pastoral theology or the theory of the evangelical ministry
- Author: alexandre rodolphe vinet
- Genre: Clergy
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART FIRST. INDIVIDUAL AND INTERNAL LIFE. I Assume a holy vocation and a regular entrance, a pastoral and even a zealous spirit. The pastor, even as the Christian, must fortify, must confirm his vocation (fic.6a.iav noieiodal, 2 Pet., i., 10). In this there is a mystery, the profound,- invisible concurrence of the human will which is excited with the Divine will which excites it. It is with vocation as with conversion. In one sense, we are called but once, as we are converted but once; in another sense, we are called and converted every day. Analogy here should suffice, and even be an a fortiori argument; but the Gospel is explicit: St. Paul says to Timothy, " I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee."2 Tim., i., 6. I dismiss the question whether there are not many whom it concerns to make to themselves a call, while they are already engaged in the work. The exercise of the ministry, will not this of itself suffice for the confirmation of the call ?It should contribute to it, but it may also have the opposite effect. The exercise of the ministry endangers the spirit of the ministry, if it be not sustained from within. If there be not this balance, if the internal does not exert itself sufficiently on the external, the external injures the internal, as the internal no doubt would fail without external action. There is danger that functionmay become a substitute for feeling. Our first impressions have in them much of imagination; when this is once exhausted, and without further aid from it we are made dependent for feeling on the heart and the conscience, it is much to be feared that we shall have too little feeling.t We must not depend on the vivacity of our first impressions ; that which affects us most to-day will leave us ...
letters of spiritual counsel and guidance
- Author: Keble John
- Genre: Clergy
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: stars in the sky, it seems so good that your dear Sister was allowed those quiet months at , where she was probably able to adorn herself for this time, more tranquilly than she could well have done elsewhere. We shall try and pray for her as you desire: no harm to do so, if she should have gone into another room. Yr most affecte, J.K. LETTER XIX. On THE EVILS RESULTING FROM DlSUSE OF CON- FESSION In The English Church. Another reason for my being a worse correspondent than usual, is that somehow or another the Parish takes up more and more time; as one gets more acquainted with the people, more and more things occur which make me think a visit worth while. This is a reason for which I ought to be very thankful, though it is sad to think, after all, how very little one knows of one's people. We go on working in the dark, and in the dark it will be, until the rule of systematic Confession is revived in our Church. This is one of the things which make persons like Mr. Gladstone, however competent in most respects, yet on the whole incompetent judges of the realworking of our English system. They do not, they cannot, unless they were tried as we are, form an adequate notion, how absolutely we are in our parishes like people whose lantern has blown out, and who are feeling their way, and continually stepping in puddles and splotches of mud, which they think are dry stones. Then the tradition which goes by the name of Justification by Faith, and which in reality means that one who has sinned, and is sorry for it, is as if he had not sinned, blights and benumbs one in every limb, in trying to make people aware of their real state. These are the sort of things, and not the want of handsome Churches, and respect for Church Authority, and such like compar...
