these pages resolved, in the strength of the | to judge by the countenance given in high

Lord, to do some one thing towards it, not merely by the giving of money, but by personal effort. Societies existing for the instruction of the people ought to receive continued, yea, redoubled support; and Bibles, Tracts, Handbills, should be circulated in abundance; but, mingled, as the population is, there cannot be a Protestant who has not some opportunity of speaking, viva-voce, to a Romanist; or a Christian who may not find many, evidently dead in trespasses and sins, both among equals and inferiors, to whom to speak of the kingdom of heaven. What seems to be required now, as an evidence of faith in God, is that each who is really on the Lord's side should show himself to be so in a way that cannot be mistaken: that the master should openly speak to his servants, the employer to his labourers, the landlord to his tenants, and every one to his neighbour. This may be dangerous, and let those who are afraid hold back; but let them also remember, that such fear is nothing else than lurking infidelity; that no man can possibly set on them to hurt them, while, commissioned by the Lord, they proclaim His kingdom, and seek to win back rebels to their allegiance, and to save immortal souls alive; unless it be specially so ordered for the trial of their faith, and to show how ready the preachers of the cross of Christ are to bear that cross, in any way in which it pleases their Lord to lay it upon them.

places to those who are gradually overturning the whole fabric of Scriptural truth, we may soon have to act upon our Lord's injunction, "When they persecute you in one city, flee to another," on so extensive a scale, that the little flock must seek beyond the limits of their own land for a refuge where to enjoy in freedom the ordinances that they love. The prudent man, foreseeing the evil, will betimes look about for a hiding-place, and deem it no idle task to employ himself in preparing one. The persecution that seems to await vital godliness will not, probably, touch the lives of its professors at once; but it will touch their consciences, their privileges, and their homes. To "wear out the saints of the Most High," by a thousand harassing afflictions, is no less a part of the character of Rome, than it is to fill her cup when she can, and make herself drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.

CHAPTER VII.

To write treatises on faith, or to preach sermons on the same important subject, is no new thing in the church; but though what has been said aforetime on saving faith must be applicable to the end, wherever there is an ear to hear it, still, since the promise stands fast, "As thy day so shall thy strength be," we are called on to mark the peculiarities of the day in which we live, that we may ask strength and put forth efforts commensurate with the occasion.

And have not English Christians a twofold motive to aid this good work, in every possible way that the absent can assist it in? Besides the universal obligation to promote the cause of our Master wherever opportunity is given, we have the consciousness that England, when herself en- This is a day of perplexity; it is a day slaved by Popery, flung the same accursed of trouble, of rebuke, and blasphemy. fetter over Ireland; but neglected to re- Evil men and seducers are waxing worse move it when her own emancipation was and worse; and the ministers of Satan, mercifully wrought. This forms a plea of transformed into the appearance of minisperpetual force for English justice and ters of righteousness, are creeping into sympathy with the oppressed slaves of houses, yea, into the pulpits, where only a Rome in the sister isle; the other argu- pure faith is commissioned to be taught. ment we must draw from the fearful de- The great apostacy is spreading its concay of Protestantism in England, where quests by means which were never before the company of real, unwavering Pro- so effectually brought into operation; and testers, while it certainly increases in the gospel of Christ is perverted, and the energy and decision, has diminished in kingdom of Christ assailed among us. numbers to an extent truly painful; and, | Are his people to make no unusual effort

to oppose this vigorous assault? Is each believer to wrap himself up in selfishness, and, blessing God that, come what will, he at least has a sure foundation on the Rock of Ages, to look unmoved while his kindred, his neighbours, his country, all perish? Surely not: our faith requires rousing, that we may do more than stand on the defensive while an enemy hems us round, whom, by a vigorous sally, we might drive for ever from our shore.

proach to a hostile movement, must have been a theme of ridicule to the ungodly inhabitants of the place; and when the seventh day arrived, and early dawn saw the army on their march to commence the seven-fold circuit, how little did the drowsy inhabitants of Jericho suspect what would be its ending!

The time was now ripe, and the trial of Israel's faith and patience increased. The city was very large; and to encircle it so often must have been both tedious and disheartening, particularly as the enemy would not fail to scoff at their seemingly absurd and chimerical expectations. In proportion as the hour of full success drew nigh would be the increase of the city's confidence; every additional step taken by the peaceable besiegers tended to show how incompetent they were to an exploit that would require immense military prowess, energy, and skill; and Jericho, no doubt, looking down on her feeble assailants, was full of great Babylon's vaunt— "I set a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." The sequel was a stupendous work: a long, loud blast issued from the trumpets-Joshua gave the word, "Shout, for the Lord hath given you the city!"—and at the voice of that thundering shout the mighty walls fell down, and the inspired successor of Moses, looking on the prostrate ruins, pronounced them accursed. The anathema is very strong, and is extended to him who should attempt to rebuild the city which God had overthrown; nor was any spoil allowed to be taken, nor any temporal advantage to accrue to the soldiers of the Lord.

