THE

PASTOR'S ASSISTANT.

AUGUST 1, 1843.

PART FIRST.

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PASTOR IN HIS STUDY.

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR IRELAND? No. I. THE attention of all England is drawn at the present moment towards her sister country Ireland. Every person who thinks at all has a thought about her present position. These thoughts may vary in their nature, and in the intensity of their interest; some may be suggested by one point of view, and some by another;-with one class of persons they may be engrossing, and with another they may be temporary: but surely all are thinking about Ireland, and are watching for what is to happen concerning her.

However important political considerations may be, they become of little moment when compared with the consideration of eternal things, which results from placing events in a religious point of view; and it is especially in this way that the present state of Ireland is to be considered. On this point the interest in the state of Ireland should be intense in the minds of English Christians, both as regards the actual danger in which their Irish brethren stand, and the personal results which must flow out from events in Ireland towards themselves. Every discerning christian, who has watched the progress of events and the signs of the times, must have observed the upward tendency, and the aggressive course of popery all over the world; but especially in England. In its depressed condition it always managed to retain a sort of out-post in the country conquered by protestantism: this was its standing in Ireland, from which it ought to have been the care of the Church of Christ to expel it by the

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force of truth long since. Alas! little pains have been taken in the past time to do this; and popery is now making the most of the great advantage she has thus retained. The chain with which the wild beast of Rome was strongly fastened at the Reformation has been allowed to rust; and by the constant restless walking up and down within the tether, the beast has worn the links thin, until they have broken and let it loose; of which it is well aware, though the keepers know it not; while the ferocious animal is gathering up strength to make its spring of destruction.

The political war-cry of "repeal," which is set up in Ireland, deceives none within that country but those who are sunk in ignorant superstition, and those beyond her coasts who are unacquainted with the true state of things there. The wretched man who blusters in the din of preparation which he is causing, is but a tool in the hand of the Jesuits; and the primary object of the whole is to establish the dominant ascendancy of popery in all Britain. To this end, while it is preparing the means of reaping the full effects of anticipated victory by unprotestantizing the Church in England, its bolder measures are directed to unchurch the nation in Ireland.

It is of the greatest moment that the true christians in England should have their eyes open to the close connexion that exists between the designs of popery, carried on in different ways, in the two countries. A very little reflection would be enough to discover, that the triumph of popery in Ireland must be the certain forerunner of its success in England; while the spiritual union which exists between the true members of Christ's Church, includes, in the case of Irish and English Christians, not only a brotherly sympathy of feeling, but a special unity of interest, in that the fate of one must before long be the fate of both.

It has pleased God to raise up in Ireland a body of spiritual men, amongst the ministers of his Church, larger in proportionate numbers than at any previous period in the Reformed Church, and equal in spiritual fervour and faith to those of any past generation. These excellent confessors of Christ's truth are placed in the fore-front of the battle of His Church against the reviving apostacy of Rome. The struggle they are maintaining at the out-posts is for the preservation of the whole body. Not more surely did the British army fight the battle of all Europe on the plains of Waterloo, than do the spiritual clergy and laity of the Church in Ireland fight, at this moment, the battle of God's truth, against the apostacy of Rome, for the Christians of England as well as for themselves. And it seems to be a bounden

duty, that all who are alive to the importance of the contest should aid them by every means in their power at so critical a juncture. There are several means by which God's true people in England may contribute, instrumentally, to the success of their beloved brethren in Ireland. But the most effectual of these is that which lies most easily within the reach of every one who belongs to the true Church of Christ;—that mean is earnest, and persevering, INTERCESSORY PRAYER.

One of those excellent ministers, who by God's grace has long exercised a holy influence over the affections and conduct of his brethren in Ireland, has recently sent forth from his pulpit a call which cannot fail to be responded to by the numerous few who for the present are stemming the torrent which threatens to overwhelm that country, though they are but like the handful of men at Thermopyla. A sermon was preached at Delgany Church on the 25th of June, which has since been published by permission of the preacher, under the title of "A call to General Intercessory Prayer for the protection of the Protestant Churches in Ireland." It is one which must commend itself to every spiritual christian in Ireland, from the Scriptural character of its statements-from the aptness of its application to times and circumstances-from the plain spoken humility of its acknowledgements-and from the great importance of its main suggestion. Such a call would be responded to, whatever were the mouth employed to speak it; but to the Irish clergy and to Irish christians it commends itself further by reaching their hearts in the tender accents of a voice well known and beloved, which never yet was raised to call his brethren to any thing that was not for the glory of Christ. The following are extracts from this sermon.

"I would now apply the passage to ourselves, my brethren, and our present circumstances. For I feel myself called upon, in more than an ordinary manner, to suggest to my beloved flock, what I conceive the present crisis to demand of them.

"It is not to satisfy us, that we have a good cause-that our Church is 'built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone:' and though, perhaps, at no former period was there a greater proportion of its members influenced by the blessed truths and principles which they profess: for have we not also cause for humiliation?

"When that sore affliction befel the widow of Zarepta,- Hast thou come to me,' she says to the man of God, to call my sin to remembrance, in slaying my son?' The stroke had the effect, however, of calling her sins to her own remembrance. And are there none which such a visitation as the present should recall to ours?

"Alas! long outward prosperity is to a Church often, what it is to an individual; that if it be not emptied from vessel to vessel, it is in danger of settling upon its lees.

