IS THE CHURCH IN A LAODICEAN STATE ?

A DISCUSSION, not HELD AT THE CLERICAL SOCIETY.

No. I.

Pensive. No, I was not at your last meeting; for, to tell you the truth, I have felt more grieved than profited by our last two or three meetings, and had scarcely heart to encounter another. Sanguine.-Why, what was the matter? I felt very differently; in fact, I left our recent meetings much pleased, and with a positive exhilaration of spirits.

P. Well, I thought I saw such a feeling; but it saddened me. It seemed to me to be inconsistent with the present state of the Church. I should have been better pleased if we had all resolved to go immediately and often to the Throne of Grace, pleading for a thorough awakening of the Church out of her present Laodicean state.

S. Laodicean state? What possesses you? Your nerves must have had some shock lately, or your health must be getting out of order. What brings you to take such a gloomy view of things?

P. Ñay, you need not look to me or my health, for the reason of the saddened view which I have taken. Open your Bible, and see what is the main charge brought against the Laodicean Church. Is it not, "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing"? A state of self-satisfaction,-the absence of the feeling of want, of poverty, of nakedness,-these were the features which made the case of Laodicea the worst of all the seven. And when I find myself in a Christian society in which there is much rubbing of hands, and congratulation, and mutual compliment, I am immediately driven back upon the words,-"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing."

S. You are in a melancholy mood to-day. Surely God is doing great things in the Church and in the earth just now; and hence it is natural that, when Christian men meet, there should be praise given to Him for His wonderful works.

P. Were that all, I should not object; but I hear little of this and much more of "Because I am rich and increased with goods." Yet the other words of the apostle seem to me to be more truly descriptive of the state of the Church :— "and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

S. Surely you would not apply this language to the present state of the Evangelical portion of the Church of England!

P. Not hastily, or unreservedly; but I sincerely fear that much of it justly applies to the actual state of large sections of that Church.

S. Do you mean, to the Evangelical clergy and their flocks, forming part of the Church of England?

P. I really do. You may think me uncharitable, or nervous, or unthankful; but I must plainly say, that these words of the apostle to the Laodicean Church are always ringing in my ears, and I cannot help feeling that, in some degree at least, they are applicable to the state of things which exists in the Church of England,-aye, even in the best portions of it.

8. Well, you may call me blind, or presumptuous, but I must take a very opposite view. That we are really "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," is hardly, I think to be, said with any regard for truth. But opinion against opinion can prove nothing. If we are to do each other any good in this conversation, I must ask you to explain yourself a little more, and to supply also some proofs and some particulars of the perilous condition into which you suppose the Church to have fallen.

P. That will require some thought, and some trouble; not because of the paucity of proofs, but because of their abundance. How shall we arrange them? Perhaps we had better take notice, first, of the state of the clergy; next, of the state of their people; and thirdly, of the character of the preaching which is current among them.

S. Well, that arrangement will be a simple and natural one. But when you speak of "the state of the clergy," let me ask, into what sort of particulars do you mean to enter?

P. The text which I have already quoted seems to point this out. Self-satisfaction, a condition of ease and comfort, a resting contented with things as they are-this was the charge brought against the Laodicean Church; and my fear is, that it may be brought with truth against many, perhaps against most, of ourselves.

S. Well, that is your view. Now, please to furnish a few particulars.

"Love not

P. Shall I begin with outward circumstances? the world, neither the things which are in the world," said the Apostle. He went on to add, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." And is it not evident, that when Satan can, he persecutes the children of God; but whenever this is no longer possible, then he flies to

the other extreme? When a violent storm will not tear away the pilgrim's cloak, he brings the warm sun to bear, so as to induce him to cast it off. Or, as one of our poets has said:

"For Satan's now grown wiser than before;

And tempts by making rich, not making poor."

S. But how does all this apply to our own day?

P. I believe that there never was a time when the clergy, as a body, and the Evangelical clergy, as a portion of that body, were so generally "well off," to use a common phrase. Parents who have made money have chosen the Church as a respectable profession for their children: young men of good talents, becoming clergymen, have so frequently married girls of fortune, that, in the present day, though there are still many poor men in the Church, the contrary seems to me to be more commonly the case.

S. I can hardly accept that as a fact beyond question. Surely you must see, almost every week that passes, some advertisement imploring aid for "the destitute family of a deceased clergyman." In a single large parish near London, I have known two subscriptions of this kind within the last five years.

P. I am well aware of the existence of much poverty among the clergy, and do not mean to deny or pass over that fact; but still I believe that men of independent means are far more numerous among them than was the case fifty years ago. Looking round me, and conning over my own acquaintance, I see dozens of men who could hardly maintain their position and do their duty, if they had not other means than those which the Church provides them.

S. Granting this to be partly true, is it not a happy circumstance, when a clergyman can be raised above all miserable pecuniary anxieties, and can treat his people with a feeling of entire independence?