Let us then look at some of the encouraging instances recorded in God's word, where the prowess of faith has been exhibited, not only in a spiritual victory over the prince of darkness, but in the deliverance of many from those evils which he by his agents brings upon men. The apostle is not using figurative language when he says, "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days." Those walls were a great hinderance to Israel's advance; in fact, the fall of Jericho in the promised land, was as essential to the progress of Israel, as the fall of Popery in Ireland is to the well-being of the Irish people; and the Lord, if he had seen good, could have crumbled into dust those bulwarks, even as he rolled away the waters of Jordan, without any human participation, and caused Israel to march over the fragments as they did over the river's bed; but it pleased him to make his people the agents in this overthrow, and that without the brandishing of a carnal weapon, or the application of any bodily strength. And what he could have done in a moment, he was pleased to make a work of seven days; the seventh being one of seven-fold effort. Now, such faith as can lay hold on the The most pusillanimous individual in Jeri- word of God, and can believe that what cho could scarcely have been alarmed by he has caused to be written for us is availseeing a company of strangers march able to the full extent of our need, and can round their walls, in deep silence, uttering realize the truth that his arm is not shortno word, using no gesture of menace, but ened since it wrought all these wonderswith serious look and solemn step com- that faith will find in the recital of Jericho's passing the city, preceding and following fall something to grasp, as a precious acwhat must have been a strange, unmean- quisition. In the means employed for the ing object to the idolatrous beholders, the removal of the formidable obstruction, we ark of the Lord, with its seven peaceful- see the people fully bent to do whatsoever looking priests, blowing with rams' horns. was ordered for them to perform; and the Whatever feeling might be excited by the service required was to exhibit the ark first appearance of such a company, so of the testimony before those who knew employed, the unwearied repetition of the not its priceless worth: to speak no word spectacle for six days, the coming and the of their own, to strike no stroke with cargoing of that company, without any ap-nal weapon, but to sound aloud and per

severingly the trumpet-toned proclamation | London by an Irish clergyman, respecting ordained of God. While they obeyed the the confessional and other abominations, command, the LORD HIMSELF undermined and followed up in Ireland, have wrought the walls of the city, taking away the secretly but powerfully. The Irish Scripfoundations which were not His, and re-tures, quietly circulated among the people, ducing them, unseen and unsuspected, have loosened the whole fabric in a meato such a state of fragile insecurity, sure not suspected, by abstracting from it that, untouched by mortal hand, they isolated portions in so many quarters, fell at the breath of the human voice, and that it will cripple the actings of the body crumbled into nothing. Is it not so that as a whole. The temperance movement, we have for a long period been encom- from which so much evil was intended, passing the spiritual Jericho, exhibiting and to a great extent has arisen, will also the testimony of God, even the Bible, be overruled to immense good, if Chriswherein is contained all that we know of tians be on the alert to avail themselves the ark, and of that to which the ark of it; for the right use of their natural reaserved but as a foreshadowing type; and son is so essential to the recovery of the sounding aloud, not any words of our own, people out of the snare of Popery, that it but those which the Spirit of God has is marvellous the priesthood ventured supplied, for the destruction of this hostile upon the experiment of allowing them to power? Are we not told to continue our think. Political agitation alone keeps the work in language as plain as Joshua made deluded mass together: and but for that use of to encourage the Israelites ? "Go the yoke would be lightly thrown off. ye into all the world, and preach the gos- The foundation of Popery in Ireland is pel to every creature." "Exhorting all now altogether different from what it was men everywhere to repent, and to believe before the revival of true religion among the gospel." "Let us not be weary in Protestants; and very far removed from well doing, for in due season we shall that on which it is rearing a proud edifice reap if we faint not." "Line must be in England. In all this we read a proupon line, line upon line, precept upon mise that redoubled effort to shake to the precept, precept upon precept." In the dust her accursed battlements, will not be morning sow thy seed, and at evening in vain ; for Ireland who never persecuted withhold not thy hand; for thou knowest the Jew, Ireland who never was reckoned not whether shall prosper, this or that; or among the ten Papal kingdoms, Ireland whether they shall be alike good." These, who has had the grace given to be most and a multitude of similar encourage- munificently liberal, and most actively ments, have hitherto led us on, in confi- zealous in promoting the cause of Christ dence that when the Lord's time came, He abroad and at home, will not, in the Lord's would work, and who should let it? But controversy with the nations, be forgotten now events speak to us eloquently of a or cast away. We have no right to asperiod when the battle rages so closely sume that it will be so: unbelief alone can between light and darkness, and the suggest such an expectation, and if not to enemy is gaining such accessions of be cast away, she must be rescued from strength, that we may expect the Lord to Popery; and who shall come to the rescue, help his people against those who will if those in these lands who love the Lord otherwise be too strong for them: and we do not? would, by faith, accelerate this deliverance-we would throw seven days' work into one, and rise up early, and carry it on diligently, and cause the sound that has been so long heard to increase both in loudness and duration-we would make a vigorous, simultaneous effort, and leave the issue with the Lord.

