contrast is the humble prayer for daily bread, which we put up in the morning, to the proud discontent which is often shown when we rise up from our knees, because God does not give us more than bread. THE SCRIPTURE LOOKING-GLASS. THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH.-Gen. xl. 1. 65. (verse 1.) Here we have another evidence that it is by the numbered hairs (see the text) that God directs the events which are connected with the affairs of His own people. Many kings and princes may have been offended with something wrong about their food or their wine, and nothing particular has resulted from it; neither has it been mentioned in history :-but upon such a trifle as this offence about some meal or other, turned afterwards the connexion of Joseph with Pharoah-his saving Egypt-his relieving his family-his bringing his father to Goshen-and all the following history of the Jews in Egypt. God might have employed what means He chose to produce the same effects: but he did choose to make it all depend upon this quarrel of Pharaoh with his servants about his food and his wine-a mere trifle :but how vastly important every trifle becomes when God is pleased to make use of it. Men would make great events depend upon great preparations:-God shews His greatness in producing great results from the most insignificant causes. works by means; but at the same time he so works by them as to make it plain that He could work without them.-While we employ means, and look for the result, remember that the power all lies in the hand that moves and directs all means from above. God THE PASTOR'S REMEMBRANCER. WHILE to all who ask with the trembling convert at Philippi, 'What must I do to be saved?' we answer, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;'-let us take care to do so in a way which will encourage and attract the weak, rather than repel the first timorous movements of the soul towards God. There are some who are 'slow of heart to believe all that the Scriptures have spoken.' Measuring things, as is natural, by the narrowness of the human mind, they are unable to conceive that there can be a goodness pure, disinterested, and unbounded as it is in God. The Gospel is to them, as it were, too good news to be true; too great happiness to be real; too transporting to be waking certainty and not a dream. In a word, they are like the disciples who believed not for joy.' Well then, when we deal with such tender spirits as these, let us not speak of faith as of a thing sternly and rigidly demanded. Let us not take our fellow-servant by the throat, saying, 'Pay to God that thou owest.' Let not our language be, You must believe or be damned:' but rather, 'You may believe and be saved. Transcendent as the blessings seem, they are yours. 'Is any thing too hard for the Lord?' Shall not' He that spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all with Him also freely give us all things?'' We should indeed urge upon our people with ceaseless importunity to believe, and set to their seal that God is true.' But suffer me to explain how I think this importunity should be used; and for this purpose I will suppose the following case. Figure to yourself a dark and dreary dungeon, round whose gloomy walls there lies outspread a scene, such as imagination might picture as the primeval Paradise. Suppose that, in this dungeon, there dwelt an inmate, long shut in from the blessed light of heaven, and that there he continued night and day, all one monotony of shade to him, dead to hope, and connaturalised to misery. Suppose that you were commissioned to set this captive free; and sent to him with a full pardon and message of deliverance. You approach this gloomy cell-you throw open the door-you announce to him the joyful tidings, that he may now come forth and embrace his friends, and breathe the lifegiving air, and see the glories of the day, and walk at liberty amidst the fields of nature. You anticipate the thrill of sympathy and joy with which he will respond to so transporting an announcement. But, no. Languid, listless, dispirited, long inured to wretchedness, and a stranger to the voice of hope, this child of misery lends a dull cold ear to these cheering invitations. You press him to accept them. He treats them as mere words of flattery, meant only to tantalise his woe. You beseech him to rise; but nothing that he could now hope for would, he thinks, repay him for the exertion. You tell him of the blooming paradise all around his prison-house, and that he may now range amidst its fruits and flowers. Still he is incredulous, and all is to him as an idle tale. You press upon him, as the one thing needful, that he will only believe.' You urge him to make one effort to rise and look through his grated window, and behold the pleasant scenes and cheering objects to whose free enjoyment you invite him. And you know that if he will but see for himself, he will bid farewell at once to his dungeon and his chains for ever. Such is then, I conceive, the manner in which we should exhort those who are in captivity to sin to believe, to realise to themselves the truth, the actual existence, of those blessings which God has revealed from heaven; knowing, if this be done, that to that soul the great lever of salvation is applied, that by faith the snare is broken and it is delivered."-The Rev. Henry Woodward's Visitation Sermon, 1843. THE PASTOR'S ASSISTANT. MARCH 1, 1844. PART FIRST. