CHAPTER II.

OF THE CARE OF SOULS APPLIED TO INDIVIDUALS.

§ 1. Introduction-Division of the Subject. Ir is only an absolute impossibility that can justify the pastor in not occupying himself immediately with individuals. If he had the leisure to examine thoroughly the situation and the wants of each one, and to be his pastor as assiduously as he is that of the flock, he ought to do it. Even if each individual might be preached to apart, and directed at leisure, still preaching to the whole flock should have place; of this we have elsewhere given the reasons ;* but it is not the less, on this account, a secondary office for the pastor, and the instruction of individuals remains of the first importance. The pastor, then, as much as possible, must address himself to individuals.

Solicitude for individuals is one of the characteristics of the New Testament and the new ministry. It is very remarkable that the same religion which has founded a Church, and has given to this institution a reality which is almost a personality, has consecrated the individuality of man as a religious being, and put this beyond controversy and beyond attack. This same religion it is, and this alone, that has regard only to individual effects, or makes these the last end of its efforts. The Gospel is addressed, the preacher is sent, not to peoples, to masses, but to all the individuals of which the masses or peoples are composed. If the preachers seek to act on masses, it is with reference to individuals; not that one individual is of more value than a thousand, which is an absurdity, but more than a people, as far as it is a people, * See the Introduction to the Course on Homiletics.

more than a mass as such. It is, then, with individuals that we have to do, less directly in preaching, more immediately in the care of souls, which is without object, without reason when the individual loses his reality, or even his importance. The minister seeks them in worship or in public, only because he is not sure of finding them elsewhere, or because he has things to say which he can speak only to assembled individuals, or, finally, because the public assembly symbolizes equality, the community of interests, the cornmunion of hearts. But so far as he may hope to find them elsewhere, he is to seek them there. This is the first duty, the first form of pastoral ministration; public preaching is only its complement. A friend who, wishing to enjoy a familiar conversation with his friend, is contented to see him in a great company, and who, having some particular thing to say to him, which concerns no one but him, should fuse what was specially applicable to him into a general discourse, would be a singular friend. Now every one needs instruction suitable to himself only, or, at least, he needs to have us appropriate to his particular use, his particular circumstances, that general instruction which he may have received in common with others, but which very often, for want of such care, is lost to him. One after another he passes through different states, internal or external, for which general preaching does not suffice. The pastor knows this; if he can deal with this soul apart, shall he not do it? How can he avoid reflecting that preaching may have prepared the way for a work in this soul-that preaching may complete it if it be once begun, but that the decisive moment, either of the life or of the particular situation, may call for a more minute and more delicate work. And, lastly, with what eye will the whole parish look on a pastor who is a pastor only in the pulpit, who does not, so to speak, descend from the pulpit, and who, though he may know individuals, wishes only to know the mass? As much as pastoral zeal in the care of souls adds

force to preaching, so much does negligence in the pastor enfeeble the preacher.

We have now indicated certain natural, and, so to speak, legal occasions of approaching individuals; there are others which charity induces, and which prudence determines us to improve. They are not wanting to him who desires them. We recommend no.offensive importunity at the same time, it is important that the pastor should assure himself that the solicitude which makes him seek occasion is rarely taken amiss when it is characterized by frankness and simplicity. We now discriminate between individuals. Individuals are distinguished from one another by their external circumstances and by their internal state. We shall give our attention first to circumstances which pertain to the latter.

§ 2. Internal State.

The same tendencies reappear at all periods, and we may affirm that the smallest flock presents all the shades of truth and of error. But the proportion varies, and each period, each place has its character, which results from the predominance of certain elements. Every where there is some excess or some void. Mysticism, antinomianism, legalism, the bondage of the letter, by turns prevail.

However it may be as to this, there are, as concerns the internal state, different classes, which in each flock are more or less numerous.

I. The first is that of decidedly pious persons, who are at a more or less advanced stage in the evangelical life. We do not think that these should be left to themselves, or that advice and direction should be refused them, but we insist that they ought not to be withdrawn from the discipline of God's Spirit. It is important that we do not interfere with-we should rather cherish-their sense of their liberty, their re

sponsibility, and their own privileges. The pastor should beware of permitting himself to be erected into a pope, or even into a director of conscience. He should be the aid of liberty, not its substitute.

These individuals, who form the choice ones of the flock, naturally feel a need of more intimate relations with the pastor, and of more thorough and more minute instruction. As they know more, they see they have more to learn. It would be wrong to have no regard to their case; and the pastor, isolated as he is in his parish, has as much need of them as they have of him. But he can not, in this matter, satisfy entirely them and himself. On the one hand, the pastor is pastor of the whole flock, and, according to the precept of St. Paul (Acts, xxii., 28), must care for the whole flock; on the other hand, he ought, for the sake of the peace and unity of his flock, to be willing to deprive himself, and to deprive them also, of some lawful delights. Not without reflection and caution should he appoint an extra-official service for their sakes especially.* The means of intercourse which pastoral visits, in some parishes, offer, should be preferred. We must not, however, let our measures for the welfare of the multitude carry the appearance of timidity or the fear of man, nor should the pastor dissemble his sympathy for those who are most zealous in serving God.†

All pious men are not pious after the same manner: Almost always one element predominates, and some other suffers. There is always a weak side to be strengthened, with

* No small offense was given, in one instance within the translator's knowledge, by a service intended distinctively for a class supposed to be in a higher state of religious feeling than the rest of the flock. It may be allowable to appoint a service of this description, but this instance gave proof that such a service ought not to be appointed "without reflection and caution."-Transl.

† See the Praktische Bemerkungen of HERNHUTT, p. 103; Gemeinschaft der Erweckten.

VARIOUS CLASSES OF PIOUS PERSONS.

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which we must, in the first place, make ourselves acquainted.

1. To those in whom the principle of faith prevails we must recommend works, by insisting that, whatever changes may have taken place in our disposition and our state toward God, the law remains law; and that we may renounce by our works (Titus, i., 16) the God whom we profess to know, and whom we may know in truth. We must warn them of the snares which our natural man may find in Christian liberty; we must, without taking this liberty away, teach them how to use it prudently, and especially not to despise Christians less advanced or weak in the faith (Rom., xvi., 2), who dare not use their liberty, but whom we ought not, on that account, hastily to regard as strangers to the covenant of grace.

2. To those who, endeavoring to add to their faith virtue (2 Pet., i., 5), are in danger of forgetting in this so necessary industry that the first act of obedience is faith, and the work, par excellence, the work of God (John, vi., 29), is, to believe on Him whom He hath sent-we must show, as open at their side, that abyss of self-righteousness in which true righteousness is lost and disappears.

3. To the scrupulous, the timorous-that the kingdom of God does not consist in meat and drink, but in righteousness, in peace and in joy, through the Holy Spirit (Rom., xiv., 17); and that if we must be always proving anew what is acceptable to the Lord (Eph., v., 10), this useful exercise of conscience and of reason represses anxiety, and should unite with itself a feeling of tranquil trust in that God who, having given us the substantial truth, will certainly not permit an upright and sincere intention to err very seriously.

4. To the superstitious, that is to say, to those who, through a weakness of imagination, or a sort of spiritual sloth, prefer, in inquiring for the will of God, to consult some sign exterior to the conscience, which is the internal sign, we must show that the benefit of faith is to be found, not in our renouncing the natural means of knowing and judging, but in causing