It is certain that Popery has been most extensively undermined within some years. The disclosures first made in

Truth is a very aggressive principle; it does not stand still to be attacked, but marches on, under the conduct of faith, to assail the enemy, to make conquests, and to recover what falsehood has stolen, or violence wrested away. Among us, truth is far too quiescent for the juncture at which we are arrived; too contented to stand on the defensive, and merely to hold fast what she has, without labouring to drive out error wherever it exists. Where

The worthies enumerated by the Apotle Paul as having gloriously exemplified the power of faith, comprise as well Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephtha, as David, Samuel, and the prophets. Men who through faith subdued kingdoms, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens. This is what we want. They, indeed committed great slaughter, being commissioned of God to execute a purpose of vengeance no less than of deliverance; we, in the spirit of Him who came, not to destroy. men's lives, but to save, would not inflict a wound or impose a punishment on any human being. We would fain subdue the kingdom, both spiritual and temporal, of the Pope among us; and to flight we would most joyfully turn the alien army. of Jezebel, falsely calling herself a prophetess, who seduces God's servants, teaching them to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols-the whole army of a foreign hierarchy and priesthood we would put to flight, unless, by turning to the Lord, they ceased to be aliens from the commonwealth of our Israel, and became heirs together of the grace of life. But what Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephtha, did with the sword of the warrior, that would we do with the Sword of the Spirit, and in so doing work a great national deliverance. The case of Gideon is so particularly and beautifully apposite, that no one whose heart is right with God, desiring to see the Lord glorified in lands where His mercy has been especially shown, from generation to generation, but must long for such a heart and such a work as was given to the son of Joash. The character of that champion of Israel is exceedingly fine: he presents to us an example, not of hasty credulity, but of calm, sober faith, that first required sufficient evidence of his mission being from the Lord, and then proceeded on it with an intrepidity never surpassed; and success commensurate with his courage.

a contrary rule prevails, how wonderful word, "He that gathereth not with me, are the advances made! These views scattereth abroad." are not extravagant, nor these hopes unfounded. We point to Dingle, to Ventry, to Achill, where the work has been commenced, persevered in, and triumphantly succeeded, to the utmost extent that the means possessed could reach; let any one .who demurs at what is said begin by pointing out the spots where, with similar determination and faith it has been begun, persevered in, and failed, unless, indeed, for lack of that "filthy lucre" of which thousands and tens of thousands are heaped on the shrine of Mammon, for one solitary piece that is devoted to the Lord. When Jericho fell, we are told, "the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city." The work of faith was simultaneous and complete, so that each man saw the point that was opposite to himself fall down before his shout of trustful obedience. As yet, we only make a breach here and there, by means of isolated efforts, and the great wall stands, impervious in all other directions, so that nothing is done to enable the Lord's people to advance and take up their position on the enemy's ground, and deliver the poor captives there held in cruel bondage, appointed to die eternally but this will take place whenever the Lord awakens so tender a concern for the souls of our perishing brethren, and inspires us with so enterprising a faith in his readiness to do more than we can ask or think, that second causes will be little accounted of, and the cold discouragements of doubting brethren will be but as a handful of water sprinkled on a glowing furnace to increase the fervor and brightness that it perhaps seeks to extinguish. While all Europe resounds with the bold Italian enterprise of subjugating England to the hateful sway of Rome, it were a noble act of faith to lay hold on Ireland and wrest it from her grasp. That it will be done, we do expect, and confidently believe; because God's dealings towards his people and the land have been such as to indicate that he has great purposes of mercy there. The only question is, who will, by faith, appropriate a rich share in the blessing of being found forward in His cause, and who, by unbelief, bring himself under that condemnatory

No doubt there is an application common to all believers, and which we could not afford to dispense with, even in this history of Gideon, but are we therefore prohibited from applying collectively that which belongs to each? If so, no deliverance will be wrought on the earth on the