"So what are you doing here?" The role of the minister of the gospel in hospital visitation, or a theological cure for the crisis in evangelical pastoral care

The design of James was no other than to commend the grace of God which the faithful might then enjoy, lest the benefit of it should be lost through contempt or neglect.

For this purpose he ordered the presbyters to be sent for, but the use of the anointing must have been confined to the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Papists boast mightily of this passage, when they seek to pass off their extreme unction. But how different their corruption is from the ancient ordinance mentioned by James I will not at present undertake to shew. Let readers learn this from my Institutes. I will only say this, that this passage is wickedly and ignorantly perverted; when extreme unction is established by it, and is called a sacrament, to be perpetually observed in the Church. I indeed allow that it was used as a sacrament by the disciples of Christ, (for I cannot agree with those who think that it was medicine;) but as the reality of this sign continued only for a time in the Church, the symbol also must have been only for a time. And it is quite evident, that nothing is more absurd than to call that a sacrament which is void and does not really present to us that which it signifies. That the gift of healing was temporary, all are constrained to allow, and events clearly prove: then the sign of it ought not to be deemed perpetual. It hence follows, that they who at this day set anointing among the sacraments, are not the true followers, but the apes of the Apostles, except they restore the effect produced by it, which God has taken away from the world for more than fourteen hundred years. So we have no dispute, whether anointing was once a sacrament; but whether it has been given to be so perpetually. This latter we deny, because it is evident that the thing signified has long ago ceased.

27 I would also urge the reading of Eugene Peterson's works on pastoral theology, particularly Five Smooth Stones for the Ministry (Atlanta: John Knox, 1980), Under the Unpredictable Plant (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), and Working the Angles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987).

28 Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Religion (cited from http://www.ccel.org/t/taylor/holy_dying/holy_dying.htm accessed March 4, 2003; originally published 1650). See also the 1989 Oxford University Press edition edited by P. G. Standwood.

29 Thornton, Pastoral Theology: A Reorientation 270.

30 Ibid. 259.

31 John R. Stott, Preacher's Portrait in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964).

33 For example: "As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day" (Ezek 34:12); "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them" (John 10:11, 12); "I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own" (John 10:14); "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd" (John 10:16); "Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant" (Heb 13:20); "For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls" (1 Pet 2:25); "and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away" (1 Pet 5:4); "for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Rev 7:17).