"And let us not forget, that sins committed against the light and advantages which we have possessed, assume a more aggravated character than the sins of those who know not, as we have had the opportunity of knowing, their Master's will.

"Ah! can we think that our Church has adequately fulfilled the sacred trust that was committed to it? Has it been that light and sun of the country, which it was designed it should be, when it was established in it? Has the ascendancy, which we have been so long permitted to enjoy, been employed during all that time to make truth ascendant through the land? Has it been employed to the extent it might have been, for the temporal and spiritual benefit of those, over whom, at one time, it gave us such influence and power? Has it been the blessing which it might and ought to have been, to the whole population? Are we free from all responsibility ourselves, for the present state of things? But have we not reason to cry out as a Church and people, Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers?'

"And is it not too possible, such is our fallen nature, that a certain high spirit may have been engendered by our Protestant advantages, and the ground of superiority which we so long occupied, for which a compulsory, if not voluntary, humiliation, is the appropriate corrective ? Is such a reproof, as that from Jephaniah to Jerusalem, I will take away from the midst of thee those that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt be no more haughty, because of my holy mountain"—-altogether inapplicable to ourselves? "But, blessed be God, it is not, therefore, all over with us. Let us present ourselves before Him in such a posture of humiliation as that in which we have seen the perplexed tribes of Israel; and why should not our lowering sky clear up as did theirs? And may we not regard it as a favorable and gracious circumstance, that our difficulties have not been permitted to come upon us, until God had raised up-for I trust we are not mistaken in believing that he has raised up among us, those who are prepared to stand in the gap, intercessors for his Church, of the stamp of those who in former times so often averted impending calamities from Israel?

"And may it not be in mercy that we are driven: for, are we not ?—that we are driven to our knees. As though our God would not let us take up with any resource short of the effectual one-would not let us lean on any arm but his own. As I have seen a shepherd, when he would make the sheep pass through some one gate, in order that they might not escape any other way, send his dog barking at them, on every side but where he would have them go through; would not the Shepherd of Israel seem, in like manner, to be making his Providence to frown and bark at us, that he might force us through the gate which he has opened for us in his blessed Son, into the sheepfold of His Almighty protection?

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"Shall I not then call upon you, my brethren, in our present circumstances? For is not 'Jesus Christ the same to-day, as he was yesterday?' -for ever is he not the same? Shall I not call upon you-though I cannot doubt but that the greater part of those whom I am addressing, have anticipated me-in pouring out their souls before God in behalf of all that is most valuable and dear to us, at the present appalling crisis? yet I would call upon them, in addition to such prayers and intercessions, by themselves, and in their families, to join also in some more general and united expression of humiliation, in united intercession. As often, indeed, as we assemble together here, we can hardly fail to apply to the present circumstances various portions of our Liturgy-a Liturgy peculiarly adapted to times of trouble-as for which the Church was from the first prepared.

"But we would propose further, that the Thursday evening village lecture, as also the lectures in other parts of the parish, should be made an occasion for special prayer to Almighty God, to cast his shield over us, 'that we, surely trusting in his defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries :" for, for prayers suitable to the occasion, we need scarce go beyond the Liturgy. And let such days be observed, as in the various Scripture instances which have been referred to, as days of solemn fasting, as well as of united prayer. For, because a wrong use has been made of fasting, is no more reason why a right use should not be made of it, than it would be to abstain from food altogether, because poison has been known sometimes to be mixed up with it.

"Let us be through our several parishes, let us be as a Church upon our knees; and why should we not be able to believe, that the gracious God who, in answer to the prayers of Hezekiah, put his hook in the nose, and his bridle in the lips of the apparently irresistible Sennacherib, to turn him back by the way by which he came, will in answer to our's, roll back the tide which is threatening to overwhelm us?

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"There may be a combination of millions against us, but if armed with the divine weapons of prayer and humiliation, a little one can chase a thousand the millions may be no more able to stand against us, than was that great multitude which we have seen advancing against Jehoshaphat. Though the enemy come in like a flood, cannot the Spirit of the Lord, and will He not, if we invoke his mighty aid, lift up a standard against him? Or if it should be the will of God, that our Church should be re-cast, as the currency of the realm is periodically re-cast, when it has deteriorated, and that the process should be, by its being purged in the fire, let us meet as we ought His holy will, and we shall have the consolation to know, that it will be for purification, and not destruction."

It may fairly be expected that this appeal will not be in vain in Ireland; but, ministers of Christ and christians in England, WHAT CAN WE DO FOR IRELAND? Whatever else we can do, we also can respond to this appeal; and feeling both for the present dangers of those who are fighting our battles, and for the future results to ourselves from the consequences of their present struggle, we can come constantly, or at least periodically, to the throne of grace, on behalf of those who have such claims upon us. If all those christians in England, who felt at once the Scriptural warrant for intercessory prayer and the special occasion for divine help to the Church in Ireland, were to determine to devote a short time to earnest secret prayer one day in each week, the influence of this stated supplication would produce many a lifting up of the same heart on the after days of the week; and the host of popish repealers, with all their evil instigators, visible and invisible, would be powerless before the defending arm of him who loves to answer the prayers of his people that call upon him.

It is well to appoint a particular day in the week for a combined effort of this kind,-without, however, requiring any to be bound by the appointment. The morning of Saturday would be