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PASTOR IN HIS STUDY. QUESTIONS FOR CLERICAL MEETINGS. We have been applied to upon several occasions for the questions referred to in Vol. II., page 5, as those which have been considered at the Clerical Meetings, conducted according to the regulations then given. Apologizing for the delay which has occurred in making the selection then promised, the following are now submitted to our readers. 1. What are the signs of "waxing riper and stronger in the ministry?" 2. What is the nature and extent of that education which the Scriptures teach, and command a minister to promote amongst the flock committed to his charge? Does secular education form part of such education commanded by Scripture? Is the education which the children receive in our National Schools of such a kind, and to such an extent, as the Scriptures teach education should be? 3. What are the best means of forming and upholding the Clerical character? 4. What may be gathered from Scripture concerning the relative position in which Angels stand to men? To what end has the fact of their ministerial agency been revealed? What VOL. III.-NO. XXVII. should be the practical results of the doctrine? And does it receive its due proportion of attention in the Christian Church at the present time? 5. What constitutes an adult a member of the Church of England? Does that Church warrant her members to consider themselves to be spiritual children of God upon her authority? If so, by what act, or in what way, does she give such authority? 6. What is the best mode by which a minister may guard his flock against the evil effects of such erroneous doctrines as, from the circumstances of the times, may be likely to be brought upon them? 7. Are there any allowable differences among members of the same communion and fellowship? What are they? What appear to be some of the best methods of dealing with them, so as to diffuse and maintain godly union and concord? 8. Has the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost altered the position of the Church? and if so, in what respects? Has the Church, since that time, as full a right to the invitations and promises contained in the Old Testament and Gospels, as it had before? And have we any Scriptural reason for supposing that the mercy extended to David and Peter, will still be extended to those who fall into sin, after the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost? 9. In what respect may the Church of England be designated a Protestant, as well as a reformed Church? What gave her that title originally? Have any circumstances subsequent to the Reformation altered her protestant character? If so, what are they? If not, in what respect, and by what means, is her original character as a Protestant Church to be maintained in the present day? 10. What are the Scriptural prospects of the Jews? In what respects are those prospects connected with the Church of Christ, and with the world? And what are the duties which Christians owe to the Jewish people? 11. What is the Scriptural meaning of the word "salvation," or being "saved?" Is the gift of "the inheritance of the saints in light" so connected with " salvation" in the Scriptures, as that the word is never used without intending to convey the idea of that gift? and if not, in what instances is it used, without necessarily conveying that idea? 12. What is the Scriptural mode of urging the application of those motives to holiness and diligence, which are drawn from the shortness of the period allotted to each mau for their exercise, and from the anticipation of that period when the result will be manifested to each? With what event is that result chronologically connected? How may Christ's ministers best conform to the Scripture model in this respect? and are there any reasons why this should be considered as more especially a duty in these times? 13. How far may the institutions of the Jewish dispensation be adduced in support of institutions under the Christian dispensation? 14. Is there any medium between the right of private judgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and the Popish principle of submission to the infallible interpretation of the Church ? 15. The importance of habitual communion with God in the comfortable and successful exercise of the christian ministry? 16. What is the nature and extent of the promise to the believer, in case of a general pestilence, contained in the 91st Psalm, or other parts of Scripture ? 17. Is there any Scriptural authority for lay preaching ? and if not, what is the incumbent duty of ordained ministers to provide for the public instruction of the people? 18. What may be gathered from Scripture concerning the proportion of happiness in eternity? 19. To what extent is it lawful or expedient for the Ministers of Christ to associate with those who are the children of this world, and what is the degree of intercourse it is necessary to hold with them? 20. By what authority, and to what extent, are christians bound to the obedience of the Lord's day? 21. Are known seals of a minister's labours necessary to evince the acceptableness of his ministry to the Lord, and how far? 22. How far is it expedient to abstain from the use of terms indifferent in themselves, in accommodation to the prejudices of the times? 23. May a minister preach to his people above his own experience? 24. The aspect of the times as it regards the Church of Christ generally, and in our particular station, and what should be our course in connection with this aspect ? |