pray as those who pray not? And all too often the Clergyman, younger or older, allows himself almost consciously, almost on principle, to form an inadequate estimate of his Prayer-Book work.

Perhaps he regards the prayers as in such a sense "the voice of the Church" that he is willing to be little more than a machine through which the Church offers them. Or perhaps on the other hand he lets himself forget their immense importance, under a strong, and just, sense of the sacred importance of the Sermon. He is alive and awake in the pulpit, and seeks his Lord's presence there, and realizes it as sought; but in the desk--he goes by himself, and much of his precious time there is spent in thought which wanders to the ends of the earth while his voice does its decent but somnambulatory part alone.

*USE IT WITH LIVING REALITY.

I can only appeal with all my heart to my younger Brother not to let it be thus with him. And the only effective recipe against the trouble is faith, exercised in prayer and watching, with a full recollection of the urgent importance of the matter. For indeed it _is_ all-important that the servant of G.o.d should be "given wholly to" his work, at the reading desk, at the lectern, at the Table, at the Font.

PRAY THE PRAYERS.

It is easy to say, as it is often said, that we "must not preach the prayers," must not obtrude our personality in leading the devotions of the congregation; that our part is to be regular and audible, and otherwise to "efface ourselves." Most certainly we ought not to _preach_ the prayers, in public any more than in private. But then, we ought to _pray_ them. Most certainly we ought not to obtrude our personality upon the thought of the wors.h.i.+ppers. But then, we ought to serve them with our personality, and we can best do this, surely, by a spirit and a manner which is unmistakably that of the fellow-wors.h.i.+pper, who feels _himself_ to be in the presence of the King, and knows that the pet.i.tions and the promises are for him at least a holy reality. I am perfectly well aware that it is not _easy_ to steer between a more or less mechanical manner and a demonstrative one, and that perhaps of two evils the former is the less. But I am sure it is _possible_ to steer the right line, by using sanctified common-sense, and asking for a little candid counsel from those who hear us, and above all by being what we seek to seem--true wors.h.i.+ppers, spiritually awake and humbly reverent.

As long as man is man, so long will the law of sympathy hold good. And by that law it is certain that the way to promote, so far as we can, a spirit and tone of true wors.h.i.+p in our people is to possess--and to show--that spirit ourselves, as we lead, and also join, their wors.h.i.+p.

Never declaim the prayers, but always pray them, from the soul and with the voice.

"GIVE ATTENDANCE TO THE READING" OF THE LESSONS.

ii. I spoke just now of what we should do at the lectern. Let me earnestly press upon my Brethren the great duty of rightly reading the Lessons. Do you want to carry out the will and purpose of the Church of England? As we have seen, that purpose is above everything to glorify the Word of G.o.d. See then that the Lesson, as read by you, is as audible, as intelligible, as impressive as you can make it. Take care beforehand that you understand its points, its arguments, its emphasis.

Take counsel with yourself, and perhaps with others, about ways and means for bringing these things out in your public reading. Remember that for very many of your people (I fear I am right in saying so) the Church Lessons are the most solid pieces of Scripture they ever hear, or ever read. Many years ago it was not uncommonly said that in "these days of universal reading" we might perhaps abbreviate our Church Lessons. But since that time it has been more fully and sadly realized, by very many of us at least, that universal reading does not mean universal Bible reading by any means, but much rather universal newspaper and novel reading. The heavenly Book is _terribly unfamiliar_ to mult.i.tudes of churchgoers, as you will find, if you ask, when you go about your parish; of this we have already thought. Therefore, make all you can of the reading of the Lessons in public wors.h.i.+p. [Greek: Proseche te anagnosei], says the Apostle to Timothy, "Give attention to the reading" [1 Tim. iv. 13.]; does he not mean, be diligent in reading the Scripture to the people? The precept is as much as ever in point in our day.

OPPORTUNITIES OFFERED BY THE OCCASIONAL SERVICES.

iii. As regards the occasional services, Public and Private Baptism, Marriage, Burial, I would earnestly counsel my Brother to put personality into his reading in them all, in the moderate sense indicated above. The fact that such occasions are necessarily more or less _special_ in their interest for some at least of those present should never be forgotten; bring the power of a sympathetic interest and earnestness to bear upon it. In administering Public Baptism I have often realized this to a very peculiar degree. Who can feel the least fondness for little children, and have the slightest insight into a parent's heart, and not do so? Our service is undoubtedly long; very long indeed when accompanied by a chorus of perhaps several little crying voices. But let the servant of G.o.d "be in it," and he will find himself much more touched than troubled by the babies' lamentations as he speaks to the sponsors about the young helpless souls, and turns to the Lord of all grace to dedicate them to Him and to invoke His blessing on them for time and eternity, and then applies the watery Seal of all the promises to their small foreheads. I have always found it very hard to get through that service with a perfectly steady voice; and after all, why should we be so careful to do so?

_Private_ Baptism is indeed a special occasion. There are reasons, no doubt, why it must not be too readily administered; in some parishes parents, for one reason or another, too often try to secure "a christening" in private, on insufficient grounds, with no intention of a public dedication afterwards. But when the case is clear, and you are at the little suffering one's side, perhaps with a distressed mother close beside it and you, see to it that you so minister the rite, so read the few precious words, as both to sympathize and to teach. Let me add that Private Baptism often brings the Clergyman into a house where religion is utterly neglected; and the opportunity may be a priceless one, if the power of love and spiritual reality is with you in the work.

And when you officiate at a Wedding, different as the conditions are from those just remembered, still do not forget that for at least some there present the hour is a deeply moving one. And is not the Marriage Service a n.o.ble one to read, to interpret, with its peculiar mingling of immemorial and archaic simplicity with a searching depth of scriptural exhortation, and a bright wealth of divine benedictions? Throw the power of a true man's solemnized sympathy into your reading of that service.

PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH THE USE OF THE BURIAL SERVICE.

Of the ritual of the Grave I hardly need to speak. I know only too well that there are funerals and funerals. There are occasions of unrelieved sadness. There are occasions when the Minister's heart is chilled by a manifest and utter indifference. But the saddest, dreariest of burials is an opportunity for the Lord. Whether or no you see your way to give an address, let it be seen that you are dealing with G.o.d in the prayers, and read the Lessons "as one that pleadeth with men."

A brief word in pa.s.sing on the problem raised by some of the phrases of our Burial Service. Let me call attention to the studied generality of the words, _In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life_. Before 1662 this ran "in sure ... hope _of resurrection_, etc.,"

which, as you will observe, expressly applied the "hope" to _that_ case of burial; the change was evidently made on purpose to relieve conscience in the matter. Then remember that the whole service is constructed, like all our services, for the member of the Christian community taken on his profession; and that a.s.sumption, unless flagrant facts withstand it, is to be made, in public ordinance, as much at the grave as elsewhere. And do not forget that _hope_, be it ever so "trembling," is _never_ forbidden at a grave-side. I am no advocate of what is called "the larger hope"; I dare not be. But I am deeply convinced that mercies of the Lord, in cases quite beyond our possible knowledge, are experienced in the very act of departure.

"Betwixt the stirrup and the ground Mercy I sought, mercy I found."