Thomas Chalmers on the Evangelistic Power of a Visiting Minister

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) was a powerful advocate of pastoral visitation (as indeed he was of preaching, which, as the ‘proclamation of the Gospel’, he saw as the minister’s ‘main work’). In his tract On the Right Ecclesiastical Economy of a Large Town¹The article is largely concerned to argue for the ‘parochial’ or parish system under an Established church. Regardless of one’s views on Chalmers’ position on these matters, his recommendations and priorities contain much to challenge and help us today. he sets out the great benefits which attach to pastoral practice which engages persistently with people in their need.

After arguing for the adjustment of pew-rents which could be an impediment to church attendance, especially for the poor, Chalmers proceeds:

‘What are the likelihoods, that, with the church now open to the bulk of the parochial community—but with that community at present in a state of disuse and distance from all the ordinances of the gospel—what are the grounds for believing, that a minister with all his activity and zeal will succeed in reclaiming them? We have already, I trust, made it manifest, that in so far as this glorious achievement depends upon human effort, the likeliest and most productive of these efforts is a habitual forth-going on his part among the habitations of his people. If he go much among them through the week, the unfailing result in time will be, that they shall come much about him on the Sabbath. This is the ligament, and we know not a more important one in the whole mechanism of human society, by which to elevate a degenerate population, and again to place them on that higher moral platform from which they have descended. There is no romance, there is a sober and home-bred reality in all the steps of this operation. On the very first movements of the clergyman, he will meet with the smiles of encouragement and welcome from every quarter of his parish, with a thousand promises of attendance on his church, many of which in the first instance will not be realized; but, with every month of perseverance in the assiduities of his office, he will find a lessening reluctance on the part of his people, and that even the obstinacy of their practical heathenism is not unconquerable. It will at length give way under the power of his sustained and duteous attentions. Providence will open a door for him, even to the most ruthless of the families; and, implicating his presence with the sicknesses and the deaths and the funerals of every household, he will, on the sheer efficacy of his Christian worth, and with no other engine by which to make his way than Christian kindness, obtain an ascendance over the hearts of his people, only to be won by the omnipotence of charity…

…We confess ourselves to be most intensely set on the restoration of the true parochial system in our cities; and that because it bears with such signal effect on the reformation of the common people; that highest object which can be proposed either to the Christian philanthropist or to the patriot. Our hopes we admit to be sanguine; but we believe them to be solidly founded – because resting, under the blessing of Heaven, on the power of Christian truth, when combined with Christian charity: the one spoken Sabbath after Sabbath by the minister from the pulpit; the other brought to bear through the week, in a thousand nameless but most endearing attentions, by the same minister on the families of the parish.

The man who performs his ready visit at every call of distress, and prays at every dying bed, and ministers at every funeral, gracing and dignifying by his presence each group, however humble, of parochial mourners who assemble to carry a neighbour to his grave, in one word, who strikes in on every occasion when human hearts are most alive to the charm of sympathy, and most susceptible of a good and a holy impression from the services of religion, such a man, backed by the sacredness of his character, and having to do at one and the same time both with the feelings and consciences of his people, could not long—if the promises of the gospel and the laws of our nature abide unrepealed—could not long be withstood, even among the most depraved and the most degenerate of families…

Every thing, we are profoundly sensible²By ‘sensible’ here, Chalmers means ‘aware’, depends—under the operation of the divine Spirit—every thing depends upon the minister; and a thousand times more upon his moral and Christian than upon his literary qualifications. If he do succeed, it will be the achievement of principle and not of talent, the triumph of Christian and heaven-born worth, and not the triumph of high or heaven-born genius.

In a word, our confidence is not in great powers, but in great piety; and however desirable, when we can find it, to obtain the union of both. Yet Heaven, we foresee, will put a most impressive mockery on all our hopes, if, trusting to eloquence or general attraction, we shall prefer the man with these pulpit accomplishments alone to recommend him, to him who, plying daily and devotedly at his allotted task, is chiefly known among the families as the best friend of themselves and their children, and venerated by all as a man of faith and of prayer.’

Thomas Chalmers’ On the Right Ecclesiastical Economy of a Large Town can be read in full here.

Further Reading on Thomas Chalmers

More on Pastoral Visitation

• Andrew Roycroft: 15 Reasons Why Visitation is Vital for Your Pastor
• Andrew Roycroft: Deterrents to Pastoral Visitation