INDEX OF TEXTS On which Compendiums of Sermons, or Text Papers, are given Page Christmas. Vol. ii. OCCASIONAL SERMONS Of which Text Papers and Compendiums are given in this and Advent. Vol. i. 351, 374, 377, 380, 381 251, 379, 380 Vol. ii. 189, 190 THE PASTOR'S ASSISTANT. JANUARY 1, 1844. PART FIRST. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PASTOR IN HIS STUDY. PASTORAL HELP IN BEGINNING A NEW YEAR. In our last number we inserted a Pastoral Address, calculated to stir up the people in a parish, and produce a special attention to their spiritual concerns, at the beginning of a new year. It is, however, important that a more particular consideration of the details of christian character should be manifested on the part of the Pastor at such a period; and a more minute arrangement for self-examination by the flock should be suggested to them, in order to induce the people to carry on the work beyond the mere impulse of an occasional effort, which produces but an evanescent determination to amend their ways generally. This may be done most advantageously by an affectionate domestic kind of appeal to the communicating members of the Church, in such a manner as may awaken many self-reproaches in the minds, not only of some of the weaker or more lax communicants, but also of the uncommunicating portion of the parish, by making them draw for themselves the implied contrast. Where the number of communicants is large, such an appeal may be made with great power and effect; and even where they are few, much good may be doue in this way. As a specimen of the manner of attempting to produce this effect, the following Address is inserted. It was circulated in portions, during the period of Advent, in a VOL. III.NO. XXV. B parish where the number of communicants (193) bore the proportion of nearly half to the whole adult population. It was entitled an ADDRESS TO THE FLOCK. In preparation for the New Year. It is a good and wholesome rule to take proper opportunities for making a more distinct inquiry as to how we are getting on, than is likely to be the result of our ordinary self-examination. Indeed if we do not do this, our self-examination will profit us little; since it is by comparing our present state with what we were some time ago, that we are able to gather a distinct view of the difference; while the gradual effect of our daily temptations may have crept upon us so imperceptibly, that we may not be aware how far we have got out of the way, except by this periodical inquiry. Men in business settle their accounts from year to year; and the end of one year and the beginning of another seems to be a very suitable time for taking a more particular account of our spiritual state. While it should be the wisdom of every individual Christian thus to mark his own progress privately and personally, he also stands in a collective and public position, as a member of the Church of Christ, and of that particular portion of it in which it is his lot to be living. And it may serve as an important help, to every person who endeavours to mark his own position, that he should be informed concerning the real state of the Church about him, in order that he may be the better able to see how far he may be placed amongst those who are helping on the glory of the name of Christ in the midst of the world, or how far he may have been preventing that glory from shining brightly. For the purpose of giving this kind of help to every one in the parish, a more exact account of the Church in it shall be given immediately after the Christmas Communion; so far at least as that condition may be gathered from the statements of numbers, under such various heads and classifications as are within the principles which regulate the system of the Church's superintendence. Our Church does not assume a power which her Lord has not left with her--that of judging any one's motives, or of deciding concerning their spiritual state. She gives no warrant to her ministers, or her members, to do this concerning any persous except themselves; but she calls upon every one to judge himself; and she bids them all, after so judging, to declare their own judgment by doing certain acts, which, as Christians, they ought to do; or to shew they do not judge themselves to be in th |