Look upon the affair of Ireland. The engagement of the great God of revenges against murder and treachery, the interest of the Lord Christ and his kingdom against the man of sin, furnished the undertakers with manifold pro- mises to carry them out to a desired, a blessed issue. Take now a brief view of some mountains of opposition, that lie in the way against any success in that place ; and hear the Lord saying to every one of them, ' Who art thou, O o-reat mountain? before my people thou shalt be made a plain;' Zech. iv. 7.
Not to mention the strivings and stragglings of two man- ner of people in the womb of this nation, totally obstructing for along time the bringing forth of any deliverance for Ire- land : nor yet that mighty mountain (which some misnamed a level), that thought at once to have locked an everlasting door upon that expedition : I shall propose some few, of many that have attended it.
(1.) The silence that hath been in heaven for half an hour, as to this business ; the great cessation of prayers in the heavens, of many churches, hath been no small mountain in the way of the promise. When God will do good for
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Zion, he requires that his 'remembrancers give him no rest, until he do it;' Isa. Ixii. 7. And yet sometimes in the close of their supplications gives them an answer, ' by terri- ble things ;' Psal. Ixv. 5. He is sometimes ' silent to the prayers of his people;' Psal. xxviii. 1. Is not then a grant rare, when his people are silent as to prayers ? Of how many congregations in this nation may the prayers, tears and sup- plications for carrying on of the work of God in Ireland be written with the lines of emptiness ? What a silence hath been in the heaven of many churches, for this last half hour ? How many that began with the Lord in that work, did never sacrifice at the altar of Jehovah Nissi : nor considered that the Lord hath sworn to have war with such Amalekites as are there, 'from generation to generation?' Exod. xvii. 15, 16. They have forgotten, that Ireland was the first of the nations that laid wait for the blood of God's people desiring to enter into his rest ; and therefore ' their latter end shall be, to perish for ever ;' Numb. xxiv. 20. Many are as angry as Jonah, not that Babylon is spared, but that it is not spared. Hath not this been held out as a mountain ? What will you now do, when such or such, these and those men, of this or that party, look upon you ' as the grass upon the house-tops, which withereth afore it groweth up ; wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he thatbindeth sheaves, his bosom :* that will not so much as say, ' The blessing of the Lord be upon you, we bless you in the name of the Lord ?' But now shall the faithlessness of men make the * faith of God of none effect?' Shall the kingdom of Christ suffer because some of those that are his, what through carnal wisdom, what through spiritual folly, refuse to come forth 'to his help against the mighty V No, doubtless ! ' The Lord sees it, and it displeases him ; he sees that there is no man, and wonders that there is no intercessor :' even marvels that there are no more sup- plications on this behalf. 'Therefore his own arm brought salvation to him, and his own righteousness it sustained him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a hel- met of salvation upon his head ; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the island he will rei)ay recompence ;' Isa. lix. 15 — 18. Some men's not
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praying shall not hinder the promises accomplishing. They may sooner discover an idol in themselves, than disappoint the living God. This was a mountain.
(2.) Our own advices and councils have often stood in the way of the promises bringing forth. This is not a time, nor place for narrations ; so I shall only say to this in ge- neral. That if the choicest and most rational advices of the army had not been overswayed by the providence of God, in all probability your affairs had been more than ten degrees backward, to the condition wherein they are.
(3.) The visible opposition of the combined enemy in that nation seemed, as to our strength, unconquerable. The wise man tells us, A threefold cord is not easily broken. Ireland had a fivefold cord to make strong bands for Zion, twisted together. Never I think did such different. interests bear with one another, for the compassing of one common end.
He that met the lion, the fox, and the ass, travelling- together, wondered, * quo una iter facerent,' whither these ill-matched associates did bend their course : neither did his marvelling cease, when he heard they were going a pil- grimage, in a business of devotion.