P. I admit that there is something to be said on both sides, here; but the fact of which I have spoken remains true. And this independence has its perils as well as its advantages. A man who is frequently a guest at the tables of the wealthy and the noble, and who can entertain the wealthy and noble at his own, becomes a different sort of man from the Scotts and Newtons of the last generation. Hannibal's soldiers, suffering cold and hardship and privation, were unconquerable. They found Capua a pleasant and agreeable place; but when next they had to meet their enemies, they were not the same men. From a cold and comfortless and solitary lodging, many an emulator of Scott and Newton has gone forth, rejoicing to kneel by the bedside of the dying

Christian, or to hold up the Cross of Christ before the eyes of the expiring penitent. But when the well-carpeted room, the luxurious sofa, the blazing fire, and the refined and delicate wife, have taken the place of the cold and bare second-floor lodging, then the sallying forth into the rain to spend an hour in a close and unwholesome garret or cellar, seems quite another thing. I met, the other day, with a sarcastic portrait of a young clergyman, in a periodical of the High Church school, which it cannot do us any harm to ponder over. It is more salutary to be told of our faults by an enemy, than to listen to nothing but encomiums from too-partial friends. Here is the passage I have alluded to :

"Your flash evangelical young clergyman was merely a gay fellow at the University; he married a young lady of rank, piety, and wealth, falls in with her mode, and is presented by a body of trustees to the first vacancy which occurs in an influential church which they have purchased. To do him justice, he announces a good deal; he institutes or reforms several schools, a district-visiting society, a Thursday evening lecture, three school-room lectures, and other means of usefulness. He gives his money, his time, and his lungs, without sparing. There are, however, one or two trifling drawbacks to his usefulness, which do not tell much now, but will tell bye-andbye. Neither he nor his lady can bear the old parsonage; so they get leave somehow, we know not how, to live an uncommonly long mile out of the town. He chooses an elegant mansion in the Elizabethan style, built by a great lace-manufacturer, who did not leave his place to his children. Here he plants out the view of the town with deep lines of laurels, and raised banks of American shrubs. This place he means to be the opportunity of ease and retirement, if he should require it. From this sweet retreat he is generally seen issuing about noon towards the town. There for two or three hours he is found walking about, conferring with various members of the parochial staff, and seemingly very busy. By three o'clock he is emeritus for the day, and far away from the smoke of his parish. This is the period of his activity; we will not proceed onward to the season of disappointinent and languor; nor say how long the peculiarities of earth, air, or water allow the lady, and consequently her husband, to reside on or near to the living."

The same (perhaps ill-natured) censor illustrates his case by one or two other instances. He says,

"A poor youth, in a small and poor household, is taken suddenly and dangerously ill, and wishes to see the clergyman. The poor mother runs about for half an hour to find some one to fetch him. At last she gets a messenger, for sixpence, to run a good mile up-hill to Chesnut-place, where the curate lives, for the incumbent is out of the question. In about an hour the messenger returns with the tidings that the curate cannot come down at present, but will in the evening, if he can. In the morning the youth is dead or insensible."

"The head of a large house in the City of London, whose ware

houses extended into three parishes, had a young assistant who was suddenly seized with illness. He earnestly wished to see a clergyman; but not one of the three could be found. The nearest lived somewhere in the Regent's Park."

S. Well, I could not be unaware that untoward circumstaces of this kind will sometimes occur. But what is the practical inference you would draw from such facts?

P. It is somewhat of this kind. I perceive among the clergy generally, and among many of the laity also, a great and avowed desire that every clergyman, be he zealous or indolent, should be placed "in comfortable circumstances:"should be "lapped in luxury," and surrounded with everything that can make life desirable. Now I very much suspect that Satan entirely sympathizes with them in this feeling. I believe that he would like best to harry every faithful minister off the face of the earth; but, if unable to do that, he would next wish to surround such men with ease and comfort, as the surest way to lull them into slumber, and even to bring into peril their own souls. I fear that Bunyan's "Enchanted Ground" is somewhere about this part of our pilgrimage.

S. But I do not yet see what you are driving at. You can hardly mean to bring us to the practical inference, that no clergyman should have more than his daily bread.

P. If this was the conclusion to which I was trying to bring you, I should not be very far from the Apostle's counsel:"Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." But pray remember that I did not set out with any claim or pretence to lay down rules or laws for my brethren. I merely looked with sadness and fearfulness on tho present state of the Church. I did not profess to be able to prescribe a remedy.

S. Well; but all teaching ought to have some practical aim; and therefore I want to understand to what conclusion you would fain bring us.

P. I remind you, again, of the point from which we started. My one only assertion was, that the Church was, I feared, falling into a Laodicean, self-satisfied state. If I could make out this position, the call on the Church would be plain, to "examine themselves and turn unto the Lord." But it would scarcely rest upon me as a duty, not only to detect disease, but also to supply a remedy. I think we are on or near the Enchanted Ground." I fear that the Lord has sent, or suffered Satan to send, a "spirit of slumber" upon us. And, in seeking for the visible and tangible causes of this mischief, one which strikes the eye at once, is the growing tendency, both among clergy and laity, to a sensuous kind of worship and religion,